Is it really that difficult to get this right?

[durian123]

I'm sure some of these comments are good-natured fun-poking but given the number of times I've heard expats moaning about how "these people can't speak English!" (and from there it's only one small step to a colonial era-like "these people just aren't like us"), I have to quickly jump in.

Despite what another poster hinted at, even a cursory glance at any linguistics book will tell you that (a) people talk different(ly) everywhere, and I really mean everywhere, and (b) using language to define political identity, usually with the consequence of oppressing one group or another has a long and inglorious history (anybody ever looked up the history of "shibboleth"?). Also language does not *cause* thought, so calm down.

Getting your linguistics right will tell you that it's not bad Mandarin or bad English: just different. British English is different from (than?) American English (let alone say, Black Vernacular English) and neither is bad.

I personally love the fact that we can see a whole new language evolve (Singlish), and searching the archives of LanguageLog throws up this other positive comment by the venerable Victor Mair: [url]http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/language ... 03798.html[/url]
And I'm no expert, but Singlish does appear to be grammatical in the sense that it follows precise rules (when you can and can't say issit, oso, oredy, can etc) and is understood to be correct or incorrect by other native speakers.

As for the whole "nothing ain't like it used to be in my day" trope, I'd like to point you to this delightful post by The Economist: "we have been here before" [url]http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/ ... -britain-0[/url]
[/url]

[nutnut]

fair point, I still hate "Kindly do the needful"

[nakatago]

Here's an idea: stop calling Singlish English. Singlish has become a completely different language from English as it already has its own grammar.

There you go; expectations managed. English speakers get placated, Singlish speakers get to define their cultural identity.

[the lynx]

Accents and cultural nuances are one thing (hence, certain characteristics in Singlish/Manglish) but grammar -- it shouldn't go wrong; it is standard!

I hear a lot of non-English speakers speaking English and while their accents may be quite some work, their sentence structure and basic grammar is correct.

Having said that, please be gentle to me when you hear me speak in person. I sound differently in person than here After all, I come from the offending group.



"Coat, hat, brollies..."

[Brah]

Maybe I should have said this wasn't meant to be Yet Another Singlish Rant at the start, because there is a difference between a pidgin like Singlish, and incorrect grammar.

The OP was about the latter - pidgin, patois, or not, incorrect grammar is incorrect grammar.

For Singlish commentary, it could be said that that horse has been beaten to death on this and the other forums, or not, since there are always new and entertaining examples. So there should at least be a sticky for that.

But to add, then there's idioms, like nutnut's example, and within that, screwed-up idioms (there's a thread or two on other forums on that).

So in this thread we've go a mix of all of the above. My grammar rant stands, I'd be interested to see a separate thread on mixed-up idioms, because the list is long but I've never seen one in print. I've never heard so many since coming here.

[JR8]

I'm sure some of these comments are good-natured fun-poking but given the number of times I've heard expats moaning about how "these people can't speak English!" (and from there it's only one small step to a colonial era-like "these people just aren't like us"), I have to quickly jump in.

But it wasn't 'the colonists' who ran campaigns encouraging them to speak good English was it? I expect you can see where your contention leads.

[kookaburrah]

Getting your linguistics right will tell you that it's not bad Mandarin or bad English: just different. British English is different from (than?) American English (let alone say, Black Vernacular English) and neither is bad.


[/url]

'To lend' is different from 'to borrow'. To willfully ignore the distinction seems to go beyond the wondrous birth of a cultural identity.