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Friday January 13, 2006

Is ‘can or not’ correct?

In daily life, we often hear the phrase “can or not”. Is this phrase actually correct? – Charlie 

This is Malaysian English slang (Manglish), and is not standard English.  

For example, a Malaysian often asks another Malaysian: “I borrow your CD, can or not?” In standard English, he would say: “Can I borrow your CD?” or “May I borrow your CD?” 

I suspect “can or not” comes from a Malay question tag, “boleh tak?” and possibly another question tag from Hokkien and Cantonese sounding like “ay bo?” and “tuck mo?”  

In informal spoken Malay, one may ask, “Pinjam CD, boleh tak?” 

Knock-on effect 

I came across this headline in The Guardian online: “Knock-on effect thwarts carbon offsetting plan”. (www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1673265,00.html) 

Pray tell what “knock-on” means. – sm 

A “knock-on effect” is similar to a “domino effect”, in that it is a situation where one event causes “other events to happen one after another in a series”. (OALD)  

Unlike a “domino effect” however, a “knock-on effect” does not cause a series of similar events to happen. 

In the article to which you provided a link, it was reported that tree-planting projects which were meant to reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere produced by other activities were found to have caused other environmentally harmful conditions due to at least two knock-on effects. 

One was that the new plantations of trees reduced the flow of streams nearby, because the trees sucked up water, which then got evaporated through their leaves. This reduced flow caused less water to be available to plants and animals downstream.  

The second knock-on effect of tree planting affected nutrients in the soil. “Calcium, magnesium and potassium were all depleted while sodium was enriched, meaning that plantation soil was more salty on average. All of these changes would affect the range of plant species.” 

Neil Diamond’s drift 

I wonder what Neil Diamond meant when he sang “‘I am,’ I said ...” Can you help? – Wong  

I don’t know much about Neil Diamond, but I took a look at the lyrics of this song, and it seems to be a song about feeling lost and lonely. In the context of the verse (quoted below) in which he sings “‘I am,’ I said”, and variations thereof, “I am” seems to mean “I exist”.  

One can draw a parallel with the French philosopher Descartes’ famous statement usually translated into English as “I think, therefore I am”, which he made in order to establish his own existence. However, the young man in the song never seems to get an acknowledgement of his existence, however many times he proclaims “I am”. 

“I am,” I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
“I am,” I cried
“I am,” said I
And I am lost, and I can’t even say why
Leavin’ me lonely still 

Bold kick-start 

Can you explain the sentence below? I don’t quite understand the words “bold” and “kick-start” in this context. 

Camelia’s move was bold and perhaps a kick-start to something new in KL’s clubbing scene. – Azuwa 

A “bold move” is action that is brave and daring, with some risk (not physical in this case) attached.  

To give something a “kick-start” is to take some action to make it start quickly.  

The word comes from the quick start given to a motorcycle by pressing its “kick-starter” (a pedal) with your foot. 

What’s the term 

Lydia Teh’s article on Dec 15 touched on palindromes, which are words with identical letters from both directions, such as “Malayalam” and “madam”.  

What is the correct term for words with identical letters from both directions like “tar and rat” “pan and nap”, “war and raw” and so on? – K. Thiruselvam 

I don’t know if there is a special name for such words, but the general term anagram, which means “a word or phrase that is made by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase”, includes “tar and rat” and “pan and nap”. 

However, it also includes “pears and spare” and “lean and lane” which do not have the symmetry of the first two pairs of words.

Don't you think that the standard of English in this e-mail is simply appalling? 

The Star Online > Lifefocus

Thursday December 29, 2005

PLASTIC WATER BOTTLE BELOW OR EQUAL TO 5 

A dentist’s wife has a tumor in her uterus and need to remove it. Her doctor told them the possible cause of his wife’s Tumor is by some chemical which only affecting women.  

The chemical mainly find in plastic water bottle. It is not the water that affecting you but the chemical releasing from the bottle. You must check on the bottom of the bottle there is a triangle sign and there will be a number on it.  

Make sure the number is higher than or equal to 5. Then this bottle is save to use. Whatever number under 5 will release the chemical. For most bottle water, the number is 1. Remember to check and stop reuse those bottles. If there is no number than it surely below 5. Applicable to all plastic bottles, even those plastic tumblers that you have on your table! Please take note. 

Thank you.  

So-and-So,
Lecturer,
Faculty of ....,
Open University Malaysia. 

I wouldn’t want to send my children to be educated at this university! – Law

Joining short phrases effectively is a measure of how fluent you are as a writer. This is particularly important in business where facts need to be supported with evidence.  

The Star Online > Lifefocus

Thursday December 29, 2005

By GUY PERRING

The most common way to join sentences is with the correct conjunction. For example, because, as and since are very common in answering the question Why? when joining two clauses, but their usage is often confusing. Take the example below: 

1) The company went bankrupt because of a huge drop in sales. 

The because clause comes after the main clause, and when the reason is the most important thing. As and since are used when the reason is already well-known and/or less important. The as or since clause often comes at the beginning of the sentence and is separated from the main clause by a comma: 

2) As my secretary had finished the report when I arrived at work, I was able to give a confident presentation to the board that afternoon. (I am telling you about the presentation. It’s not so important why I gave a successful presentation.) 

3) Since the Nikkei is closed today, we’ll have the meeting this morning. (I know, and you know, that the Nikkei is closed today.) 

Note! In conversation, so is often used instead of since and as. The so clause comes after the main clause. 

4) My secretary had finished the report when I arrived at work, so I was able to give a confident presentation to the board.

What does “Global English” mean? Melvyn Bragg, in his excellent The Adventure of English, celebrates the rise of the English language. He also celebrates its diversity, the way in which English accepts all kinds of variations.  

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Thursday December 29, 2005

By RALPH BERRY

Here, I think, Bragg takes the argument rather far. “The more English spreads, the more it diversifies, the more it could tend towards fragmentation.” Is global English really heading towards fragmentation? In my view, no. 

The English language has had a charmed life, and reached its present position through a series of historical freaks. These included wars and battles: lost (Hastings, which meant that English would fuse Norman-French and Old English), won (Plassey, Montreal, which delivered India and Canada to the British), and lost (the American Revolution, which fixed English as the language of America at the moment of its birth).  

There was nothing inevitable in this. Before Plassey, Clive simply bought off the opposition. On the Heights of Abraham, the French had the bad luck to run into the only brilliant British general in the century between Marlborough and Wellington. After American Independence, the expansion of American and imperial territories took over. The outcome has been a critical mass, Anglo-American, which continues to grow and grow. 

This was not foreseen. In the 19th century, liberals of great distinction thought that an invented language was the way forward for mankind. Esperanto and Volapuk were the leading instances. These experiments all failed. There is no significant literature in them. Writers write in their tongue of choice. 

There’s great diversity in English. Malay brought “amok” into English, for example. Bragg says that certain words are now being used as part of Singapore Standard English, “Singlish” (pp. 307-8).  

He mentions Gullah, a dialect still spoken near Charleston, South Carolina. He cites “pidgin” (a word derived from the Chinese pronunciation of “business”), a language with no native speakers, which enables people with no common language to communicate.  

But what does this add up to? There are terms well-known in rural Saskatchewan that never make it to the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. Northumberland has words which are not heard south of the county border. No doubt Antigua has terms that make no sense in Jamaica.  

The needs of national communication, and still more international, force all these variants to the background. People who want to get on must add to their oral heritage. Anyone who wants to be an airline pilot will need more than Gullah. Control towers are strict in these matters. 

But what about the supposed Great Divide in English, American and British? Of course, we like to play it up. Some people see it as a scene in The Lord of the Rings, with massed armies glaring at each other.  

In this scenario, the Americans are looking for beachheads where they can land, consolidate, and then take over the English language, after first corrupting it. This is all nonsense.  

I was amused to see a recent letter in the US edition of the Financial Times (June 30, 2005) complaining bitterly of “creeping Anglicization”. As the writer saw it, certain hallowed American expressions were being replaced by English.  

Here is his list (American first):  

calendar/diary, schedule/diarise, vacation/holiday, in college/at university, in the hospital/in hospital, calling/ringing, agreeing to/agreeing.  

“My linguistic heritage is being eroded by what sounds like a band of escapees from Masterpiece Theatre.” That’s from a lawyer in Washington, D.C. We should remember his testimony the next time we wring our hands at the unstoppable march of American English. 

Besides, the Great Divide is nothing like its reputation. Spelling is not an issue. Editors change copy to their own preferred style, treating the other style as a simple mis-spelling.  

American and British English are very close indeed at the highest levels. I have just picked up a book published by Princeton University Press. I happen to know the author. He is American born and bred. I could not even guess this from his opening pages. They are written in a style that is international, good English as practised all over the world.  

There is not much real difference between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Cambridge, England (partly because the residents spend much time in the other Cambridge, to check on what the other mob is up to).  

Good English is international. I have lived and worked in Kuwait and Thailand, countries that do not have a strong English-speaking tradition. Their leading English-language organs are edited to high standards and written in irreproachable English. You will find nothing to criticise in the English of the Arab Times of Kuwait and the Bangkok Post. And the move from The Times of London to The Times of India is the easiest of passages. What rises to the top is the best.  

Global English is a world system. It is tolerant, easy-going in its attitude towards regional variations. There is nothing to stop Australians from developing Australian English, a language Bragg much admires for its vitality. But life is too short to explain jumbluck and billabong to outsiders, not to mention the raw prawn.  

Faced with the need to communicate at world levels, diversity shrinks.

Foreign students often think that English is a simple language. "Look how easy it is to address somebody in English," they say. "There's only one word - 'you'. In my language it's more difficult.

The fact that the English language has only one form "you" doesn't mean that Englishmen see no difference between friends, people they don't know, people they respect and so on.

For example: "What time is it, John?" can become: "Excuse me, could you tell me the time, please? if addressed to a person you don't know. Here is another example. A woman in a shop suddenly feels unwell and is helped to a chair. Her husband may ask: "Are you all right, dear?" A person who doesn't know her may say: "Are you all right?" And the shop owner may ask: "Are you all right, madam?"

The English address system has intimate, neutral and polite forms.

There are many different intimate vocatives. Among these there is the person's first name. Other intimate vocatives are "dear", "love", "old boy", "old man", etc. The word "old" here doesn't really mean old. It simply shows you're friendly to a person.

It is difficult to give the rules which explain the use of the vocatives. The use of no vocative at all, as in "Are you all right?", is easier to explain. It is neutral.

A polite vocative is used to show some special respect. The polite vocatives are "madam" or "sir" , "Mrs Smith" or "Mr Smith", "ladies and gentlemen". There are many other polite vocatives, for example, professional words such as "Doctor", "Professor" and so on.

So the question of addressing a person in English is not so simple as it seems to be. Pay attention to these vocatives when you are speaking to an Englishman or reading an English dialogue. They are strange words, but are very important for you.  

http://www.nsru.ac.th/langcenter/Listen%20to%20the%20story/Main.htm

http://www.nsru.ac.th/langcenter/mid.asp

I've often come across the word “handphone” being used in The Star. I’m sure that most Malaysians use this word too.  

The Star Online > Lifefocus

By FADZILAH AMIN

However, according to my teacher, the word “handphone” is actually some sort of Manglish. She said the right term should be “cellphone” (American) or “mobile phone” (British).  

She also taught us that there is no such word as “outstation” as it is just another Manglish word but I’ve also heard this word being used by radio deejays.  

Another thing she said is that the word “won” (past tense of “win”) is pronounced “wan”, not “won”. However, I’ve noticed that some actors in Western movies pronounce it as “won”.  

Hence, I’m really confused. Please help me to understand them more! – Grace 

1.handphone 

The word “handphone” is no longer Manglish, but an accepted alternative to “cellphone” and “mobile phone”.  

The latest edition of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2005) recognises this in an entry, with the definition given as “noun used in SE Asia as the word for MOBILE PHONE/CELLPHONE”. 

2. outstation 

“Outstation” exists in the English language, but not in the way some Malaysians use it. Some Malaysians say someone has gone “outstation” when he is out of town, even when he has gone to another town. 

The OED defines the word as “a station at a distance from headquarters or from the centre of population or business”. In Australia and New Zealand, it is used to mean “part of a farming estate separate from the main estate”. (Concise OED) 

The word was first recorded in 1844, when India was under British rule and “station” there, I suspect, referred to a colonial trading station. Let me give the first OED quotation: “Life in an Indian outstation is, indeed, as simple a one as can be imagined ... In outstation life there is ... more intercourse between European and native society.” 

3. won  

“Won” as the past tense of “win” is pronounced exactly like “one”, whether in British English or American English as recorded in the dictionaries.  

The vowel sound in it is a short “a” whose phonetic symbol is an upside down “v”. It may be that in some Western (i.e. cowboy) movies, the actors speak a US regional dialect, in which the vowel in “won” is pronounced as an “o”, but I don’t know anything about US regional dialects. 

‘Author’ and ‘writer’ 

WHAT are the differences between “author” and “writer”, “co-authors” and “co-writers”? 

Can co-authors and co-writers be more than two persons? – Nordin Yusof, Subang Jaya 

1. There is some overlap in meaning between the terms “author” and “writer” when it applies to work that is written.  

An author is usually a writer of a published work, especially books, but one can also be described as an author of a report, article, play, poem, or short story, etc, that has been published.  

The term “author” rather than “writer” is used in the copyright statement at the beginning of a book, e.g. “The right of So-and-So to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him/her ...” 

However, while all authors are writers, not all writers are authors. If you have written unpublished letters or essays, you are the “writer”, not the “author” of those letters or essays. 

2. & 3. When two or more people collaborate to write something, they are referred to as co-authors or co-writers. When the people concerned are authors, they are called co-authors; when they are writers, they are called co-writers.

RECENTLY, I heard this advertisement on the radio in which a little girl and her mother are at an electric appliance shop, and the girl points out various objects and says their names. Her mother corrects one of her statements by saying, “No dear, it’s X units of washing machines.” 

The Star Online > Lifefocus

Isn’t the word “units” completely unnecessary? 

I believe native Chinese and BM speakers might think it necessary to put a penjodoh bilangan before a noun, but isn’t it correct and more true to the nature of the English language to just say, “Three washing machines”? 

The word “unit” in trade is usually used to indicate the quantity of a certain item in stock, or on a sales docket. I don’t think it is appropriate or necessary to use it in this context. 

Another sighting of this encroachment of Chinese/BM grammar into the English language was on the cover of Star Metro on Nov 30, where a local quilt exhibition was profiled. 

The standfirst read, “Instead of decorating beds, more than 150 pieces of quilts spent four days ‘hanging around’ at the JW Marriot Kuala Lumpur last week.” 

I was sorry to hear that some quilt-hating psychopath had run amok and left someone’s collection in tattered pieces in a public place, but further reading proved me wrong.  

Instead, the writer was only trying to say that an exhibition had been held in which 150 quilts – quite whole and intact, thank you – were on display. 

In this context, I believe adding “pieces of” is totally wrong. This is not a new trend in messing up English. When I was in primary school, about 13 years ago, one day my teacher asked if anyone in class could spare him “three pieces of rubber bands”. 

Sarcastic little brat that I was, I was tempted to cut one into three pieces and give them to him. Oh yes, and he was my English teacher, too. 

Fortunately, I’ve since learnt to be less sarcastic, but I do hope you’ll let your readers know about this common error. - Sharon

I begin to think that the preposition is the most difficult part of modern English. 

The Star Online > Lifefocus

Wednesday December 21, 2005

By RALPH BERRY

How can this be? There aren’t many prepositions — I suppose, around 30 or 40 in common use. We know them all: under, to, by, from and the rest.  

So where’s the problem?  

It comes when prepositions link up with a verb. This practice is held to enrich the language. 

Thus take off (“remove”, but also “imitate”, “become airborne”), take on (“accept a challenge”, “engage an employee”, “acquire”, as in “take on a new meaning”), and take in (“deceive”, “understand”, “admit” [of a lodger], “visit” [a place as part of a journey].)” 

A simple verb, take, adds enormously to its power by linking up with a preposition. The humble preposition too gains power. These added meanings seem to have little to do with each other. For example, pass out can mean “faint”, or “complete one’s military training”.  

You just have to know from the context which meaning is intended (though you can joke about the “passing-out parade” when somebody faints).  

Grammarians call this verb-preposition pairing a phrasal verb.  

It’s nothing new in itself. The great Dr Johnson first noted the type in the Preface to his Dictionary (1755). He thought it most puzzling to those learning the English language, and found the type to be “wildly irregular”.  

But it was clearly a tide coming in. And here we are, two and a half centuries later, wondering what we can do to stem the tide. 

For the preposition continues to link arms with verbs, and thus to march forward together while overpowering all resistance. 

Most of us blame the Americans. They stand as so often in the dock, this time charged with flooding the language with barbarous new phrasal verbs. But the fact is that the British (again, as so often) are enthralled by American usage, and after a decent period of protest quietly submit. You can find your own examples of the pattern. 

Some leading cases I’ve touched on before. Meet with is now widely accepted in the UK media. I would defend it as meaning an arranged meeting, rather than a chance encounter (meet). 

Lose out, miss out are useless but popular. Thus (The Times), “Then he learnt that he had missed out to Christine Channon.” Why couldn’t he have lost to Christine? 

Dumb down (to make suitable for an audience of low intelligence) is moving from colloquial to a standard term. Other cases are open to challenge. I name my prime suspect: UP. 

(1) “It’s time for the police to tech up.” (BBC-TV) Can you see why so many of us hold in contempt the standards of the BBC? 

(2) “It’s necessary for the Department to staff up.” (The Times) Easier than saying “increase their number of staff”, I suppose.  

(3) “Democrats looked just as eager to suit up and meet them on the battlefield.” (The Times) I just don’t know what this means. Put on suits, like armour? Suit, or meet the challenge of the Republicans? 

4) “Free up”. This is now general, and I fear cannot be stopped. What is even better than freedom? Freedom in an upward direction, of course. But what is freed up is not about to fan out across the countryside, like Spartacus’s followers. The resources involved (or “money,” as we used to say) are diverted to other spending projects. This one is a great favourite of governments.  

And that gives us the clue to the popularity of up. The word suggests progress, optimism, achievement, high and higher standards, onwards and upwards. 

Up claims a good outcome for whatever the verb proposes. Even so, the preposition is without useful meaning. It is a mere garnish at the side of the plate. 

Another issue is the tendency to add prepositions. 

I have just read about Iraq, which the British military “are planning to pull out of in May.” Three in a row is too many for me. But Stephen Fry cites a sentence that raises the bar to seven. 

He imagines a child who asks her mother to find a book with a bedtime story. Mother goes downstairs, and returns with a book on Australia. The child cannot understand such a monstrous choice. “Mother, what on earth did you bring a book to read out of about Down Under up for?”  

That’s cheating, I know. “Down Under”, meaning Australia, is really a noun here.  

That still leaves us with five prepositions clustered menacingly round a single noun.  

This is a warning of things getting out of hand. The new phrasal verbs take on an American flavour. As used outside the US — the country that gave us off of — they hint at an admiration for American speechways. 

I’d say that prepositions are getting above themselves, and need to be watched. To adapt a famous cry, “The influence of the preposition has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished.”

Look at this little ‘story’ and see if you can find an error in it. 

The Star Online > Lifefocus

Wednesday December 21, 2005

By OH TEIK THEAM

The missing cash 

“One hundred dollars is missing from my cash drawer,” the boss said to his secretary. 

“Only you and I have keys to that drawer.”  

“I think we should each pay fifty dollars,” she said, “and say nothing farther about the matter.” 

Farther should be further. 

“Farther” is applied to distance and nothing else; “further”, either to distance or to addition (quantity or time). 

The conductor asked the passenger to move farther to the back of the bus.  

He is too tired to walk any further.  

I was relieved he did not extend his stay further.

Two words that are often misused are “staff” and “personnel”. 

The Star Online > Lifefocus

Wednesday December 21, 2005

It is not unusual to see or hear something like the following:  

“I was attended to by a staff who did not tell me his name.” 

“The personnel's signature was undecipherable”. 

The word “staff” stands collectively for the persons working in an office or for an organisation. It cannot be used for a single individual, who may be called “a member of the staff” or “a staff member”. 

The word “staff” may be singular, as in: “The staff of the organisation is to be transferred to an office on the second floor.” 

OR plural, as in: 

“The staff were paid their bonuses last year.”  

“Personnel” is a word used collectively for the persons employed by an organisation or engaged in an undertaking. The word is always plural. 

“The personnel of that organisation are extremely well trained.” – D.P.P., Johor Bahru