All I wanted to know was how and when to use the hyphen when writing out someone’s age in English, but I found this instead. (More linguistics stuff here.)
From: Laremy Lee
Date: March 8, 2009 6:04:59 PM GMT+08:00
To: Ng Bee Chin
Cc: stforum@sph.com.sg, chee_hong_tat@pmo.gov.sg
Subject: You have my support.Dear Professor,
I just read Mr Chee Hong Tat’s letter to the ST Forum Page, which I believe was written on behalf of MM Lee Kuan Yew. If anything, the use of a pejorative to emphasise a point which scarcely needed to have been made was thoroughly unprofessional and uncalled for.
More importantly, the bilingual policy may seem to be the most efficient option, but to speak against introducing alternatives is to disallow the freedom of choice. This is an incongruity which has me feeling rather perturbed, since the Ministry of Education is an advocate of “provid[ing] students with greater choice to meet their different interests and ways of learning”, for the ability “to choose what and how they learn will encourage them to take greater ownership of their learning”.
Nevertheless, I’d like to encourage you not to be discouraged. You have my support, along with that of many other Singaporeans, if you’ve been reading the chatter in the blogosphere.
Keep the vision alive.
Yours sincerely,
Laremy LEE (Mr)
The whole comparison to water usage is a deliberate attempt to mislead.
The standard telecom contract for data services has been based on bandwidth provided since the invention of data circuits. Indeed, the ISP’s price their services based on the bandwidth to which one subscribes. If I have subscribed for an 8Mb/sec service, how can I be a “bandwidth hog” for using 8Mb/sec of bandwidth? I paid for it, and I have the right to use it.
– Waleed Hanafi, Singapore – ISP’s to customers – “You are evil”
It’s an old article but I think it’s a very good example about how language and the media have the power to shape public opinion, and the media having a responsibility to report the news in an objective way. But if that doesn’t happen, then readers have to develop media literacy and critical thinking skills in order to separate the wheat from the chaff in terms of information and data processing.
put up (verb phrase)
to accommodate; lodge.
e.g. Where are you putting up now?
Someone asked me this today, and it was all I could do to stop myself from smiling. Why? Because I was reminded of a discussion some of us had during a workshopping session a month or so back, about ‘archaic’ phrases that people from our parents’ generation use, and how extremely out the place the phrases are. But because they’re so incongruent especially in our age, they’re kinda cute, in a retro sort of way. Other examples of cute archaic phrases: taking your breakfast/lunch/dinner in lieu of eating.
Any other examples you can think of?
I’ve always believed we shouldn’t be so quick to decry text messaging and immediately linking the use of abbreviations in texting to language depreciation.
My argument would run somewhere along the lines that the shortened forms of the words are a form of simplification – duh – and code-switching – I won’t use this form of language in formal letters, and people who do that aren’t stupid, they just haven’t been as quick to realise what is appropriate and what isn’t. Or maybe they have different perceptions of appropriateness.
Above all, we must remember that language has evolved over time, and will continue to evolve, regardless of whether you like it or not. The best advice I can give: move along with the times, people.
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