In the 22 June 2006 issue of the Straits Times, I kept encountering mistakes in the English used. All were found in local stories, whereas I could see none in the foreign news, which are typically written by news agencies rather than by Straits Times' local journalists.

I ruminated at some length whether I should be highlighting them in an essay like this. The last thing I want is for Yawning Bread to sound like some language police. These mistakes that I spotted might not have been typical of the newspaper; perhaps it was just an unusually bad day. Nor do I want to sound as if I myself am perfect; I am not. I make mistakes too, though I hope, fewer than 1 in every 100 words.

And so will the Straits Times or any newspaper, for they are run by humans, after all. The only difference is that they have layers of editors and sub-editors to catch mistakes before they go out. One therefore expects high standards from them.

So what purpose does this essay serve? It is not an easy question to answer. Rather than point fingers at the Straits Times or any newspaper, I believe it can still serve a public purpose by using these examples to illustrate how pervasive are the falling standards of English, such that they are even creeping into the premier English newspaper.

So on that forgiving note, let's open our eyes to the dangers before us.

* * * * *

In the story titled, "Armed robbery suspect found dead in his cell" were these 2 paragraphs:

Chan was charged in February with attempting to shoot at a security guard at the Sun Plaza shopping mall minutes after he snatched $4,000 from a cashier at a lottery outlet there.

The bullet from his semi-automatic pistol missed security guard Rojion Shariff, 49, who then detained him.

The phrase "attempting to shoot at a security guard" is very awkward.

I would think "attempting to shoot a security guard" would have sufficed. Alternatively, "Chan was charged.... with taking a shot at a security guard."

* * * * *

Clients may go to court to recover their money, but not "to courts". This is because "going to court" is an expression about a certain process. It does not matter how many courts of justice they  eventually end up in.

It is similar to saying "I'm going carolling". It is immaterial how many carols you're going to sing, or how many stops you plan to make.

Consider this too: say you're boarding a cruise-ship that will take you to Hong Kong, then after 6 days in the city with side trips to Macau and Shenzhen, you board another ship to sail home, calling at a few islands on the way.

Would you say to your (envious) friends, "I'm going on a voyage" or "I'm going on voyages"?

* * * * *

The story, "Waiter, 4 others charged with credit card forgery" had 4 mistakes.

Their alleged scam was blown open on Sunday, when four Commercial Affairs Department officers turned up at One Rochester, searched Mak and found on him the card reader, which is about as big as a cigarette packet.

Police then moved quickly and arrested Foo at his home in St Martin's Road, where forged credit cards was found. At 6am the next day, they raided the Holland Grove View home of a second suspect and found a card encoder, encoding software and equipment used to forge credit cards. The remaining four suspects were nabbed that day.

[skip]

A DBS spokesman told The Straits Times that it had done this for its customers whose cards may have been compromised. It is believed no other bank was affected.

In the first paragraph, the phrase "as big as a cigarette packet" may strike you as odd. What was so big about it? A better solution would be "the size of a pack of cigarettes."

In the second paragraph, the mistake was in the subject-verb agreement. "... where forged credit cards was found" really screams at you. It should have been "...where forged credit cards were found."

The third paragraph was incorrect and inconsistent in its use of tense. "Had done" desperately calls for a mention of another event in the past against which it can be compared time-wise. It should have been "has done" – the present perfect tense. Or simply "did" – the simple past tense. Furthermore, "may have been compromised", to be consistent, should be "might have been compromised".

* * * * *

Next, we have a story titled, "$8.8m museum to showcase rich history of S'pore's army", also in the 22 June issue of the Straits Times.

Retired lieutenant-colonel Ee Cheng Huat will see his past on display when Singapore's first Army museum opens to the public next year.

They include a pink card that he received as part of the first batch of national service enlistees in 1967, and a red pocket-size booklet from that year laying down the code of conduct.

Ee Cheng Huat's past was in the singular, yet the second paragraph opened with "They include..."

Multimedia shows will depict the modern Army, marrying displays of SM1 tanks, 155mm guns and UH-1H helicopters, complete with the sound of whizzing shells and the smell of gunpowder.

The expression should be "marrying x with y", so when the sentence above used the word "marrying", my mind expected to see "with such and such" soon after, in order to complete the thought. Instead, it was left hanging.

The $8.8 million building, designed by the Defence Science and Technology Agency, will be built along a lake in Upper Jurong Road next to Safti Military Institute and Singapore Discovery Centre.

Built "along" a lake, or "beside" a lake?

The Navy wants a 50-50 mix of fixed and changing exhibits for the museum, which it hopes will draw 30,000 visitors a year, from local and foreign servicemen to students and military buffs.

Changing themes could range from naval battles in history to navy-inspired art; outdoor artefacts could include naval guns and missiles.

The Navy's new museum is not yet built, thus the first of the 2 paragraphs, saying "The Navy wants...." and "it hopes...." is correct.

In that case, the second paragraph should not have used "could", but "may".

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