Standard of Written English in Punggol Forum

[Genna]

I've been reading this forum with much amusement and some concern. The topics are rather staid, but of course, these are the things concerning heartlanders.....transport, vendors at PP, parking woes, vandalism, childcare, etc, etc. I live in Punggol, so am truly a heartlander too!

However, what grates on me is the standard of written English. Much can be said about Singpapore's progress but sadly, the ability to write proper English is not one of them. On the contrary, during my parents and grandparents' era, people who were educated in English schools (convents, mission schools) were able to speak & write proper English because their teachers had insisted on correct tenses, sentence structures, paragraphing or else! I remember my grandmother telling me that her teachers would rap her knuckles if her passage was not up to scratch.

You should read the threads on 'Pregnancy, Babies and Children', do these people check their grammar or usage of vocabulary before posting? One particular post was going on & on about her son's affliction contracted from preschool........If you want to complain, do it in style.

Several posts lamented on the standard and spoken English of childcare teachers but their own?? They had such high expectations when looking for childcare centres or nanny but it is the home environment that's most important. What's the point of paying 4-figure sum every month at a top-notch preschool when the child gets words like 'kena', 'lah,' 'mah' , 'sianz' at home?

A snob, I am not. I have my fair share of Singlish at appropriate junctures but when writing, I try to be as grammatically correct as possible.

[dafansu]

Not everybody is as educated as you. Ops any grammer mistake.

[Della]

Genna-I believe that you are the 1st timer that visit our forum..just to let you know that in this forum we are here to make friends,to share our problems and to discuss everything or comments abt punngol..we are free and easy to express what we feel as long as we understand what each other fellows punggolians feels whether it appears LOR,LAH,HOR,KENA,MAH.....IT DOES NOT MATTER!!we are not here to have EXAM OR TO COMPARE THE STARNDARD OF ENGLISH!! Also whether your english is good or bad it's not important..punggol forum will still welcome you..
I am also very sure that you dun belong to singaporean because you have wrote  SINGAPORE wrongly!! You wrote it singPapore's(look at line 4)

[da]

language is a short cut to knowledge. ideas and concepts are compressed and represented in a few words.. without language, we will find communicating a chore.. in that sense, "kena", "lah", "mah", "sianz" is appropriate in Singapore, since it is understood by most, if not all, singaporeans, PRs, visitors and even tourists. it may not be appropriate in formal occassions.. don't use it in sales presentations, don't use it during work review.. but would be okay for informal, and for friends.. there are people with PHDs, and they use kena, lah, whatever as well.

Genna, i agree with you, when possible check grammar and vocabulary. many words have multiple meanings, and having good grammar means the words can be more easily deciphered, and the correct meaning used by the writer can be inferred. and i think many people agree with you, but still get offended. why? because there are many people who's best effort at english is poor grammar. who failed or did badly in english at school. and as adults, there are other responsibilities that take priority over relearning english. what they do then, is to ensure their children do better than them; and thus demand high standards from teachers, and childcare centres.

you touched on a sensitive topic that has been debated by many.. probably not in this forum before this, but in many venues in singapore. there are definitely singaporeans who knows english well, and use singlish for fun, and defends it, but there are many singaporeans for whom singlish is their best. and being told its not good enough is offensive for them; it is a personal attack since it is not something that can be changed easily; singlish is their language.