What a terrible pity they didn't manage to get the English right on their poster. Two words, one huge grammar blunder! ... Or are they making a statement about the shocking reading habits of Malaysians? The fair is organised by the Ministry of Education and one would have hoped that if anyone could get it right, they could.
(Caption "Duh!")
12 comments:
Aiyoyo. And is that guy really supposed to convey the impression that he's trying not to smell something bad, and is thus covering his nose with a book? Maybe the Book that Empowers also Emits Strange Odours.
Sorry.
Subashini
it's the grammar that stinks ...
i don't like 'Empowers'. sounds like a word only a bureaucrat or technocrat would use. or some unimaginative motivational speaker.
They can still save themselves by replacing the last four letters with 'rium'.
And here I thought his name was Book Empowers... :)
or maybe it's an instruction "book him". though what might one want to book mr. empowers for?
Ouch! This is atrocious. Yet unsurprising. You know those ads all over the LRT stations -- they are for Maxis or some other mobile phone company -- that go something like: "I text him. 30 seconds later he text me back." Yeah. In big, bold letters. It makes me want to weep. How HARD is it to get a proofreader?!?!?
-- Preeta
Book Mr Empowers for a hot date?
Preeta, I see those ads as I drive into my car park every morning. Drives me bonkers. But I'd like her hairdresser.
Preeta, I think its Celcom. The ads are in blue.
Which reminds me of a large blue PAS banner I saw BN party workers tearing down opposite Menara Celcom. It said "This is PAS.COM Territory".
Yes, those are the ones, Animah! There are two, right, one with the bewitchingly coiffed woman, and one with an equally attractive man (come to think of it, doesn't he look a weeeee bit like our Angkasawan?)? I can't remember exactly how the male version of the poster reads, but the woman's is "he text me back." Grrrrr. Does anyone reading this have a number for us to call and complain? If not, I swear I am going to carry a big blue marker pen on my next visit to KL and *personally* correct every single one of those posters I run across.
-- Preeta
You guys seem to forget the two words are in quotation form ... It's this chap's book. He's thinking aloud. He's in doubt of whether the book he's reading "empowers" him and the look on his face is the question mark. Or, you can read his face this way; this book I'm reading empowers me to be critical of whatever I read ... Ah, I've an advantage over most of you. I'm a visual communicator. The expression in his eyes contradicts the meaning of those words. I like it because it's subversive. Ha,ha. Rox
nice one, rox!
i understand your feelings, preeta. i get mad so often. i also get to be a grammar monster. i haul up shopkeepers and restaurant owners to have a ding-dong with them over their tenses and participles and whatnot. i have actually taken a pen to grammatically incorrect posters and am thinking of a sticker campaign where a "bad grammar" slogan is slapped over the offending words. a grammar extremist prepared to indulge in acts of textual terrorism.
it isn't that i don't love malaysian english. there are times i love to speak it too and i have actually got the oxford english dictionary compilers to include some malaysian items of vocabulary.
if you want to use "manglish" usew it, but if you want use standard english ... bloody well get the rules right!
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