Category: language

» I’ve been an avid reader all my life.
» I have a BA in Linguistics.
» I’ve studied seven foreign languages.
» I taught reading for over two years.
» I wrote a grammar curriculum.

Words are really important to me.

Transitive and phrasal verbs and taxis

The word ‘alight’ didn’t used to really be part of my vocabulary, probably because in the US we had a car and we drove ourselves everywhere we couldn’t walk or fly. In Singapore we use buses, trains and taxis to get around. So now I hear automated announcements that say something like:

The next stop is XXX interchange. Passengers traveling to YYY, please alight at the next station.

Please allow passengers to alight before boarding.

That’s all very well and good. I have nothing against the verb ‘alight’. I don’t think there’s necessarily a better word to use, if you want an expression more formal than ‘get off (or out of) the vehicle’.

No, what amuses me is when ‘alight’ is used transitively to mean ‘drop someone off’. Or when someone means ‘drop you off’ and only says ‘drop you’.

May I alight you here?

May I drop you here?

I don’t think it’s just taxi drivers who use ‘drop’ to mean ‘drop off’, though. I think non-Singaporean native English speakers say that too, don’t we?

This is language evolution in progress. Why shouldn’t any verb be able to take an object? Why shouldn’t we just kill off—I mean, um, kill—all those pesky phrasal verbs? Maybe this is the future.

Mind your steps!

Broken idiom alert. This sign at the National Skin Centre pharmacy says:

CAUTION!
Tripping Hazard.
Mind Your Steps!

I think in the US we’d be more likely to say “watch your step” rather than “mind your step”, but pluralizing ‘step’ would be wrong in either case.

Sure, it’s logical that you’d want to be careful over the course of many steps, but conventionally, that’s not what we say.

I think we use the singular noun because this ‘step’ really means ‘manner of walking’. Here are some examples that showcase this singular sense of ‘step’.

The job promotion put a spring in his step.

The dancer has a graceful and lovely step.

The thief listened for the confident step of the policeman.

There is room for confusion because ‘step’ more often means ‘footstep’, and footsteps are often potentially plural, even when they are not syntactically plural.

The craftsman hoped his son would follow in his (foot)steps.

The sound of (foot)steps faded away down the hall.

Every (foot)step brought her closer to her goal.

Now that I think about it, the noun ‘stride’ has a similar duality: the singular noun means a manner of walking and the plural noun is used to refer to a series of individual movements.

I think there’s also pressure to pluralize ‘step’ coming from the common use of ‘steps’ to mean ‘stairs’.

The spilled water cascaded down the steps.

Anyway, the upshot is that the warning to “watch your step” or “mind your step” means “pay attention to your manner of walking”, not “pay attention to each of your footsteps”.

Baekseju

When I spotted this Korean drink called baekseju (百歲酒) on the menu at the very excellent and formerly close to my house Jang Won Korean Restaurant, I thought it might be a version of the famous Chinese alcohol called báijiǔ (白酒), which is sometimes called ‘white wine’—though not by anybody who’s ever had any.

Nope. The Chinese word bái (白) is ‘white’ and the Chinese word bǎi (百) is ‘hundred’.

Silly ang moh, those are obviously two totally different words.

wikipedia-baijiu

wikipedia-baekseju

Wait, hang on, that text on the Korean menu looks, um, rather similar to what’s currently on Wikipedia…

I didn’t photograph the whole menu page, though, so it’s not clear whether those prices are subjected to service charge and tax.

No Smoking Prohibited By Law

The sign says:

No Smoking
Prohibited By Law

But it should say:

No Smoking
By Law

or

Smoking Prohibited By Law

or

No Smoking
Smoking Is Prohibited By Law

Why? Because it almost sounds as if not smoking is not allowed. In other words, it sounds like everyone must smoke.

Obviously people are not really going to conclude that they must smoke when they see this sign, but all the same, the English is not quite right.

Prices are subjected to service charge and tax

The menu at Tim Ho Wan, a nice restaurant for dim sum, says:

All the prices shown above are subjected to 10% service charge & 7% GST.

It should say ‘subject to’ and not ‘subjected to’. If I’ve seen this error once, I’ve seen it a thousand times…

In the phrase “subject to [noun]”, the word ‘subject’ is an adjective. The phrase can mean “vulnerable to [noun]”, “able to be affected adversely by [noun]”, “likely to suffer from [noun]”, “possibly required to undergo [noun]”. Here are some examples.

Those with certain medical conditions are subject to violent and debilitating seizures.

Hastily written emails are subject to misinterpretation.

In those days, all mail was subject to inspection by censorship authorities.

In the phrase “subjected to”, the word ‘subjected’ is part of a passive verb. The phrase “to subject [someone or something] to [some process]” means “to inflict or impose [some process] on [someone or something]”. Here are some examples.

The trainees were subjected to a rigorous training program.

All our prototypes are subjected to thorough stress-testing.

Many citizens object to the practice of subjecting prisoners to torture.

So listen up, would-be restaurant menu writers: if you say that all prices are subjected to service charge and tax, to careful readers, it sounds as if service charges and taxes are kinds of torture that you are carrying out, and your prices are the victims.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say that all restaurant patrons are subjected to service charge and tax!

English as it is Broken… is broken.

The two English as it is Broken books shown above contain photos of signs and responses to people who’ve written in to a weekly column in The Straits Times with questions about English usage.

(For a listing of all four books and then some, see the earlier post, Books on Singapore English.)

The quality of the answers in the two books has been disparaged, but I think most of the explicit explanations are informative even if they are not expressed perfectly.

Below are an example answer I like and one I don’t.

Continue reading English as it is Broken… is broken.

Dengue warrior

It would be hard to overstate the extent to which I hate mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are deadly serious. But this banner is still funny.

For one thing, that warrior, with his Roman helmet, looks really out of place in Southeast Asia. The text at the bottom takes the cake, though.

It says:

SILENT WAR. FIGHT DENGUE. SAVE LIFE

Lists that aren’t parallel are a pet peeve of mine. Lists should be all nouns or all verbs. Here we’ve got a noun and two imperatives. Sigh.

Furthermore, that ‘life’ should be ‘lives’. The fact that it isn’t testifies to the frequency of singular/plural errors in Singapore.

And then finally, there’s no punctuation after the last item of the list!

I recommend:

WAGE WAR · FIGHT DENGUE · SAVE LIVES

Now I’m totally with you, out-of-place Roman centurion.