Monday, April 21, 2008

From Singlish to Poor English?


Made a rush to PS during lunch hour to purchase some groceries and get a quick lunch. Just could not resist the temptation of the shoe shop as I walked past...

Hmm...perhaps my woman's intuition was telling me that there are some New Arrivals at the shop. True enough, I tried on a pair of low-heeled court shoes and decided to purchase it in less than 5 minutes!!!

Well, call this impulse shopping but it was definitely not the good service which concluded the sale. On the contrary, I was rather affected by the salesgirl's (or rather woman's) poor command of spoken English:

Me: Can I try Size 38?
Sales: 38 ah? If cannot, can try bigger size. I got 39 also.

*Roll eyes*

Me: Size 38 is a bit loose for me. Does this shoe expand after some time?
Sales: No la, this one not so easy expand.

I started to wonder whether the sales lady was from overseas as she did not sound local. Sigh, not that I do not welcome foreign immigrants but this is really worrying...What will happen in the next 10 years when there is an influx of overseas immigrants working in Singapore? I can forsee a drop in our standard of conversational English...

When I finally decided to grab a burger from Mos, had a similar encounter.

Counter: Miss ah, you want upgrade your flies (fries)?
Me: No thanks.

After 5 minutes, the lady came to me:

Counter: Sorry for waiting...Enjoy your meal...
Me:????

(**Why should I be sorry for waiting?)

OMG, are we facing a shortage in service staff or the expectations of service staff has dropped??? Aren't they supposed to be trained (to speak in proper English) before they provide front-line service? Is Singapore's standard of English going downhill?


I started to get worried about the next younger generation, born and breed in Singapore...

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