Speak English – when Lions Club becomes Animal Society

New Straits Times today carried a cheeky editorial but a good letter.

The bombast of the cheeky editorial “Order in the House” was necessary to hide the ignorance of the leader-writer about the topic. It is definitely not the best example of English writing, both for style and substance.

In simple English, the NST editorial argues that the setting up of a “department of Parliament” is a “relatively trifling matter” and berated me for having gone “surely just a tad over the top” in opposing it as “a serious assault on the doctrine of separation of powers”.

I have no time to enumerate the verbosity and vacuity of the editorial - suffice for the moment to make two points:

Firstly, if the controversy over the “department of Parliament” headed by a Director-General (Ketua Pengarah) is “a trifling matter”, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz would not have feigned back-down twice, reducing the “department” to an “office” and today to a “post”.

Secondly, the NST leader writer should undergo further education to understand the meaning of the doctrine of separation of powers before trying to pass judgment on the subject. The NST was blind the first time the doctrine came under grave and grievous attack in 1988 which saw the sacking of Lord President Tun Salleh Abas and two Supreme Court judges Datuk George Seah and Tan Sri Wan Sulaiman.

It is asking too much to expect the NST to recognize the serious assault on the doctrine of separation of powers on Parliament represented by the arbitrary executive imposition of a “department of Parliament” on MPs when the mainstream national daily could be blind to the unprecedented assault on the doctrine of separation of powers on the Judiciary in 1988 which triggered off a series of other crisis of the justice system for more than a decade – from which Malaysia has yet to fully recover to restore public and international confidence in a truly independent judiciary and a just rule of law.

Advice to the NST leader-writer – don’t write on subjects you are ignorant about or where you have the information but not the guts to speak the truth.

NST has a good letter on its “Letters to the Editor” section on the evils of SMS texting entitled “Proper English usage under threat’ by Noel S. D’Oliveiro of Ipoh. It presents a well-argued and cogent case against the debasement of the great English language “into some moronic machine code by this mind-numbing new form of communication”.

Though not directly pertinent, I am reminded of a recent story told to me on the use and abuse of the English language.

At a local Lions Club dinner function somewhere in the country, the VIP guest, a deputy minister still in service, rose to thank the host with the opening remarks: “The Hon’ble Chairman and officials of this Animal Society ….”

I leave the rest to your imagination. Is this anecdote true or apocryphal. If you were present at this rare occasion, let us know who was the deputy minister, which Lions Club, what was the dinner occasion, where and when the function was held. Most important of all, what actually transpired.

May be, we can share other “Speak/Use English” howlers which Malaysians can claim to be truly indigenous.