"Your tickets are now sent for procession. . ."

"The system cannot one . . ."

If I were not a Singaporean, I could scarcely imagine how these sentences could have made any sense. But I am a Singaporean, and frighteningly, I understood exactly what the customer service operator meant. You see, I was booking the air tickets through Zuji for Grace and myself to return to Singapore for the Christmas holidays. As Zuji was only the travel agent, they could not confirm and issue the tickets, and had to send them to the airline to 'process'. Which explained the fact that my tickets were sent for 'procession'. I then asked to be waitlisted on other flights, but of course, "the system cannot one . . . "

As a graduate economics teacher, I would sometimes be given exam marking assignments. Recently, I marked a batch of exam scripts from the Far East. I could always tell if a script was from Singapore (or perhaps Malaysia). Some of the sentences went,

" . . This equilibrium got price competition, that equilibrium don't have but got quantity competition . . . "

" . . By right cannot, but by left 'can' . . . . "

Yes, the student who wrote the second one even put 'can' in inverted commas to emphasise the fact 'can' did not really mean that it was acceptable. As I read through some of the scripts, they felt like some Ah Bengs talking economics in a neighbourhood coffeeshop. It was in truth too grating even for a Singaporean marker.

How did Singaporeans end up with English like this? I am not a linguistic or anthropology expert and hence do not know the answer. But as far as I can remember, we have always spoken in this manner. As the Speak Good English debate and campaign rage on, I like many Singaporeans, am also torn between the need to speak good English and the romantic desire to preserve the local (my) identity.