QBB, we make good ghee

Thursday, November 23, 2006

In keeping with my new and unfair moniker of Queen Bitch, I have decided to bitch.

It was surprisingly difficult to settle on something to bitch about. But after discarding fat people (too politically incorrect), smelly people (ditto), stupid people (sekali people say I elitist), and irritating people (there isn't enough time in the world), I have narrowed it down to: people who are immigrant speakers of English.

Let me explain.

There are people who obviously can't string together a grammatical sentence, and then there are those who aren't strictly ungrammatical, but are puzzlingly dissonant. As I've been struggling to describe to fellow bitches, some people seem to speak like a storybook. The phrases are correct, but somehow, something is strangely off about the whole conversation. They can speak in complete sentences and still sound unnatural. These people are easy to identify but impossible to fault because, well, nothing is really wrong with what they say, except that they're not truly native to the language.

Somewhat more readily pinned down are people who, in an attempt to sound more intelligent and articulate, have clearly deliberately learned choice words to substitute for simpler and often better expressions.

These people say:

yours truly when they mean me or I, as in: "Please sign this application form and give it to yours truly"

yourself when they mean you, as in: "Will yourself also be applying for this credit card?"

be it when they mean either, as in: "You can call this number if you lose your card, be it here or overseas"

whom when they mean who as in: "This card is for people whom are big spenders"

whereby when they need any kind of conjunction, as in: "You can apply for this other card whereby you will get discounts at these places" or "I tripped on this banana skin whereby I fell down and hit my head so I can't speak English properly".

Okay I have to stop bitching now so I can go and play WoW before I kena bitched.

 posted by zyn :: 8:53 PM :: 3 Comments :: permalink


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