English Editing Required

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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.

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This page contains a single entry by dave published on December 13, 2006 12:26 PM.

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