Why use good English?

I remember when I was in Australia for a holiday, I asked a shopkeeper, "You sell what ah?", to which he responded, "What?" I had forgotten that I was no longer in Singapore, and that I had inadvertently talked to him in Singlish, which is essentially broken English. Seeing my mistake, I rephrased the question to "What do you sell here?", and he immediately understood my question.

As we can see from the above anecdote, speaking proper English allows for greater understanding among people, especially among different countries whose people do not share the same native language. The fact that there are over a billion people in over a hundred countries [1] who can speak English shows how widespread the language is. Thus, good English can act as a bridge between people of different cultures and backgrounds, as there is a common ground to speak on.

If we are unable to speak proper English, it would be hard for us to communicate outside of Singapore, and this can be seen from the news article, where two Chinese nationals found that they were unable to practice English with their colleagues due to their poor English. If we only keep to our different forms and dialects of English, there would be a case where Londoners would be as confused with our Singlish as we would be with their Cockney. As such, speaking good English is instrumental for the mutual understanding of people.

Furthermore, using good English not only promotes understanding, it also gives clear meaning to whatever someone wants to say. For example, there is a sign in a park in Japan which says, "It's proharted open eny drum shop in the park, with out parmation of authority" [2]. Aside from the horrible spelling, it should be quite easy to understand, with its meaning of disallowing shops which sell drums. However, translating the Japanese version of the above instruction gives a meaning closer to "Soliciting is prohibited without express permission". This vaguely phrased English could lead to misunderstandings, most likely among tourists or other people who do not know Japanese. From this, we can see that if a proper English translation was used, the clarity of the instruction would be greatly improved, and its ambiguity would be removed. This is thus another main reason for using good English.

However, there are people who think that getting the gist of any message is the most important thing, and it does not matter whether the English used is grammatically correct. Furthermore, even highly educated ministers can slip up and use broken English, with a case in point being Mr Lim Swee Say, who in a speech about the CPF (Central Provident Fund) used a number of "lahs", "ahs", and "yahs" [3], with these expressions being characteristic of Singlish. This shows that this form of broken English is deeply rooted into our culture, and it is pointless to try and speak good English, since old habits do die hard and people in Singapore already understand each other with Singlish. Despite this, understanding between the same nationality or race is simply not enough in this globalised and internationalised world.

Since my somewhat embarrassing mistake in Australia, I now use different forms of English depending on the situation. When talking with friends, using Singlish is fine as we understand each other, but I have learnt to be able to code switch and use proper English when the need arises, such as in formal situations. This way, as many people as possible will be able to understand me.

(589 words)

Sources:
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=English_language&oldid=310149322
[2]http://www.engrish.com//wp-content/uploads/2008/07/araha-park1.jpg
[3]http://wayangparty.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/how-the-world-and-singapore-leaders-respond-to-the-global-financial-crisis/