Central Agency for Good English - a potential letter to the forum

[reposting here – just taking the piss!]

I’m feeling inspired by some ridiculous suggestions to the forum page lately - such as banning camping at East Coast Park - and have thought of a silly suggestion of my own.

Since parliament is thinking of setting up a central procurement agency - seriously, have the people who came up with this idea ever procured stuff before? - I think it’s also time for the government to set up a “Central Agency for Good English” as well.

This suggestion arises from the many annoying and embarrassing errors that I see everyday, from the most recent “mock-up sample” plastered all over the train stations to the perennial “please revert”.

I therefore propose that the government provides an English guidance service. This is a natural extension of its “Speak Good English” campaign and will extend the promotion of the usage of accurate English to include the written form.

The central agency could have a pool of officers - selected through stringent criteria - to dish out advice, answer questions and provide proof-reading services to all government agencies. These services will also be extended to all organisations and members of the public for a small fee.

While the agency will no doubt incur a loss by providing these services, I believe that the country’s vast coffers are being applied towards a laudable goal. If Singapore intends to maintain its competitiveness in the world today, it will have to do much more in educating its people in what is good English.

The Oxford Comma

Remember all the times in school when you were told that you shouldn’t put a comma before “and”?

That comma is called an Oxford comma, and, despite its name, is acceptable in American English.

While I’ve been trained not to use it, I find that it is useful in breaking up a written sentence to imitate how one would read it, and it has therefore crept into my writing – as you can see above.

The comma is especially useful when listing things, as illustrated in the first example below:

It should be pointed out, however, that the creator’s argument for the result of omitting the Oxford comma is incorrect, as the example sentence is grammatically wrong – as we all know, an “and” must come before the last item in the list.

Thus, for that example to be grammatically sound, it should read “I had eggs and toast and orange juice” – which in itself is confusing. Hence it would be better to say “I had eggs and toast with orange juice”.

Nonetheless, I am wholly of the opinion that Oxford commas are useful – just not weak/incorrect arguments for it. The Oxford comma reduces confusion when used in a complex sentence, and alerts the reader to when a pause in reading and in thought should be made.

I’m glad to have seen this though, as it got my brain working for a while :)