"undetermined"

The fourth most worthless word in television is the word "undetermined" in connection with a bank robbery or other theft. One, it's not conversational. When was the last time you turned to someone and said, "The robber got away with an undetermined amount of cash"?

Two, it's not factual--or at least, it's not always factual--and it leaves the viewer with a false assumption that the amount of money missing will be determined later. Guess what, folks. Often they know exactly how much money the bandit got away with, for the simple reason that he probably has a "bait bag" with a dye bomb inside it and a well-known amount of bait cash. If they don't know, they'll find out very quickly. But believe this: They might never tell you how much cash the bandit got. There's a good reason for this: Revealing the amount of cash the bandit took is the worst form of advertising for the bank. The bandit might have escaped with a nice wad of cash. If the bank reveals the amount, it's essentially throwing out a challenge for other robbers to try to match or surpass the previous robber's haul.

Forrest Carr

Deadly Copy Sins and How to Avoid Them
Broadcast News Handbook, Third Edition

much more better

decided to go crazyyy with colours today. i've done it before but there's the purple jeans this time. dunno what got into me, ha ha.i had in my head to wear a mustard top but i couldn't think of the shoes to go with the outfit. plus, it's still nippy, so it's sockit time.

and if not for the sudden courage, i won't have found out that the left shoe's coming apart. damnnn. 

plinian

it's been a while i did cultural stuff. every evening when i passed by the national museum of singapore, on my way home on the bus, i'd check out the giant posters outside the building and tell myself i should make a certain visit and then i'd never get to it. that's what happened for some of the events i'd blogged about. boy how i despised myself everytime it happened. so today i made the concerted effort to hit the museum after work. i might've continued working or i'd simply not alight at the bus stop near the museum and head straight home and switch on the computer and surf until 3am. what's more, admission's free today. i could visit on another free-admission day but no prize for predicting the chance of that happening. 

@ nms - can you spot the mistake?

and i got someone to go with me. it's totally unplanned for. i hope she'd enjoyed herself. i tried to check out most of the exhibits but i'd need more time if i were to go through everything in detail. i think we took about an hour and a half. then we had dinner at kopitiam before we headed home.

i thanked her for her company. i asked her if she's thankful for my accompanying her. it's meant as a joke, of course. she said yes she should thank me, else it would've been just another day of  not going home but shopping for things like groceries. she mentioned the word "aimless". sounded familiar. too familiar. she did look like she was undecided about where to go when i saw her outside our office building. i thought she might be waiting for someone. i'm not usually the type to solicit for company. i've gotten used to eating alone and sometimes preferred my own company. you could say i offered the museum outing as a  'favour' towards her. i imagined she's like me, a singleton, with nowhere to go on a friday evening. no prize for guessing if my imagination turned out to be reality.

this shirt's probably about 20 years old. i used to tuck in my shirts on either the front or the back.

fave shoes of the moment

strickly

the carrot cake here was good. sampled merely 3 dim sum items thanks to the long weekend crowd.

please pardon the lack of completeness in my recent posts. maybe i might as well not say a word at all :P

can can

have you noticed that we always answer with this instead of a short yes?

i'd really love to know how Singlish was born. 

h2o

pong-pong

|so coincidental that the photos were taken a month apart|

her parents are very conscious of not using typical terms parents think up as baby language. 'pong-pong' means it's bathing time. my SIL likes to say this when she feeds the little one: "thank you Jesus for the milk-milk." it's rubbed on us we sometimes say "thank you Jesus for the food-food" at the dining table. lol.  

surprise

the deployment results were announced by the boss today. 3 months have passed since. it's really scary when you look back and recollect what have (or rather, have not) transpired. anyway, i was caught off guard when i was asked if i'd go with the change of portfolio (i didn't choose analytics in the end, btw). it took a while for me to understand that i was successful in my application. well, sorta. i did  also apply to stay put in the current post.  there were 3 contenders for the post. all eligible officers were given 3 choices. i didn't exercise the 3rd choice for a few reasons.

my application for the change was frankly half-hearted. i owed the idea to my supervisor, actually. i think she also applied to be deployed to that section but the boss decided that she should remain in her current post. no, it's not that i wished to follow where she's going (although our working relationship has been quite fine). i felt awkward as i told her about my decision to move. i think she didn't expect this outcome. nor did i.    

am i excited about it? i wish i can tell you "yes!". the truth is, i'm wondering if i'm enjoying self-sabotage too much. i just selected the modules for the next semester last night. i'd usually limit myself to 2 modules. i was tempted to pick one only. but i went for 2 in the end. there're people who do 4 modules per semester. they're abnormal. wait. i'm the abnormal one. oh i don't know anymore. i feel very small i just wanna disappear. why am i such a chicken?

speak good english

An SIA stewardess friend of mine once served a businessman in Raffles class.


His suit was impeccable; his culinary tastes refined; his manners impeccable; his Enligsh atrocious.


When asked what drink he'd like to accompany his meal, he replied, "A large cock".

Neil Humphreys
in TakeThePissOutOfGoodEnglish

when i was flying, there was a running joke against the stewardess. the stewardess would come round to ask the passengers, "would you like some snakes?"

i personally heard it for myself later on in the hotel trade. not snakes for snacks but hay for hair and com for comb. i honestly think the perpetuator might not be aware of it. it's not uncommon, really. i know of a friend (local through and through) who can't do the letter 'l' properly so that 'no problem' becomes 'no probrem'.

i'm still hoping to hear my colleagues enunciate 'children' the right way w/o my reminding them. but it's become too ingrained in them. and i don't wish to be misunderstood as being lofty about such things.

i don't speak nor write the language perfectly. i really try to look past these little things. my dear sil has difficulty getting it right no matter how often her husband and myself correct her. i missed the fuss over what Beyonce said about not being able to understand us when she was here for F1 Rocks in september. a colleague told me it's discussed on radio, on Class 95.

superial

i really don't like to rant much on things beyond my control. but it's happened 2 days in a row, and this is my space, so i shall log it in.

why can't people not speak softer when they're in a conversation, say, in public places? are they hard of hearing? or they want to show off? sorry to burst your bubble, woman. it's su-pe-ri-or, lor. not su-pe-ri-al, lor. and what's new - it's always about work. why do people do that at all? i don't get it, lor.