CNA Teaches You How NOT To Use The Word 'Immolate'

I always thought the word immolate meant to set oneself on fire but apparently Channel NewsAsia knows better. In a report (reproduced below) mildly entitled 'Best friend unable to stop woman from taking own life' - when the fact of the matter is that a desperate old lady who was saddled with debts due to her gambling (addiction?) committed suicide - Shaffiq Alkhatib wows us with his command of the language by bombastically inserting the line "...shortly before she self-immolated".

Unless the poor lady made 'a deliberate and willing sacrifice of herself by fire', it should be just 'immolated' which, at the simplest interpretation, means killing oneself by fire. Mind you though, even using the word 'immolated' is a bit of a stretch as the connotation of the word is that some form of sacrifice was involved - unless the woman was sacrificing herself to the loanshark gods.

Typically, a situation where the word 'self-immolate' would be appropriate is when a devotee sets himself on fire for his god. And whilst we may see people commit suicide by setting themselves on fire, not all is self-immolation. An abused wife who can no longer take the torture and burns herself is different from a wife who burns to exonerate herself from an accusation of adultery (both types of cases do exist in South India).

Well, coming back to the story itself, I wonder why the gambling issue is being glossed over yet again. Whilst CNA focusses on the non-issue of the woman's friend not stopping her from committing suicide, the Straits Times chose to (obediently?) focus on the loanshark problem - i.e. illegal money-lending (where the government doesn't get a cut of the market). At least, Kushwant Singh of the ST had the guts to call it as it is - 'Gambler sets herself ablaze'.

Suicide Note But No Reason?

In today's issue of TODAY, an article reports on the sad case of a man who committed suicide at home (reproduced below).

source: TODAY

Apparently, a suicide note was found but the report claims that the cause of the suicide is unknown. This is rather confounding as the man admitted to his gambling habit in the suicide note. The fact that any half-wit would naturally make the connection between gambling and money woes, combined with the ease with which the mainstream media here often make ludicrous leaps of logic to make a host of misleading assertions, raises an eyebrow (two even) towards the contradicting headline.

If a suicide note is not to offer some semblance of a reason, then I don't know what is. Quite obviously, the man in this case was a gambler in money trouble, out of a job in these uncertain times - and it is not difficult to make such a suggestion in the report. When one considers how sensationalism drives our mainstream media, it is a surprise that such a suggestive angle was not employed in this article.

On closer inspection though, it seems the fact that a suicide due to gambling would be negative publicity for the soon-to-be-unveiled Integrated Resorts - which would explain the ambiguity in clearly alluding to the cause. Again, we notice selective reporting from the mainstream media that serves propaganda.

On a separate note, the reporter for this story, Ansley Ng, seems to have been watching too much American sports programmes - there is no 'had beat' in British English, only 'had beaten'.

Article on Speak Good English Not Walking The Talk

It's always interesting to spot mistakes, but priceless when the context makes them so much worse...

source: Straits Times

advice [ədˈvais] (noun)

suggestions to a person about what he should do

advies نَصِيحَه съвет rada råd der Rat συμβουλή consejo nõu(anne) نصیحت neuvo conseil(s) עֵצָה, ייִעוּץ सलाह savjet tanács nasihat ráð, ráðleggingar consiglio 助言 조언 patarimas padoms; konsultācija pandapat advies råd porada conselho sfat совет rada nasvet savet råd คำแนะนำ öğüt, tavsiye 勸告 порада; консультація نصیحت lời khuyên 劝告

advise [ədˈvaiz] (verb)

1 to give advice to; to recommend adviseer يَنْصَح съветвам radit råde raten συμβουλεύω, συστήνω aconsejar soovitama نصیحت کردن؛ توصیه کردن neuvoa conseiller (de) לְייַעֵץ, לְהַמלִיץ सलाह देना savjetovati tanácsol menasehatkan ráðleggja consigliare 助言する 조언하다 patarti dot padomu; ieteikt nasihat adviseren råde, tilrå radzić aconselhar a sfătui советовать radiť svetovati savetovati råda ให้คำแนะนำ öğüt vermek, tavsiye etmek 勸告 радити(ся); консультувати(ся) نصیحت کرنا ، نصیحت دینا khuyên 劝告

2 (withof) to inform

source: The Free Dictionary

ST's Typos Get Grander

I just came back after a week in Phuket to an interesting email from a buddy showing an abysmal error right in the top-middle of Saturday's front page. Unlike previous errors which occurred primarily within the article text, this was in a prominent highlight strip referring to an article inside the paper for that day.

spotted by Mr Lim Wei Teck

Where other mistakes seem to have been a result of logical oversight, this appears to be due to blatant laziness (of writer, editor, intern and even the printing staff) in checking the material.

Perhaps this is the reason (i.e. allowing gross mistakes to run in the paper) why the ST was ranked higher this year (133 from 144 last year) in the Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders?

Well, in any case this speculation is more plausible than Zaqy Mohamad's suggestion that it is "because of the media diversity here, with mainstream media going online (that) creates pressure for media agencies to provide better-quality work." By the way, the index measures the level of press freedom only and not the actual quality of press.

ST's Word of the Day: Refridgerators

I chanced upon a good article entitled Wacky ideas to go green penned by Ms Ho Ai Li, the Taiwan Correspondent to the Straits Times, that discussed the environmental sensitivity of the Taiwanese as compared to Singaporeans. What caught my eye though was the overly-juvenile oversight of spelling 'refrigerators' as 'refridgerators' (see below).

Of course it's obvious that the word 'fridge' interfered with the longer word 'refrigerator' here but still, this is something I would hardly expect from our self-proclaimed 'best-of-the best' ST journalists. In fact, it's rather incredulous how both the writer and editor missed a mistake which we would chide our secondary school students for.

Want to be High-Class, Don't Make Silly Spelling Mistakes NUSS

The other day I received an unsolicited mailer from NUSS (National University of Singapore Society) offering a discount on their Graduate Club membership. First of all, I have no idea why they would send unsolicited mail aimlessly when they are an exclusive club and why they would, of all places, choose to target a block that is predominately filled with 3-room flats.

The price to join was indicated as S$4,000 - apparently this is a bargain compared to their tariff rate of S$10,000 - which I am sure that Singaporeans tightening their belts in this recession like me would be heartened to consider. Unfortunately, the fine print looked at me disgustingly - 'only open to graduates from local & recognised foreign universities', so there was no chance for a pariah like me.

But just as I was about to put the mailer onto my 'recyclable' stack, I realised something rather odd. Apparently, when you are high-class there is a different spelling system and "price incresses" instead of "price increases" (see image below).

Or... it could very well be that a society/club that has no issues with mass-mailing gloss-finished postcard mailers to households who are unlikely to qualify and/or afford their memberships couldn't be bothered to hire a professional proofreader.

Excuse Me, Are You Deceased?

I subscribe to a survey portal called AIP Online Surveys where I do a few surveys occasionally when I am invited to, after which they give me some reward (using a points system). Well, I have encountered quite a number of errors - of grammar, language, and even logic at times - over the years but today's is the most hilarious that I've come across - so far.

A survey about 'Lifestyle', the questionnaire asked general questions on how often I travelled, my age (2 times - ??) , and familiarity with brands of cars, among other things. However, the question that really blew me away was the following, which I can only assume was asking if I was a widower. But before I arrived at this conclusion, the first thing that popped into my mind was - "how can a deceased person be taking this survey?"...

The Best Of The Best English?

For all the talk about the proper use of language in communication, I truly find standards have dropped dramatically all over. For example, today, I came across the following report at CNA's website talking about a new Halal certification system. However, if you look at the circled portion below, the word 'actions' should be 'action' because the context of the sentence refers to 'taking action' (definition). One would hardly expect such elementary mistakes from our local journalists but that is the case sadly.

Some of the articles in the press are hardly satisfactory as far as communication of ideas is concerned and the general reporting these days seems 'tired'. I reserve comment as to WHY this is so (I do have my theories) but the description and observation hold true.

Amazingly, some of the glaring mistakes that I have come across include the following notable institutions as well. On Harvard University's website for example, one thesis proposal form has the department name misspelled.


Meanwhile, on a professor's profile page at the University of Glasgow's website, an obvious typo error reflects badly on the image of this 'Covener of the Creative Writing Programme' - although they do have a very good Masters-Doctorate programme in Creative Writing that I am eyeing.


Other than for the CNA report, I have actually emailed the department concerned at Harvard University as well as the professor concerned at the University of Glasgow regarding the respective faux pas. Whilst only a lecturer at the Harvard University's department replied to acknowledge the mistake, both websites continue to carry the errors as of this post.

It is indeed sad that correcting the mistakes that undermine one's specific specialisation carries such little importance in today's world.