He was a total stranger to me and there were many other people at the dinner I had to talk to and so I didn't have the chance to speak more to him but what he said puzzled me throughout that evening. I know that Ludwig Tan used to have a language blog that was not only hypercritical of Singaporeans but also highly erroneous in its treatment of the English language and I have had some occasions to expose his errors in this blog. And although I would be delighted if indeed my just criticisms were the reason for the shutting down of his 'obnoxious' blog in which he used to write his scathing but unjustified excoriation of the language of Singaporeans, there can be many reasons why someone removes his blog from the internet and the reason that would warm the cockles of my heart may not be the only reason or even one of the reasons.
At the time when I first discovered Ludwig Tan's highly critical blog, I was really surprised that someone who purports to teach the English language could make so many ridiculous language mistakes. I wanted to explain in this blog why everything Tan said was wrong and why his sometimes harsh criticisms of Singaporeans were not just unwarranted but blatantly wrong. The people he criticised were linguistically correct and it was he who was wrong. But because Tan's mistakes were numerous and almost every blog post of his was riddled with shocking errors that I would not even have expected children to make, I could not address the mountain of errors in his blog. What I did was to screen-save many of his outrageous posts so that I could address them in the future.
When I got home, I looked up my album of screenshots to see if I could find any post by Ludwig Tan that criticised the writings of women writers in Singapore. What small grammatical error could he have chosen to slam? Was Tan correct in the first place? If the many language mistakes Tan makes are symptomatic of his innate inability to get his language right, there is a high chance he was grammatically wrong in his criticism of the Singaporean women writers.
Sure enough, I found precisely what the person was talking about at the dinner.
This is the cover of the book that Ludwig Tan criticised as non-standard English. When I looked at the book cover, I was at a loss to understand how anyone could find anything to criticise on a book cover that has only a few words. But believe me, Ludwig Tan will surely find something negative to criticise as long as it is written by a Singaporean.
This is what Ludwig Tan says:
This is not the first time Ludwig Tan uses the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary as the final arbiter of what English words mean. He made the same mistake in another entry in his blog which I examined here: What's wrong with Singapore's educators? In that post, I showed why Tan was wrong to conclude that 'departmental store' was a non-Standard Singlish term just because he could not find it in the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary which is a dictionary for foreign learners of English. Because of the inadequacy of such a dictionary, no respectable teacher of English should use it to ascertain if a word exists in the English language. But Ludwig Tan makes pronouncements on English based entirely on whether a word or a definition can be found in this foreign learner's dictionary. Is this the kind of teacher we want in Singapore? And he's the Dean of the School of Humanities and Behavioural Science at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.
Tan is saying that you cannot use 'writings' when the pieces of writing are not by a particular person or on a particular subject. But to be fair to the learner's dictionary that Tan uses, it does not say that. It merely says that 'writings' refer ESPECIALLY (not exclusively) to pieces of writing by a particular person or on a particular subject. In his desire to criticise any writing by a Singaporean, Tan reads 'especially' as 'exclusively'. Ludwig Tan was speaking through his anal orifice (pardon my Japanese) when he wrote:
Hence, the use of writings in the subtitle of the book is non-standard, because it refers neither to the work of a particular person nor to work on a particular subject.Let's see what other dictionaries say and I won't pick a dictionary for foreign learners. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (a 2-volume dictionary which is the most reliable after the 20-volume OED) gives this as one of the definitions of 'writings':
(usu. in pl.) the work or works of an author or group of authors.This is exactly how 'writings' is used in the book cover that Ludwig Tan criticises. It fits perfectly the definition of 'writings' in a reliable dictionary. Note also that this use of 'writings' has been around for a very long time, even before Chaucer wrote his poems.
Now, let's look at yet another reliable dictionary that is updated regularly. The Oxford Dictionary Online gives this definition for 'writings':
Books, stories, or other written works.By way of illustration, the dictionary gives the following as one of the examples of how the word may be used:
There is also a large body of published English writings by non-English authors.Notice that in this illustration, the writings are not by a particular person or on a particular subject.
Obviously, Ludwig Tan was wrong in his criticism. There is not a single mistake in the book cover of the group of Singaporean women authors. Ludwig Tan was badly mistaken, as he has always been.
What Ludwig Tan does is very harmful to budding writers in Singapore. I have also shown in this blog post, When everything a Singaporean says is always deemed to be wrong, that Ludwig Tan is very quick to find fault with anything that is said by a Singaporean even if he or she is perfectly correct while Tan will go out of his way to defend language errors made by non-Singaporeans, particularly those in the US and Britain. Slamming a book of the writings of Singapore's women authors is just something I would have expected Tan to do since nothing a Singaporean writes is ever right to him. I gave a lot of examples in that blog post.
The women authors did not deserve Ludwig Tan's erroneous criticism. As I have shown, there is nothing linguistically wrong with the cover of the book. It's Ludwig Tan who is ignorant of the rules of basic English grammar. It's Ludwig Tan who is ignorant of the different meanings of English words. If what the stranger told me at dinner is true, I ought to be given an award for shutting down Ludwig Tan's hypercritical but erroneous blog. Now, I can only hope that the SGEM will also shut down its website which dishes out nothing but error after error. We cannot afford to let ignoramuses destroy whatever literary talent Singaporeans have.
A SUMMARY OF LUDWIG TAN'S HOWLERS:
HOWLER NO. 1
LUDWIG TAN:
'Departmental store' is a non-standard Singlish term.
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY:
Nonsense! You must remember that a learner's dictionary is not comprehensive. Get a good dictionary! Click here for the full article.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOWLER NO. 2
LUDWIG TAN:
ST journalist's use of 'will' to indicate habitual situations is non-standard Singlish due to confusion with the Chinese language.
RANDOLPH QUIRK, SYDNEY GREENBAUM, GEOFFREY LEECH, JAN SVARTVIK AND EVERY SINGLE LINGUIST:
Rubbish. It's perfectly good standard English. Even children ought to know that. Click here for the full article.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOWLER NO. 3
LUDWIG TAN:
LUDWIG TAN:
'Naiveness' does not exist in English.
EVERY SINGLE RESPECTABLE ENGLISH DICTIONARY:
You really need to buy yourself a good dictionary. Click here for the full article.
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HOWLER NO. 4
'Disallow' to mean 'forbid' is non-standard Singlish.
OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY:
Wrong! Do you know how to use a dictionary? Click here for the full article.
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HOWLER NO. 5
The past perfect in 'Before I left the room, I had switched off the lights' is definitely wrong.EVERY SINGLE KNOWN GRAMMARIAN:
You really ought to go back to school. Click here for the full article.
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HOWLER NO. 6
'Lost to...' can only have one meaning and hence the Singaporean journalist is wrong.
EVERY SINGLE RESPECTABLE ENGLISH DICTIONARY:
Even a chimpanzee with a bad concussion knows Ludwig Tan is wrong. Click here for the full article.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOWLER NO. 7
The name of a Singapore cafe, Cafe Lobby, is a grammatical transgression. It should be Lobby Cafe.RIVER THAMES, PARK ROYAL, HOTEL CALIFORNIA, COUNTY DURHAM, LAKE WINDERMERE, MOUNT EVEREST, ETC:
What did you just say, silly? Click here for the full article.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOWLER NO. 8
The word 'ashes' is more appropriate for cremated bodies, not cigarettes. Hence an ad by a Singapore company that refers to ashes from a cigarette is wrong.
EVERY SANE PERSON ON THE PLANET:
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha Click here for the full article.
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But Ludwig Tan is also the Dean of the School of Humanities and Behavioural Science at the Singapore University of Social Sciences. This should be of concern to those of us who are bothered about the teaching of English in Singapore.
Have you ever wondered why Singapore seems to be so lacking in literary talent? Singaporean writers have only won regional prizes and that's mainly by default since the other countries in our region aren't even English-speaking. But we do not feature at all on the international stage. The Malaysian government has tried so hard to suppress the use of English and yet two Malaysians have already been short-listed for the Booker Prize. Why is that so? Who is to blame for this? Who is stifling our creativity? I blame it all on the SGEM and teachers who have an inherent aversion for anything Singaporean and who will find fault with anything written by a Singaporean even if it's something as short as a few words on a book cover and even when it's perfectly grammatical.
Who knows? If the SGEM had been disbanded years ago, there might very well have been a few Singaporean Booker Prize winners by now.
It would be interesting if you review "The Nuts and Bolts of English Grammar"
ReplyDeleteby Norhaida Aman and Ludwig Tan. I believe your readers would look forward to the review. :)
Hi GM, Thanks for your suggestion. I don't normally go out of my way to look for language errors. I am extremely tolerant of all forms of linguistic diversity and unlike Ludwig Tan, I don't pick on the language of tradesmen and other people who earn their bread by honest toil. But when someone (such as Ludwig Tan) castigates the average Singaporean in such rude terms as I have shown in some of my blog posts and when the Singaporean has not made any mistake, I feel compelled to take Tan to task for his erroneous criticism. That is all I'm doing in my blog.
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