In light of the flurry of self-professed language police nick picking on every pronunciation and spelling, I agree with Professor Kirpal Singh that we need to address the more fundamental problem of language competency. It is sad that the Speak Good English Campaign has been reduced to superficially parroting what is regarded as the standard format rather than gaining a more meaningful grasp of the text and context of the language. In the process, we risk confusing a whole generation of especially younger Singaporeans bombarded with a cacophony of both local and overseas accents. It would be inevitable an English teacher would be asked by an innocent student why yah lah is any less legitimate that Yo! Man. And, by the religious emphasis on merely the linguistic correctness, we also risk alienating them from cultivating a deeper appreciation of the English language which is reduced to a set of sentence structures.

Hence, as suggested by Professor Singh, it is vital that we should not neglect the socio-cultural dynamics of the English language. Unlike the need to understand our cultural roots in the mother tongue polices, the emphasis on English seems only to be placed more on technical competencies in terms of being able to read instruction manuals and to be understood by foreigners. Although it is the first language of instruction in schools, it plays only the role of the language of commerce, leaving many devoid of a more comprehensive grounding in the language.

But, at this point, I would like to caution the authorities that the mere re-introduction of literature as a compulsory subject in the format of what Professor Singh considered as "the nation's best". As a secondary school student eighteen years ago, I still remembered the horror of reading the first paragraph of Shakespeare's Macbeth and subsequently Chaucer's Cantebury's Tales alongside with Jane Austen's Persuasion in addition to the poems of Woodsworth, Coleridge and Keats. As an ordinary teenager, these tongues and words seemed to come from another word. I found instead Catherine Lim's Or else the Lighting God and Other Short Stories more relevant to the dimension I exist in.

I used to perform badly in the English language examinations even I was considered a relatively more proficient speaker in school. But, I dare claim that my grasp for the language improved significantly after reading the National Geographic and listening to the BBC. In fact, there was an incident where my English teacher failed my composition test in Secondary Three as she refused to believe that it was my own efforts.

Hence, there is little point in getting bankers to taxi drivers to speak "good English" if it becomes merely contrived attempts to mimic a certain slang or accent, with little substance behind. What is more important is to go back to the basics of fostering a more conducive literary culture. This should be measured neither by whether we have extracted the lahs and lors from our conversations nor what sort of "cheem" (a Singlish expression of complicated) high literature syllabus to baffled students. Rather, it should be a culture where Singaporeans are inclined to read more extensively beyond the entertainment magazines, write more prolifically beyond SMS messages, company reports and emails, and of course listen to programmes beyond non-stop music hits. This in turn would enable them to articulate their thoughts more substantially beyond the common expression like " I think this one is very nice" even if it were to be pronounced in the most grammatically correct manner.