"Vroom!...vroom!...," exclaimed a standard one student who literally jumped into our classroom one fine morning. He was from another classroom.
It was some time in the 60's and we were a naive bunch of 7 year old being barely a week introduced to formal education. For the past few days we were intensively brainwashed with English communication (reading, listening, pronunciation and writing). No other form or language were allowed in the classroom, except when it was the BM period or when Muslim boys were to attend Pendidikan Ugama.
The teacher was stunned and so were the rest of the students totaling 40+... "I beg your pardon..?," the teacher asked. "What do you mean by vroom, vroom...?"
Unable to explain what he meant by the exclamation, the boy blushed. But he managed to smile and made a gesture with his hands and said, "my teacher...".
The teacher understood and laugh, but the rest in the classroom were still in awe. "Say-lah you want to borrow a broom...!" the teacher said. "How would you expect us to understand anything by saying vroom!...vroom...!" and then everyone joined the laughter.
Now that may be an anecdotal joke which I can relate to -- to demonstrate how poor some of our students' grasp of the English language -- or their inability to construct a meaningful sentence in English.
But the case above may not generally represent the problem of students' English proficiency in this country, as compared to common debates on the matter as exposed by the media -- mainstream or otherwise. That example I consider an isolated case due to lots of external reason, one of which is naivety, the other poverty and another, cultural shock!
However, this write-up will not discuss the reason -- how or why some students remain unable to grasp the English language even after years of formal learning. I just wanted to relate another example of bad use of the English language and this time of all the places -- in Berita Kampus.
I found this advertisement in BK Jilid 40, Edisi 4 page 19. The small 2cm x 1 column advertisement reads "Hair Cut, muslim only, Layer Cut, Rebonding and Others - "go to room", anytime just call".
It so happens my wife wanted to have a haircut - she told me this quite some time ago. So, yesterday I showed her the ad and asked her to give the advertiser a call.
When she read the ad she asked me what it meant by "go to room". I too was confused and said maybe the advertiser meant that if you are a Muslim woman who wears the tudung and would prefer to have your haircut in a separate room, that can be arranged -- since it could be a 'bisexual' hair saloon (parodying Jason's character in his use of the term in place of 'unisex' in Yasmin Ahmad's Sepet).
As usual, she instead asked me to make the call.
When a woman's voice answered I told her my wife would like to have a haircut and asked where her place is. She said she has no location, she is mobile and carries all her equipment in the car including the gadgets and accessories to make hair rebonding. Then I passed the phone to my wife as she wanted to asked about other things including the price she is charging.
When the conversation ended, my wife asked me, why then the "go to room" and we had a good laugh!
Later we had a field day discussing about it and how the advertiser should have correctly phrased the copy-writing in a comprehensible way - should it be "personalized service" or "service to your door" or "I will come to your house" etc?
But then it dawned onto my wife that what she meant by "go to room" was that since the ad was published in a student paper so it meant she will "go to room" to cut students hair at their hostel...!
Then we had a good laugh again.
So, to make clear everybody's confusion -- in case it happens again -- I want to suggest the student/s who handled the sale of the advertisement to check with the advertiser first whether readers can really comprehend what the advertisers really wanted to tell in their advertisement.
In other words help them with the copy writing-lah!
My verdict: confused and amused!
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