English Editing Required

By dave on December 13, 2006 12:26 PM | Permalink

From Today's SCMP:

English editing required

While in Happy Valley the other night I noticed a police road sign that read: "Do not across here". A few days before, Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping became a laughing stock when he said in a published speech that "most people in Hong Kong live in buildings" and "we laid the seeds".

There is no excuse for such ridiculous mistakes. The government needs to show all English materials to a team of competent editors before they are published or posted as signs. There are quite a few of them employed with taxpayers' money in the Information Services Department.

FENG CHI-SHUN, Ho Man Tin

Unfortunately, what happens is that the good old Chinese concept of 'Face' intervenes in the editing process and screws things up. To say that a senior person can't write proper English would cause that senior person to lose face, and therefore nothing is done.

Unsolicited Bulk Email (spam), commercial solicitations, SEO related items, link exchange requests, and abuse are not welcome here and will result in complaints to your ISP.
email the webmaster
Any email to the above address may be made public at the sole discretion of the recipient.