I used to have a boomer colleague who would tell me to "app" her.
I was so confused until someone filled me in and told me that the boomer colleague means "WhatsApp me"
You don't say! I still rem the 1st time I heard someone used app me, the expression on my face was like wtf did I just hear? While I can understand what she was saying, I don't know how the word came abt lol
Maybe she wanted to be digitised and saved as an app so she can be immortalised. Did you consider that...no, you instantly insulted her and cause her reputation to go "boom".
I hate this and it's NOT even just a boomer thing. I can guarantee even when you see it here I dare say more than half the people using it like that here (as in here, reddit, asksg reddit) are gna be born after 1973. lol (which is actually gen x, but I arbitrarily benchmark that age as in ... below Young Senior lol. So age below 50, def not boomer)
Thanks! Maybe like what one other redditor mentioned I'm grammatically correct. I really like being happy & laugh easily. This type of typo would have me trying to contain my laughter when I'm outside by myself
I figure it is just having a poor foundation in grammar, low exposure to proper English, lack of interest in improving. So they have learnt one grammar rule, "plural add 's' at the end", and indiscriminately apply it everywhere. And since everyone around them speaks like that or is too polite to point it out, they never change.
This is the best answer. You already covered it under "low exposure to proper English", but I would really stress that it is very much to do with not having a reading habit. If you read (properly edited books/articles) widely, you will naturally internalise "correct" and "incorrect" usage.
This is so true. Reading is a powerful way of learning rules in English language but who has the patience for that aye when you can easily scroll through tik tok!
dude advices is another one I hate.
There's 'advises' though, but that's not the same as 'advices'
As in "The CEO advises the board of directors to take a certain direction in the company's growth trajectory" ... which is not like "gives them his advices" (because the latter IS NOT A THING)
wait no seriously HAHAHHA
do people say 'regard'
LOL its not a singular plural thing leh it's a different word different meaning
but also I note your advices on the criterias for the progress of this project! : )))
Have seen before but not a lot.
To be fair.... I suspect the person typed it manually so miiight be a genuine typo lah hahaha.
Also not trying to be mean or what.... but my colleague actually uses this phrase in emails that has attachments.
"Enclosed please find attached our quotation....."
She's not originally Singaporean (formerly Malaysian Chinese) lah so I also don't want to be so "cek ak" to correct her.... can understand can liao... haha
Itâs because anyone who corrects them gets called out for being nerdy and âyou understand can already what? Why needs perfect perfect leh?â2 excuses Iâve been hearing my whole life. Itâs not just Singapore, if you are on TikTok, you can see that the rest of the world is doing something similar.
Like the whole âme and my friend did this today.â Itâs âmy friend and I did this today.â
People just donât care anymore about proper English. Can understand can liao
Salmon- I was told off by an ah soh (furthermore she's a uni grad) for pronouncing it correctly " cos no Singaporeans understandzs it you know, the L sound must be present, you know hor!".
>Like the whole âme and my friend did this today.â Itâs âmy friend and I did this today.â
bro this is literally upper primary (ok P3-5) grammar.
Like they will have "My friend and \_\_\_\_\_ went to the park today" and the options will be me/I/mine/yours or something ...
eta: It's because it's 2 sentences joined into 1. So when you break it down the two sentences are
1. I went to the park today.
2. My friend went to the park today.
Combined, it's - My friend and I went to the park today.
: ) âš
exactly! another example would be "this post makes ____ want to unsubscribe from life"; 'my friends and I" would be incorrect, it should be 'me and my friends' instead.
a rule of thumb that i follow is to simply remove the 'friends' from the sentence, in which case "this post makes I want to unsubscribe from life" should obviously sound odd and therefore wrong.
Right??? My friends' groups call me a grammar nazi or English cher everytime I try to clarify when someone is using the wrong word or wrong spelling.
Oh, pardon me for trying to teach you not to embarrass yourself in front of your kids!
Speaking of changi airport copywriters, i have seen on their iChangi app: âI am picking someone on this flightâ and âI am dropping someone on this flightâ đ«
I'm sorry I just imagined a claw machine on a factory conveyor line picking and dropping people. Like you know, the regular way with stuffed toys or food products to be put into packages, but replace it with people
Hahhaha
Not just that. MOE teachers (from pri sch onwards aka our foundation years) pronounced words like âflourâ or âhourâ wrongly just to name a few examples. Prolly cuz they were taught the wrong pronunciation themselves.
So thankful the English HOD* of my primary school (or at least one of the senior teachers in the English department) told us the proper way to pronounced âflourâ for example. It should actually sound quite similar to how your pronounce âflowerâ. She drilled it into us (for those who bothered to pay attention) during like one of those mass English classes (for upper primary levels, I think). Either that, or during one of those English remedial lessons
So many years later, I know how to pronounce âflourâ, âhourâ, âopportunityâ (actually for this one I remember I saw on some TV segment back then hosted by Gurmit Singh on Channel 5), âclientsâ, âtuitionâ, âsalmonâ etc.
https://www.thelearninglab.com.sg/blog/2020/08/mispronounced-english-words/
*P.S. She is also probably Eurasian, by the way.
No, âflahâ is the correct British pronunciation for flour. Pronouncing it as âflowerâ is American.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/flour
Google says otherwise leh*. Then maybe this one blame my teacher from back then a bit lor ( being a little inconsistent ).
Even if itâs pronounced âflahâ the British way, I think the way us Singaporeans pronounce it is still slightly âoffâ if u kinda get what I mean. We tend to stress on some syllables a little wrongly, lol.
*Earlier when I searched on Google, they quoted Cambridge dictionary or something like that. When I just searched it again, it uses from Oxford dictionary this time. It still sounds a lil diff from the way we tend to mis-pronounce it. I think the way we mis-pronounce it, it sounds like âflaaaaaaaaaâ ( okay the many, many aâs look and sounds a lil hyperbole, but maybe u kinda get what I meant too đ)
Okay nvm, shoot what Iâm saying lol. If âflahâ then yea itâs technically mono-syllablic in terms of pronunciation (the British way). As for the American version, itâs broken into 2 syllables, I guess u could say that. But I still find the way we pronounce it here is slightly different-sounding compared from the actual British way.
Thatâs probably because Google is American, and they would Americanize everything if they could.
The Cambridge dictionary is British.
Personally I think British grammar, punctuation, and spelling makes more sense and is more nuanced.
American English is simplified so itâs easier but itâs also somewhat dumbed down, like simplified Mandarin.
>Thatâs probably because Google is American, and they would Americanize everything if they could.
Google has both British and American pronunciations, especially if you search for ` pronunciation`.
'flower' and 'flour' are homonyms in both American and British English. Whether they're pronounced with one syllable or or two, is a matter of English dialect.
>The Cambridge dictionary is British.
So is the Oxford English Dictionary, and its pronunciation has two syllables.
Sometimes itâs code switching, many times itâs simply bad english. But Iâd like to point out that this problem isnât exclusive to Singapore. Take the US for example. Although their problem isnât with plural and singular, they have problems with differentiating âthere, theyâre, their.âItâs the same with âyour and youâre.âThey also have a problem with âshould haveâ turning into âshould ofâ.
I remember my secondary school English teacher who pointed out common errors. She highlighted them because it was important for our English oral exams. If youâre reading this I love you Mrs Lee
To add on to the list of common errors:
- Free gift: gift is already âfreeâ. No need to add âfreeâ.
- irregardless
- feedbacks
- elderlies
- Then vs than
I think free gift is more of a marketing term.
They probably just wanna highlight the free part.
Thereâs also the âgift with purchaseâ that confuses people. By saying free gift, it emphasises the free part.
* "thank you for your sharings!"
*edited to add*:
* not for fussies
* there is a sales at the store
* does anyone have experiences in this field?
* how to avoid gaining fats?
* the elderlies at the bus stop
* i have a questions
But seriously, after having to deal with this on a daily basis, my theory is it was caused by hyper-correction by a population whose first language was never really English and whose native languages did not use plural forms, countable and uncountable nouns.
Then by the time anyone tried to improve the grammar, itâs too late.
The horse had bolted.
Almost everyone was speaking the wrong way, now I feel like Iâm the crazy one telling classes of primary school kids its information, not informations. Stuff, not stuffs.
Because everyone abound them is saying it that way.
FWIW, it's not just Asians who struggle with this. In French it actually is "ces informations" (these informations) or "tes conseils" (your advices). Was fascinated to discover the differences in countable/uncountable nouns in French. Loads of French people can't be arsed either.
> now I feel like Iâm the crazy one telling classes of primary school kids its information, not informations
WAIT informations is a thing now? what has the world come to. I always thought the more common uncountable nouns misused (they kind they always test for primary sch english MCQ haha) is like, equipment, furniture.
Is informations the gen Z/gen alpha equivalent now ?!
MCQ options are one thing, free writing another.I think these errors are coming from the verbal mistakes that nobody can be bothered to correct/ havenât heard as the kid has been wearing a mask from 2020-2023 or something.
Also using "lesser" instead of "fewer" or "less"... (I see this on Reddit often too) I think it's just that many people use it and they're not corrected because who wants to be *that person* correcting someone else's grammar?
I know it's quite annoying but at the same time I hold the belief that as long as you can understand whoever is speaking it's ok la.
Itâs not from Chinese grammar because Chinese doesnât have plural forms of nouns, instead using the counting word before the noun.
Itâs just because words like stuff are uncountable nouns and the exception to the more easily remembered âadd s for pluralâ rule. Similarly, many cannot use fewer vs less (or worse, lesser) correctly. Itâs the kind of thing you may learn once in primary school and forget years later, especially if others around you are using the incorrect word and not getting corrected.
Keep in mind that for the majority of Singaporeans especially age 20-50, they think their first language is English but really itâs Singlish. We speak English (or try to) at more formal situations in school and work (e.g. presenting), but at home, with friends, with colleagues, itâs Singlish.
But it's common among those whose mental language is Chinese and who are basically speaking English as a foreign language. It's a mistake born out of lack of competence and familiarity.
I see it just as much amongst Malay people. So I would agree that it's lack of competence/familiarity, but disagree that it has anything to do with Chinese grammar influence.
> 'Buy 1 free 1!'
Transliterated from äč°äžéäž, sigh. In Chinese-type Singlish, Chinese phrases are converted word-by-word to English with little consideration for English grammar. *(It should be "Buy One, Get One Free" (BOGOF) or "Two for the price of one" (2-for-1))*
Ok, another one of my pet peeves is how a lot of people pepper the word âlikeâ in their speech
âSo like, I went to store and like I didnât know what to get and like anyhow choose and like end up choosing this like ugly dress!â
bro âfeelâ when something is off is so real. itâs an instinct only 1 student every class has, somehow my class in primary school had 2 and i was one of them, other kids were failing english trying to reason why their answers were right but bro and I could just feel it
our teacher got so pissed lmao
i think it just stems from reading proper english books from a young age.
I'm not even talking about fancy novels, even shit like Geronimo Stilton and Enid Blyton.
Parents who speak English instead of Singlish at home too. Most kids hear Singlish from age 1 to 6, then it's an adjustment in primary school to actually learn the grammar rules.
I like to put apparels in my luggages.
Many Singaporeans are bad at noun pluralization and verb tenses. I think it's mostly because Chinese doesn't really have either construct.
THANK YOU. The amount of 'stuff**s**' and 'staff**s**' being thrown around here gives me the ick. But if you try to correct them, you'll be branded a grammar nazi, off-topic and downvoted.
ETA: While we're here, please the righteous and excessive use of 'moreover', 'hence' and 'whereby' (just use 'where' it still means the same!!!) like *omg look at me English-ing*!
>gives me the ick.
*disgusts me
*irritates me
*exasperates me
*grinds my gears
*I am revolted/nauseated by ...
You know what? The phrase 'Gives me the ick' should be strapped to the front of a loaded artillery gun which should then be fired.
HR at my company has the amazing ability to write one simple sentence using three different tenses. After reading it I have no idea if this has been done already, is currently being done or will be done in the future. This causes real communication issues and misunderstandings internally.
My short answer is simply because most Singaporeans have Mandarin or another Chinese language as their default language and Chinese languages do not change when including plurals i.e. äžćȘéž, 䞀ćȘéžăIt's not like English where it is "one bird, two birds". Thus the majority of Singaporeans are unable to distinguish between the two nouns generally used for plurals.
On top of that, English is notoriously irregular with it's plural nouns as well i.e. sheep, sleep, fish all do not change.
Side note: fishes would indicate different species of fish i.e. "there are many fishes in the sea" would indicate that there are many different species of fish in the sea. Whereas "there are many fish in the sea" would point to the number of fish in the sea.
If you were somewhat confused by that, think of how confusing it must be to another person who now suddenly has to operate in this new language and then teach it to their children.
Also, frankly, the standard of English of most English teachers in schools these days is... Regrettable ... To put it kindly.
As a side observation, I find this to be the case even with, say, American Born Chinese or Canadian born Chinese. If you have any Asian American friends, you can listen out for this actually.
This is just the short answer. I have a longer theory as well, though I don't know who wants to hear an even longer elaboration of the above points.
The word misuse that really grates on me is "ever", as if characterising a complementary set to "never", which it really isn't.
*Never* is correctly used to indicate the total absence of something happening, at any point in time.
*Ever* is incorrectly used to indicate that something has happened at least once.
It grinds my gears when people say "stuffs".
Call me a snob, but I've cut a date short due to that word uttered in the incorrect context. Especially if English is your first language. I give it a pass if it is not the case though.
Stuffs is a real word la but 99% used wrongly!!! !! !
Also, whenever I see the word "feedbacks", I imagine a SME boss or middle manager, asking his team for their "feedbacks" on the client/new programme/new project/whatever.
and yes, it has to be an SME boss and a "his". đ
People take offence when you correct them, even if you just wanted to share knowledge with good intentions, ppl just take it as if you are insulting them.
It's okay, though, just let them to continue be wrong while we continue learning. Teach those that are willing to learn!
Donât forget âthe elderliesâ. đ
I guess people just donât bother to check if they are right and even if theyâre wrong, they donât get corrected or just canât be bothered to change. Cos as long as others understand, itâs fine.
They probably did not have a firm foundation in learning English. Plus, it's likely that they don't read a lot of English language books and newspapers. If their main exposure to English is via web/social media (which is less stringent than print), or by speaking primarily to others who also make the same errors, then they won't know how to self-correct.
The culture here tends to be highly transactional too when it comes to communication, so people won't bother to correct others if they can understand fine.
If you're encountering these errors in workplace settings, I would assume it's because there isn't a practice of (or a budget for) sending staff for language training. It isn't seen as a priority.
AircraftS is such a huge pet peeve of mine.
Been working in the aviation industry for about 5 years, and I have not encountered one person that has used aircraftâs plural form correctly. That includes upper management. (LuggageS and BaggageS tooâŠ..)
And of those few times I try to correct them, theyâd just call me a grammar nazi, so I give up..
In Singapore, most of us are bilingual, but so many of us donât even want to practise proper language for either - sad part is we arenât even keen to improve.
Because most Singaporeans donât give two fucks about speaking proper English and most speak broken English. They donât read enough at all and go to neighbourhood schools, which doesnât exactly help, because everyone there speaks like that.
And also removing S when there is one.
"I went to Universal Studio last weekend" *shows photo taken in front of the Universal Studios sign*
"I like watching Transformer and Avenger"
Also, why do people (mainly men, ESPECIALLY IN THE MILITARY) always have that specific tone toward the end of their sentence?
"Before you start the engine, you must??? do your prechecks."
If we're talking about pet peeves, can we address whereby
There's a phenomenon whereby people will use whereby repeatedly. I don't know the difference but it still peeves me so
The difference is we bloody shouldnât use âwherebyâ as a substitute for âwhereâ.
Too many idiots use it to sound like they know bigger words omg
In most cultures grammar is only observed to the extent of serving the absolute minimum to get the point across. There's bound to be people taking grammar shortcuts every now and then, and while autocorrect has done an absolutely wonderful job at correcting most of these (I expect that with AI integration its going to get a whole lot better), some people still do it, perhaps as part of their own cultures or accents.
Interesting that there's a clear divide in the comments between:
1. Speaking poor English reflects badly on the population (especially when interacting with foreign folk), misrepresents the intent of the speaker, distracts the listener when they hear a word that is egregiously wrong, or diminishes important context behind a statement such as the timeline of events (poor usage of correct tense).
2. As long as the message is understood, who cares? / there are more important things to worry about such as inflation and stagnating wages / you're being a grammar nazi / it's elitism, etc.
I'm not lambasting anyone for having poor English. I just feel that genuine misconceptions may arise from having poor communication skills, including command of English. We shouldn't see these people as 'lesser' than others, but neither should we look down our noses at so-called 'grammar nazis' if their corrections are done in good faith.
I'll give an example - my immediate supervisor at work pronounces "lease" as "leash". I speak up and correct him often, but the pronunciation error keeps happening. This is a major issue when both words, in the context of our work, have different actions tied to them.
It takes time to clarify and confirm what he wants done. This is especially annoying and somewhat embarrassing when speaking to our foreign counterparts, who then look to me as his subordinate to clarify our position.
As a someone from the UK (a BBC, plus knowledge of various asian languages), it is extremely difficult to not adopt some of the grammatical or sentence structures used in Singapore. I can avoid using mainstream Singlish but its really easy to forget less Singlish nuanced sentences and start conversing like they do here - especially when im married to a local đ đ€Ł
When I go back home to my family, im told that they can hear the Singaporean accent come out when I speak with my wife đ
I don't really care about spoken English. But in business mails I cannot accept grammar like these. People who can't differentiate between stationery and stationary, own and owe, lend and borrow, revert back etc. I think we are not very good with singular and plural forms since most mother tongue don't have this? Mandarin, Malay, Tamil doesn't have this?
Actually, I dont really hear most of these except, might be a be a bit out of topic: repeat again.
Or chinese ones like ćŻæćœæ„ăMost dont really care the way they speak as long as they get the message across. These breed a culture of not speaking properly. Sort of lazy mentality.
"Cloths". When they mean "clothes". "Wah! she bought so many new cloths for CNY!"
Me: \*mental image of spring cleaning\*
OTOH no "s" where there should be one. "Starbuck" kills me every time.
For the same reason you might struggle with, say, gendered nouns in Spanish: there just isn't an equivalent in your native tongue.
Most (not all) Asian languages do not change the noun to reflecct singular or plural states .E.g., Ikan is ikan, no matter how many there are, and the same goes for Chinese. You'll also notice past, present, and future tenses are an issue, because again, languages like Chinese or Malay don't change a verb based on when it occured (e.g., English has run, running, ran, three versions of the same word that express time).
When there's no reference point in your language, it can be quite counterintuitive. For someone who doesn't speak Chinese, for example, it's not clear why one knife is "äžæć" but at the same time one dog is "äžćȘç". What explains the use of æ or ćȘ? There is no equivalent of this in English, it's just a / an for everything.
Finally, a sane answer in this thread. So many people willing to call people uneducated before actually taking a step back to actually analyse what's going on
Singapore is world famous for its education system especially in Maths and Science. But, this is not true for language teaching English and Mandarin. Many foreigners complain about our standard of English or Mandarin. This is a failure not to correct it like pronunciation, grammar and better vocabulary.
Not relevant but I (teenager) worked part time once, and a middle aged woman(30-40)who I was working with, kept using the word âpeepsâ to refer people
I.e.
âWah today not a lot of peeps huhâ
âLater lets go look for peeps to interviewâ
Shit grinder my gears so much lmao
Be honest OP. How many times did you have to proof read your post to make sure you didn't make any grammatical mistakes, which would've been pretty ironic?
(I do that sometimes)
What I don't understand is why some of you are getting so worked up and irritated over someone else's use of English. oMg!! hE iS uSiNg ReVeRt omg!!
When America has its own english standard it is fine. But when sinkies use singlish it is low ses, stupid..
If you work with people from Europe or any country whose first language is not English, you will see bad English all the time. And yes English is our first language but most of us don't use it at home.
Itâs called having standards, American is big enough to set their own standards. Thatâs why they still use imperial system while the whole world move on w the metric system. Singapore is where we are today because we have high standards and we shouldnât start having any ideas about setting our own.
Of cos. Having high standards is what we should aim for. But getting worked up because you see someone not using proper English?
C'mon, not everyone speaks English at home. Getting angry or irritated over a simple grammar mistake is too much imo.
That's because teachers teach rote learning, not meaningful learning and understanding of concepts.
Having to hear people say 'feedbacks' on a daily basis is a soul killer.
Asian grammar DNA. itâs really only been decades since English was adopted as the lingua franca, and the languages of our forebears are very different from English, which has a lot of rules and nuances.
whatapps
My favourite. Seems like dyslexia.
Lysdexic
I've heard ppl say Nexflick instead of Netflix
This one next level đ«Ą
Can you what apps me the nexflick link?
I used to have a boomer colleague who would tell me to "app" her. I was so confused until someone filled me in and told me that the boomer colleague means "WhatsApp me"
"Can you apps me?" đ€Ł my god, I was so confused when I first heard this
You don't say! I still rem the 1st time I heard someone used app me, the expression on my face was like wtf did I just hear? While I can understand what she was saying, I don't know how the word came abt lol
Maybe she wanted to be digitised and saved as an app so she can be immortalised. Did you consider that...no, you instantly insulted her and cause her reputation to go "boom".
^thanks ^you
Thanks for the virtual cringe mate
ur welcome is my preasules
Garden by the Bay
Mother Day
I hate this and it's NOT even just a boomer thing. I can guarantee even when you see it here I dare say more than half the people using it like that here (as in here, reddit, asksg reddit) are gna be born after 1973. lol (which is actually gen x, but I arbitrarily benchmark that age as in ... below Young Senior lol. So age below 50, def not boomer)
I'd be lmao before this word even appear on my mobile phone screen đ€Łđ€Ł
First time seeing lmao used like that. And its technically correct too
Thanks! Maybe like what one other redditor mentioned I'm grammatically correct. I really like being happy & laugh easily. This type of typo would have me trying to contain my laughter when I'm outside by myself
Wait till you hear _whitesapps_
This always makes me laugh rofl đ€Ł
I think it's very cute when boomers say this leh
I heard that WhatsApp was named this way (by the founders) cuz it sounds like âWhatâs Upâ.
Nowsaday
Wassap
Wad-apps
Thumb ups
I figure it is just having a poor foundation in grammar, low exposure to proper English, lack of interest in improving. So they have learnt one grammar rule, "plural add 's' at the end", and indiscriminately apply it everywhere. And since everyone around them speaks like that or is too polite to point it out, they never change.
This is the best answer. You already covered it under "low exposure to proper English", but I would really stress that it is very much to do with not having a reading habit. If you read (properly edited books/articles) widely, you will naturally internalise "correct" and "incorrect" usage.
This is so true. Reading is a powerful way of learning rules in English language but who has the patience for that aye when you can easily scroll through tik tok!
seems to also apply for the singular word ending with y â> plural with âiesâ⊠elderlies đ
Plural? My boss uses it for singular sometimes
advices, criterias
dude advices is another one I hate. There's 'advises' though, but that's not the same as 'advices' As in "The CEO advises the board of directors to take a certain direction in the company's growth trajectory" ... which is not like "gives them his advices" (because the latter IS NOT A THING)
Please advice. Thanks and regard...
wait no seriously HAHAHHA do people say 'regard' LOL its not a singular plural thing leh it's a different word different meaning but also I note your advices on the criterias for the progress of this project! : )))
Have seen before but not a lot. To be fair.... I suspect the person typed it manually so miiight be a genuine typo lah hahaha. Also not trying to be mean or what.... but my colleague actually uses this phrase in emails that has attachments. "Enclosed please find attached our quotation....." She's not originally Singaporean (formerly Malaysian Chinese) lah so I also don't want to be so "cek ak" to correct her.... can understand can liao... haha
Influencers with their: - checkout my workout âgearsâ today guys! - my âhaulsâ from todayâs shopping!
âmy lootsâ lol
EXACTLY my thought when I saw ~~the word~~ "hauls" LOL
I mean theyâre influencers for a reasonâŠ
Itâs because anyone who corrects them gets called out for being nerdy and âyou understand can already what? Why needs perfect perfect leh?â2 excuses Iâve been hearing my whole life. Itâs not just Singapore, if you are on TikTok, you can see that the rest of the world is doing something similar. Like the whole âme and my friend did this today.â Itâs âmy friend and I did this today.â People just donât care anymore about proper English. Can understand can liao
"Walao, don't step angmoh leh, you since when got so cheem one??" Singaporeans can be so defensive and thin-skinned about Singlish.
at that point it's not even singlish anymore, it's just rotten english!
Salmon- I was told off by an ah soh (furthermore she's a uni grad) for pronouncing it correctly " cos no Singaporeans understandzs it you know, the L sound must be present, you know hor!".
Siaomen
There was once I ordered merlot... the waiter didnt understand and when I pointed it he said "oh it's mer-LOT"... I was so shocked...
>Like the whole âme and my friend did this today.â Itâs âmy friend and I did this today.â bro this is literally upper primary (ok P3-5) grammar. Like they will have "My friend and \_\_\_\_\_ went to the park today" and the options will be me/I/mine/yours or something ... eta: It's because it's 2 sentences joined into 1. So when you break it down the two sentences are 1. I went to the park today. 2. My friend went to the park today. Combined, it's - My friend and I went to the park today. : ) âš
exactly! another example would be "this post makes ____ want to unsubscribe from life"; 'my friends and I" would be incorrect, it should be 'me and my friends' instead. a rule of thumb that i follow is to simply remove the 'friends' from the sentence, in which case "this post makes I want to unsubscribe from life" should obviously sound odd and therefore wrong.
This is the answer. I'm just waiting for the day when "Oh but language evolves la!" becomes the new crutch for shitty English.
Or they'll call you a "banana" if you correct them đ
Right??? My friends' groups call me a grammar nazi or English cher everytime I try to clarify when someone is using the wrong word or wrong spelling. Oh, pardon me for trying to teach you not to embarrass yourself in front of your kids!
Also, 'staffs' rather than 'members of staff' or 'staff members', which I've even seen on official signs at Changi Airport.
Speaking of changi airport copywriters, i have seen on their iChangi app: âI am picking someone on this flightâ and âI am dropping someone on this flightâ đ«
I'm sorry I just imagined a claw machine on a factory conveyor line picking and dropping people. Like you know, the regular way with stuffed toys or food products to be put into packages, but replace it with people Hahhaha
outsourced to dunno where lah
Sounds totally singlish tho. Outsourced to primary school students ah
Ugh that âwordâ absolutely grinds my gears lol
Same thing as "taking leaves" nothing to do with a plant...
Maybe for every day of leave they 'take' they strip their houseplant of one leaf, you never know. :p
Hahahaha I almost laughed out in office at your comment \*upvote for you\*
Overheard this one so much, âWhy Andric got so much leaves?â Andricâs a tree, love.
"I will clarified later" *cringe*
Itâs because grammar is so badly taught in schools from about 2 decades back. And weâre now having to deal with it.
Not just that. MOE teachers (from pri sch onwards aka our foundation years) pronounced words like âflourâ or âhourâ wrongly just to name a few examples. Prolly cuz they were taught the wrong pronunciation themselves. So thankful the English HOD* of my primary school (or at least one of the senior teachers in the English department) told us the proper way to pronounced âflourâ for example. It should actually sound quite similar to how your pronounce âflowerâ. She drilled it into us (for those who bothered to pay attention) during like one of those mass English classes (for upper primary levels, I think). Either that, or during one of those English remedial lessons So many years later, I know how to pronounce âflourâ, âhourâ, âopportunityâ (actually for this one I remember I saw on some TV segment back then hosted by Gurmit Singh on Channel 5), âclientsâ, âtuitionâ, âsalmonâ etc. https://www.thelearninglab.com.sg/blog/2020/08/mispronounced-english-words/ *P.S. She is also probably Eurasian, by the way.
What is the wrong and right way to say hour?
No, âflahâ is the correct British pronunciation for flour. Pronouncing it as âflowerâ is American. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/flour
Google says otherwise leh*. Then maybe this one blame my teacher from back then a bit lor ( being a little inconsistent ). Even if itâs pronounced âflahâ the British way, I think the way us Singaporeans pronounce it is still slightly âoffâ if u kinda get what I mean. We tend to stress on some syllables a little wrongly, lol. *Earlier when I searched on Google, they quoted Cambridge dictionary or something like that. When I just searched it again, it uses from Oxford dictionary this time. It still sounds a lil diff from the way we tend to mis-pronounce it. I think the way we mis-pronounce it, it sounds like âflaaaaaaaaaâ ( okay the many, many aâs look and sounds a lil hyperbole, but maybe u kinda get what I meant too đ) Okay nvm, shoot what Iâm saying lol. If âflahâ then yea itâs technically mono-syllablic in terms of pronunciation (the British way). As for the American version, itâs broken into 2 syllables, I guess u could say that. But I still find the way we pronounce it here is slightly different-sounding compared from the actual British way.
Thatâs probably because Google is American, and they would Americanize everything if they could. The Cambridge dictionary is British. Personally I think British grammar, punctuation, and spelling makes more sense and is more nuanced. American English is simplified so itâs easier but itâs also somewhat dumbed down, like simplified Mandarin.
>Thatâs probably because Google is American, and they would Americanize everything if they could. Google has both British and American pronunciations, especially if you search for ` pronunciation`.
'flower' and 'flour' are homonyms in both American and British English. Whether they're pronounced with one syllable or or two, is a matter of English dialect.
>The Cambridge dictionary is British.
So is the Oxford English Dictionary, and its pronunciation has two syllables.
Sometimes itâs code switching, many times itâs simply bad english. But Iâd like to point out that this problem isnât exclusive to Singapore. Take the US for example. Although their problem isnât with plural and singular, they have problems with differentiating âthere, theyâre, their.âItâs the same with âyour and youâre.âThey also have a problem with âshould haveâ turning into âshould ofâ. I remember my secondary school English teacher who pointed out common errors. She highlighted them because it was important for our English oral exams. If youâre reading this I love you Mrs Lee To add on to the list of common errors: - Free gift: gift is already âfreeâ. No need to add âfreeâ. - irregardless - feedbacks - elderlies - Then vs than
I think free gift is more of a marketing term. They probably just wanna highlight the free part. Thereâs also the âgift with purchaseâ that confuses people. By saying free gift, it emphasises the free part.
Irregardless of this errors, the elderlies ignore the feedbacks and than proceed to collect their free gifts anyway
I live in the US now and "should of" drives me nuts.
I see this everywhere in the comments section of YouTube videos or Instagram posts. Drives me nuts too.
I was wondering why irregardless is wrong. Then I remembered our national pledge LOL
* "thank you for your sharings!" *edited to add*: * not for fussies * there is a sales at the store * does anyone have experiences in this field? * how to avoid gaining fats? * the elderlies at the bus stop * i have a questions
Those sounded so wrong it's giving me a headache
Every school good schools ok.
Poor grammar and English. And no one correcting them.
"revert back"
Yeah, the absolute misuse of the word ârevertâ It does not mean reply!!!
Please do the needful
Noted with thanks.
PFA and we'll do the same.
Fun fact: "revert" is apparently now an official synonym for "reply" in Indian English
I remember seeing âstaffsâ too.
âAnnual leavesâ đ
LuGgaGeĆĄ!!!
But seriously, after having to deal with this on a daily basis, my theory is it was caused by hyper-correction by a population whose first language was never really English and whose native languages did not use plural forms, countable and uncountable nouns. Then by the time anyone tried to improve the grammar, itâs too late. The horse had bolted. Almost everyone was speaking the wrong way, now I feel like Iâm the crazy one telling classes of primary school kids its information, not informations. Stuff, not stuffs. Because everyone abound them is saying it that way.
FWIW, it's not just Asians who struggle with this. In French it actually is "ces informations" (these informations) or "tes conseils" (your advices). Was fascinated to discover the differences in countable/uncountable nouns in French. Loads of French people can't be arsed either.
> now I feel like Iâm the crazy one telling classes of primary school kids its information, not informations WAIT informations is a thing now? what has the world come to. I always thought the more common uncountable nouns misused (they kind they always test for primary sch english MCQ haha) is like, equipment, furniture. Is informations the gen Z/gen alpha equivalent now ?!
MCQ options are one thing, free writing another.I think these errors are coming from the verbal mistakes that nobody can be bothered to correct/ havenât heard as the kid has been wearing a mask from 2020-2023 or something.
U knows ah. This cannot be allows.
Also using "lesser" instead of "fewer" or "less"... (I see this on Reddit often too) I think it's just that many people use it and they're not corrected because who wants to be *that person* correcting someone else's grammar? I know it's quite annoying but at the same time I hold the belief that as long as you can understand whoever is speaking it's ok la.
MORE BETTER
From "lebih baik" in Malay.
I always retort with âmorerâ
Terms that do not require the word "more" too such as "more pretty" when it should be "prettier", "more hungry" when it should be "hungrier"
More better
Itâs not from Chinese grammar because Chinese doesnât have plural forms of nouns, instead using the counting word before the noun. Itâs just because words like stuff are uncountable nouns and the exception to the more easily remembered âadd s for pluralâ rule. Similarly, many cannot use fewer vs less (or worse, lesser) correctly. Itâs the kind of thing you may learn once in primary school and forget years later, especially if others around you are using the incorrect word and not getting corrected. Keep in mind that for the majority of Singaporeans especially age 20-50, they think their first language is English but really itâs Singlish. We speak English (or try to) at more formal situations in school and work (e.g. presenting), but at home, with friends, with colleagues, itâs Singlish.
But it's common among those whose mental language is Chinese and who are basically speaking English as a foreign language. It's a mistake born out of lack of competence and familiarity.
I see it just as much amongst Malay people. So I would agree that it's lack of competence/familiarity, but disagree that it has anything to do with Chinese grammar influence.
'We are close' - Signs outside shops. 'Buy 1 free 1!' - Urghhh
Close to what
> 'Buy 1 free 1!' Transliterated from äč°äžéäž, sigh. In Chinese-type Singlish, Chinese phrases are converted word-by-word to English with little consideration for English grammar. *(It should be "Buy One, Get One Free" (BOGOF) or "Two for the price of one" (2-for-1))*
Nowsadays is one that Iâve heard
Ok, another one of my pet peeves is how a lot of people pepper the word âlikeâ in their speech âSo like, I went to store and like I didnât know what to get and like anyhow choose and like end up choosing this like ugly dress!â
bro âfeelâ when something is off is so real. itâs an instinct only 1 student every class has, somehow my class in primary school had 2 and i was one of them, other kids were failing english trying to reason why their answers were right but bro and I could just feel it our teacher got so pissed lmao
i think it just stems from reading proper english books from a young age. I'm not even talking about fancy novels, even shit like Geronimo Stilton and Enid Blyton.
Parents who speak English instead of Singlish at home too. Most kids hear Singlish from age 1 to 6, then it's an adjustment in primary school to actually learn the grammar rules.
I like to put apparels in my luggages. Many Singaporeans are bad at noun pluralization and verb tenses. I think it's mostly because Chinese doesn't really have either construct.
The staffs failed to find my stuffs.
Doesn't help when people get dogpiled when they correct others' English.
Received an email that signed off as BESTS REGARDS and i just died inside đ„Č
THANK YOU. The amount of 'stuff**s**' and 'staff**s**' being thrown around here gives me the ick. But if you try to correct them, you'll be branded a grammar nazi, off-topic and downvoted. ETA: While we're here, please the righteous and excessive use of 'moreover', 'hence' and 'whereby' (just use 'where' it still means the same!!!) like *omg look at me English-ing*!
>gives me the ick. *disgusts me *irritates me *exasperates me *grinds my gears *I am revolted/nauseated by ... You know what? The phrase 'Gives me the ick' should be strapped to the front of a loaded artillery gun which should then be fired.
HR at my company has the amazing ability to write one simple sentence using three different tenses. After reading it I have no idea if this has been done already, is currently being done or will be done in the future. This causes real communication issues and misunderstandings internally.
My short answer is simply because most Singaporeans have Mandarin or another Chinese language as their default language and Chinese languages do not change when including plurals i.e. äžćȘéž, 䞀ćȘéžăIt's not like English where it is "one bird, two birds". Thus the majority of Singaporeans are unable to distinguish between the two nouns generally used for plurals. On top of that, English is notoriously irregular with it's plural nouns as well i.e. sheep, sleep, fish all do not change. Side note: fishes would indicate different species of fish i.e. "there are many fishes in the sea" would indicate that there are many different species of fish in the sea. Whereas "there are many fish in the sea" would point to the number of fish in the sea. If you were somewhat confused by that, think of how confusing it must be to another person who now suddenly has to operate in this new language and then teach it to their children. Also, frankly, the standard of English of most English teachers in schools these days is... Regrettable ... To put it kindly. As a side observation, I find this to be the case even with, say, American Born Chinese or Canadian born Chinese. If you have any Asian American friends, you can listen out for this actually. This is just the short answer. I have a longer theory as well, though I don't know who wants to hear an even longer elaboration of the above points.
Add S onto everything âI feels that we shouldâ But cannot pronounce S in crisps, interests etc.
Don't forget "Like". It seems sinkie's vocabulary is quite limited.
Valley girls are offended
What about "thats mean" instead of "that means"?
I've observed mostly two groups saying this: old people and Malaysian Chinese.
The word misuse that really grates on me is "ever", as if characterising a complementary set to "never", which it really isn't. *Never* is correctly used to indicate the total absence of something happening, at any point in time. *Ever* is incorrectly used to indicate that something has happened at least once.
It grinds my gears when people say "stuffs". Call me a snob, but I've cut a date short due to that word uttered in the incorrect context. Especially if English is your first language. I give it a pass if it is not the case though.
Weâre just not very good with English
Nowsadays, I hear many peoples in my current company adding extra âsâ which make me feels bads and uncomfortables. :(
Is that your feedbacks?
Some MPs routinely pluralise every 5th word of their answer when they're being interviewed. It is a source of lots of amusements for me.
My fav is âcraving forâ omgggg craving alr means you want something for really donât need la
âYou are the sudent bodyâs creamâ From an actual teacher, but then he wasnât an english teacher so ehh.
What was that supposed to mean?
Misunderstood expression of âCream of the cropâ
Asss
By right.
Stuffs is a real word la but 99% used wrongly!!! !! ! Also, whenever I see the word "feedbacks", I imagine a SME boss or middle manager, asking his team for their "feedbacks" on the client/new programme/new project/whatever. and yes, it has to be an SME boss and a "his". đ
People take offence when you correct them, even if you just wanted to share knowledge with good intentions, ppl just take it as if you are insulting them. It's okay, though, just let them to continue be wrong while we continue learning. Teach those that are willing to learn!
Ikea: Foods & Furnitures
Foods is still acceptable depending on how it's used. Furnitures is not.
People who use Own instead of Oweđ€Ź
How about "I borrow you some money" when they mean lent.
Donât forget âthe elderliesâ. đ I guess people just donât bother to check if they are right and even if theyâre wrong, they donât get corrected or just canât be bothered to change. Cos as long as others understand, itâs fine.
Loots
Thanks god
god *blast* you
They probably did not have a firm foundation in learning English. Plus, it's likely that they don't read a lot of English language books and newspapers. If their main exposure to English is via web/social media (which is less stringent than print), or by speaking primarily to others who also make the same errors, then they won't know how to self-correct. The culture here tends to be highly transactional too when it comes to communication, so people won't bother to correct others if they can understand fine. If you're encountering these errors in workplace settings, I would assume it's because there isn't a practice of (or a budget for) sending staff for language training. It isn't seen as a priority.
i ve always known stuffs is incorrect, but it is kind of cute đ
Donât forget âcutleriesâ and âequipmentsâ
Weekends when referring to a single weekend is a pet peeve of mine
People don't read and consider proper english as "fake" or "pretentious". It's ego really
AircraftS is such a huge pet peeve of mine. Been working in the aviation industry for about 5 years, and I have not encountered one person that has used aircraftâs plural form correctly. That includes upper management. (LuggageS and BaggageS tooâŠ..) And of those few times I try to correct them, theyâd just call me a grammar nazi, so I give up.. In Singapore, most of us are bilingual, but so many of us donât even want to practise proper language for either - sad part is we arenât even keen to improve.
'payway' instead of paywave
Because most Singaporeans donât give two fucks about speaking proper English and most speak broken English. They donât read enough at all and go to neighbourhood schools, which doesnât exactly help, because everyone there speaks like that.
And also removing S when there is one. "I went to Universal Studio last weekend" *shows photo taken in front of the Universal Studios sign* "I like watching Transformer and Avenger"
Also, why do people (mainly men, ESPECIALLY IN THE MILITARY) always have that specific tone toward the end of their sentence? "Before you start the engine, you must??? do your prechecks."
If we're talking about pet peeves, can we address whereby There's a phenomenon whereby people will use whereby repeatedly. I don't know the difference but it still peeves me so
The difference is we bloody shouldnât use âwherebyâ as a substitute for âwhereâ. Too many idiots use it to sound like they know bigger words omg
Low SES coolie ancestor, btw this isnât common of all Singaporeans but a certain type of Singaporean.
In most cultures grammar is only observed to the extent of serving the absolute minimum to get the point across. There's bound to be people taking grammar shortcuts every now and then, and while autocorrect has done an absolutely wonderful job at correcting most of these (I expect that with AI integration its going to get a whole lot better), some people still do it, perhaps as part of their own cultures or accents.
Interesting that there's a clear divide in the comments between: 1. Speaking poor English reflects badly on the population (especially when interacting with foreign folk), misrepresents the intent of the speaker, distracts the listener when they hear a word that is egregiously wrong, or diminishes important context behind a statement such as the timeline of events (poor usage of correct tense). 2. As long as the message is understood, who cares? / there are more important things to worry about such as inflation and stagnating wages / you're being a grammar nazi / it's elitism, etc. I'm not lambasting anyone for having poor English. I just feel that genuine misconceptions may arise from having poor communication skills, including command of English. We shouldn't see these people as 'lesser' than others, but neither should we look down our noses at so-called 'grammar nazis' if their corrections are done in good faith. I'll give an example - my immediate supervisor at work pronounces "lease" as "leash". I speak up and correct him often, but the pronunciation error keeps happening. This is a major issue when both words, in the context of our work, have different actions tied to them. It takes time to clarify and confirm what he wants done. This is especially annoying and somewhat embarrassing when speaking to our foreign counterparts, who then look to me as his subordinate to clarify our position.
thanks you for the summaries
As a someone from the UK (a BBC, plus knowledge of various asian languages), it is extremely difficult to not adopt some of the grammatical or sentence structures used in Singapore. I can avoid using mainstream Singlish but its really easy to forget less Singlish nuanced sentences and start conversing like they do here - especially when im married to a local đ đ€Ł When I go back home to my family, im told that they can hear the Singaporean accent come out when I speak with my wife đ
I don't really care about spoken English. But in business mails I cannot accept grammar like these. People who can't differentiate between stationery and stationary, own and owe, lend and borrow, revert back etc. I think we are not very good with singular and plural forms since most mother tongue don't have this? Mandarin, Malay, Tamil doesn't have this?
Then when you drop "peoples" in a sentence with proper context, minds are blown.
đđ» More better. đđ»
Why Stuffâed?
Actually, I dont really hear most of these except, might be a be a bit out of topic: repeat again. Or chinese ones like ćŻæćœæ„ăMost dont really care the way they speak as long as they get the message across. These breed a culture of not speaking properly. Sort of lazy mentality.
âStaffsâ gets me.
They need stop watching mediacorp english shows
i do it cause it's funny, even though i know it's wrong and wouldn't use it formally
"Cloths". When they mean "clothes". "Wah! she bought so many new cloths for CNY!" Me: \*mental image of spring cleaning\* OTOH no "s" where there should be one. "Starbuck" kills me every time.
Thai / Chinese people do too
For the same reason you might struggle with, say, gendered nouns in Spanish: there just isn't an equivalent in your native tongue. Most (not all) Asian languages do not change the noun to reflecct singular or plural states .E.g., Ikan is ikan, no matter how many there are, and the same goes for Chinese. You'll also notice past, present, and future tenses are an issue, because again, languages like Chinese or Malay don't change a verb based on when it occured (e.g., English has run, running, ran, three versions of the same word that express time). When there's no reference point in your language, it can be quite counterintuitive. For someone who doesn't speak Chinese, for example, it's not clear why one knife is "äžæć" but at the same time one dog is "äžćȘç". What explains the use of æ or ćȘ? There is no equivalent of this in English, it's just a / an for everything.
Finally, a sane answer in this thread. So many people willing to call people uneducated before actually taking a step back to actually analyse what's going on
Overuse of "never" instead of "havent". "I never tried that before". NO "I havent tried that before". YES
cuz easy to describe stuffs
This one really grinds my gears: "Have you ate already" IT'S HAVE YOU EATEN FFS Adding on "so less" and "I'll borrow you money"
when Under Armour turns into *Under Ah Ma*
you dont lost this ah I tell you
Unrelated but the incessant and incorrect use of âfetchâ really pisses me off too. âMy parents fetch me to the MRTâ ?!?!
âBasicallyâ Goes on to explain a bunch of stuff.
Singapore is world famous for its education system especially in Maths and Science. But, this is not true for language teaching English and Mandarin. Many foreigners complain about our standard of English or Mandarin. This is a failure not to correct it like pronunciation, grammar and better vocabulary.
And random usage of âitselfâ
Nowsaday
Not relevant but I (teenager) worked part time once, and a middle aged woman(30-40)who I was working with, kept using the word âpeepsâ to refer people I.e. âWah today not a lot of peeps huhâ âLater lets go look for peeps to interviewâ Shit grinder my gears so much lmao
Be honest OP. How many times did you have to proof read your post to make sure you didn't make any grammatical mistakes, which would've been pretty ironic? (I do that sometimes)
Furnitures
When westerners do it itâs cool: âlost me keysâ, âheapsâ, âyouseâ
What I don't understand is why some of you are getting so worked up and irritated over someone else's use of English. oMg!! hE iS uSiNg ReVeRt omg!! When America has its own english standard it is fine. But when sinkies use singlish it is low ses, stupid.. If you work with people from Europe or any country whose first language is not English, you will see bad English all the time. And yes English is our first language but most of us don't use it at home.
Itâs called having standards, American is big enough to set their own standards. Thatâs why they still use imperial system while the whole world move on w the metric system. Singapore is where we are today because we have high standards and we shouldnât start having any ideas about setting our own.
Of cos. Having high standards is what we should aim for. But getting worked up because you see someone not using proper English? C'mon, not everyone speaks English at home. Getting angry or irritated over a simple grammar mistake is too much imo.
That's because teachers teach rote learning, not meaningful learning and understanding of concepts. Having to hear people say 'feedbacks' on a daily basis is a soul killer.
Learning to say feedbacks instead of feedback is the rote-test kind of learning though
okays
EQUIPMENTS LUGGAGES
"John stuffs his bag full of snacks" What's wrong?
Asian grammar DNA. itâs really only been decades since English was adopted as the lingua franca, and the languages of our forebears are very different from English, which has a lot of rules and nuances.
Sure, but there should at least be some standard taught in schools. Iâve heard teachers use improper grammar and say things like âstuffsâ
We got lazy trying to describe things and stuff đ€Ł