Woman Hit By Killer Litter Survives

Early this year, I wrote about a woman hit by killer litter. In the article, I mentioned, "I hope that the woman was not seriously injured and the culprit would be caught soon."

Well, "Reporter Koo" (as I have been so undeservingly named by YG) has news for you. First, the good news - the woman survived. The doctors reported that her condition stabilized and she was "recovering from the treatment". (Emphasis mine. Hmm... strange way of putting it, right? Shouldn't it be "recovering from the injury" instead? Makes you wonder what kind of trauma treatment she was subjected to in Changi General Hospital. Talk about speaking good English.)

Now the bad news besides the bad English - the culprit seemed to have got away scot-free. "The fan was left in the lift lobby by families who had done some spring cleaning on that fatal day." (Don't ask me. I am still wondering how many families shared that fan and who died that day.)

The article went on to say, "It is worrying to know that there are individuals in our community who do not care that their actions can cause serious injuries and death to innocent victims." In my opinion, the offender probably is mad has a disturbed mind. But perhaps what is even more disturbing is the number of English errors in the article?

The source of the news:

And the page which I proofread (Chinese text not included):

Being a typical Singaporean, I also have another complaint constructive feedback for the Editorial Committee of the publication - why did the news come 7 months late? If not for Reporter Koo this citizen journalist, this incident would have been stale news.

And I wonder if the photo with the flower pots would still deserve a tick if the mad man comes back, throws one down and causes another fatal near-fatal accident incident.

(Apologies for the many corrections in this article which are caused by my relentless search for the most appropriate words to use.)

Tenor Singing A Different Tune

With reference to my last post about the use of the words "tenor" and "tenure" in an MAS/ABS pamphlet about home loans, I have received the following reply from MAS:

Dear Mr Koo

I refer to your email of 4 July 2007 to Stomp copied to MAS. We would like to clarify that we did not receive your earlier email.

2 We appreciate your interest in the ABS-MoneySENSE home loan guide. We used the term "loan tenor" in the guide as it is the more widely accepted term in the financial industry to describe the duration of a loan and other debt obligation. For instance, three financial dictionaries make reference to the term "tenor" instead of "tenure". The definition of "tenor" from the Barron's Dictionary of Banking Terms (third edition) is appended for your reference.

"Tenor:

(a) shorthand reference for maturity on a note or financial instrument.

(b) designates a time when a draft is payable: on sight (when presented), a given number of days after presentment, or a given number of days after the date of the draft.

(c) terms set for payment of a draft, i.e. when delivered (a sight draft) or at a future date (a time draft).

Tenure: This word is not found in the Barron's Dictionary of Banking Terms (third edition)."

3 We hope this has clarified your concerns. Thank you for your feedback.

Yours sincerely,

[Name removed to protect the innocent.]

Consumer Issues Division, MAS

[Telephone number removed to prevent MAD people from calling.]

So there you have it - the final verdict is that I was wrong and MAS was right after all. I apologise unreservedly to MAS for my ignorance and for making a joke out of the use of the word "tenor" in the pamphlet. I am very grateful to MAS for pointing out my mistake. I am so sorry for the error.

But hey, wait a minute... I googled "loan tenor" and found 809 hits on the web. However, when I googled "loan tenure", I found 18,200 hits instead, almost 22.5 times that of the former! Alright, "loan tenor" may be the "more widely accepted term in the financial industry" but it certainly doesn't appear to be so in the IT industry. Maybe those 18,200 webpages are written by lay persons and not by people in the banking industry.

Oh well, the professionals always have their own views of things. They also like to go by the book or shall I say "3 books" in this case, i.e. 3 financial dictionaries. (Ah, so that's how they got their 3 "tenors", haha.)

And they couldn't find the word "tenure" in the Barron's Dictionary Of Banking Terms? Hmm... maybe they should just junk it and look in the web instead?

The Loan That Makes You Moan And Groan

I always thought that banks are only interested in the 3M's, i.e. "Madly Making Money". I never knew that banks are actually also quite cultured because they are also passionate about another "M" word called "Music".

You see, on 15 June 2007, MoneySENSE and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) jointly launched the guide “About Home Loans – Key Questions to Ask the Bank Before Taking a Home Loan” to educate home buyers on the various types of home loans available in the market and to prompt them to ask the bank the relevant questions before committing to a home loan.

When I read the on-line guide, I was surprised to see the word "tenor" being used not once or twice but a grand total of 34 times in phrases such as

"loan tenor"

"fixed tenor"

"entire tenor"

"remaining tenor"

"tenors" (3 of them - Luciano Pavarotti/Placido Domingo/Jose Carreras?)

"shorter tenor" (Jose Carreras?)

"longer tenor" (Tough fight between Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo?)

The 34 "tenors" are also mentioned in the PDF version of the guide

I quickly checked my on-line dictionary for the meanings of the words "tenor" and "tenure":



I don't think that the two words can be used interchangeably like the American/English spellings for "flavor/flavour" or "honor/honour". The key question that I would like to ask the bank is, "How can they make a mistake like that?" While they are at it, maybe they can consider changing "base interest rate" to "bass interest rate" and "bank" to "band" as well?

Oh yes, I visited no less than 5 different banks in the past few days and all of them could not give me a hardcopy of the said pamphlet. Isn't it supposed to be freely available? Now is that yet another mistake? Or have all the pamphlets been recalled for correction of the glaring mistake?

This is certainly a loan that makes you moan and groan. And it's not only because of the high interest rate that it is charging.

No Compliments For This Advertisement

The advertisement on the left was spotted in Pg 27 of today's New Paper. Considering that the publisher of this newspaper is a very respectable company that also publishes the mainstream Straits Times, the typographical error is hard to accept, just like mistaking "cavalry" for "calvary" (or even worse, "chivalry").

Perhaps what made the error even more glaring was that the advertisement was put up by Radio 91.3 which "is managed by SPH Unionworks, a subsidiary of Singapore Press Holdings".

I don't know why but there seems to be more such errors occurring in the New Paper as compared to the Straits Times. A case of double standards perhaps?