Broadsides on Backsides

This morning we interviewed an applicant for one of our departments in this office. Her lack of knowledge in the job that she has applied for irked us, but her poor command of English irritated me even more. I would have easily forgiven her had she come from the country’s rural backyard, but coming from a reputable school in Kuala Lumpur, with great looking degree from a reputable University (and I mean UNIVERSITY, not one of those institutes that were upgraded so Malaysia could have more universities) I found that nauseating. So, when I purposely provoked her just to see what makes her tick, her English turned into something horrible:

“Why you make me hard, man? This is hard, man! I doesn’t know everything. How I’m going to look for day-to-day chow? Please, man!”

A hard-on on a Friday morning.

Talking about Malaysia’s backyard, we found a page on Facebook that was (and probably still is) being run by a BACKSIDE.

This is an airline’s Facebook page announcing that it had won an award for the best advertisement for the year 2009. Facebook is becoming a very important social networking tool, and as such, many companies are using Facebook as a marketing tool to disseminate information on offers, achievements etc. Mind you, what you post will make a global-level impact. Therefore, the way you write things for the company will tell people worldwide if the company’s employees are professional or otherwise. At first, the writer posted an image of the said advertisement in his/her attempt to make the page have a somewhat daedal layout but the posting is riddled with grammatical errors and repetitions such as the word ‘INITIAL’ which can be found on the first two paragraphs. That, coupled with the inappropriate use of the word ‘DISTURBING’ shows how this person has very limited comprehension of the language, possibly through lack of reading.

There were some comments that touched on the issue but the writer never seemed to understand the implication of bad advertorials. What is more DISTURBING is the fact that it never went through a proof-reading process prior to being published. Maybe the Editor just INITIALed the thing and let it through…which makes two BACKSIDES at least that are working in the Corporate Communications department of that airline.

I’m sure some of you would remember the above advertorial by one of those colleges that were upgraded to the status of a university. This was posted in this blog some two years ago (SeaDemon’s This The Language English). It is the kind of language that makes you wonder the standard of English that is being taught to our children nowadays. I am not saying that my command of the English language is good, let alone that it’s excellent, but I would think that I have better command than most of the English language teachers that we have here in this country. I have seen the kind of language used by English teachers in Malaysia on their Facebook page, and I find it far from being amusing. Even they think that STUCKED is the past-tense of STUCK, and that some intangible things cannot be quantified – which concept, in my opinion, can be easily grasped had the teacher(s) read more.

Well, I’m sure the odium resulting from this post will come sooner or later from those who think that they fall into the category of BACKSIDES mentioned above, but at least it will keep me amused being STUCKED in this office on a Friday morning.

If only they know what the word ODIUM means…