Just Bad English
I am adding a new catagory today called Just Bad English.
No, I am not going to troll your blogs looking for grammar mistakes or misspellings or unusual use of English. I have noticed that I am blogging in English, and that many of the Kuwaiti bloggers are blogging in their second language – that is tough enough without the Language Police lurking in the background, and that’s not my point, nor my interest.
If, however, you are writing for a newspaper, you are held to a higher standard, even if English is not your native tongue.
So tell me, in this article from the Arab Times Kuwait Crime News, how many people were arrested? What were they arrested for?
Meanwhile, a team of securitymen has launched a surprise inspection campaign in Ahmadi resulting in the arrest of two Kuwaitis wanted by law for various criminal charges and 105 jobless expatriates. The arrested individuals were referred to the concerned authorities.
I have another complaint. In the Kuwait Times, we often read of the police “suspecting” a car and pulling it over, or
“suspecting” some individuals and chasing them.
We don’t use “suspecting” that way.
There is suspicious behavior. People are suspected OF something – you can’t just look at a car and “suspect” it, you have to suspect it OF something – erratic driving? What made the police suspicious?
examples of good usage:
Police suspected him of being under the influence of drugs, and pulled him over.
He looked nervous, and police suspected him of being an illegal resident, so they asked to see his papers.
Police received a tip that a brothel was operating in Farwaniya, and based on that suspicion, raided the apartment, breaking down two iron doors in the process which gave the occupants enough time to escape through a hidden hatch in the back of the apartment.
A sharp eyes policeman spotted the car, which appeared to be one stolen a few nights previously. Suspicious that the driver was not the legal owner, they stopped him and interrogated him, and demanded to see his registration and residency papers.
(I made up all the above. Any resemblance to a case you may know is purely coincidental.)
I have also noticed that almost every suspect gives up his drug accomplices, pimp, fellow thieves, smugglers and drug stash after interrogation. I suspect Kuwait police have some extensive experience in encouraging these confessions. Most of these confessions seem to result in other valid arrests. Sometimes, I can believe, these confessions are made by people who are very very afraid. On the other hand, sometimes a confession elicited by fear of a lot of pain might be totally false.
How do you know the difference? What if someone experiences a lot of pain and confesses to a crime they did NOT commit? This means that an innocent man suffers and the one who committed the crime skates. This happens in every country in the world. (That is just a rant, not a language criticism, just a general question in my mind; how do we protect the innocent?)
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There was a headline once that said “Girl Found Missing” was she found after being missing? or did they discover that she was missing? I never really knew!
I’m not sure how interrogations are done by officers here, but quite a lot of them do seem to be faked or forced upon. A lot of such reports are also supported by photographs(for proof); if they are caught red handed.
English is my second language too, but I studied in an English School 🙂
Elihaj – LLOOOLLLL! You are right, I see things like that all the time!
Joel – I can read Arabic – like individual letters, and sound them out. But when I put it all together, the vocabulary and grammar may be way beyond me. What scares me is a suspect being forced to sign a confession when he/she doesn’t really know what the confession is saying.
I am so impressed with the level of English I find in most of the blogs. 🙂
i get embarrassed for them…i apologize on their behalf.
No Mrm, no. I won’t accept an apology, not from you, not unless you wrote that article! The English language newspapers need a higher level of editorial oversight, that’s all. At least the Kuwait Times seems to have redlined “red handed” for the time being. For a while, you might see it four or five times in the crime columns – on the same day! All the criminals were caught “red handed” although once, a couple was caught in an “uncompromising position!” I’ve always wondered what position that was, LLLOOOLLLLLLLL!
I second the notion of trolling grammatical error and wish to have my blog as a pilot project 🙂
On a serious note, they arrested 107 law breakers, two of them were Kuwaitis with court orders and 105 illegal expatriates with expired permits or non-related job permits!!!
I don’t know what’s confusing there?
I liked the “I suspect” example in your paragraph before the last, it felt like an instructor testing me implicitly if I have understood the concept fully by using the rule in the context. I actually stopped there to make sure that there to double check it based on your illustration 🙂
Ah, but Touche’, are you sure those 2 Kuwaitis were not also responsible for those 105 illegal residents? From the way it is written, we can’t be sure!
NO BLOG trolling for grammar or spelling, and especially not for punctuation (I can’t afford it! I make mistakes all the time!) But newspapers, advertisements, commercials, etc – all fair game, because they are supposed to be correct when they come to the public.
Did you see the article in yesterday’s paper about all the Kuwait interrogators threatening to go on strike because they want offices, and their own secretaries, and not to have to come in at night, etc? And they don’t want to interrogate traffic suspects or illegal resident suspects?
You are right, it isn’t clear if you look at it from that perspective.
Well, I had to eliminate that possibility and never having it crossing my mind because it’s a rule of thumb that it never happens that someone gets arrested for merchandising with working permits.
I didn’t read it, as I gave up on reading newspapers long time ago. A newspaper is all about reading the obituaries and some of the columns and that’s it.
Are those interrogators who are now residing aluminum offices on the top of Justice Palace? I read an article about it almost a year ago, I think they said that there is a project to construct a new building for them and have it done by 2010 if I’m not mistaken.
Touche’ – please, please, Touche’, don’t give up. You are one of the young Kuwait people who give me hope for the future of Kuwait. Hang in there. (Have you taken a look at the circus we call an election in the USA this year? Lord Have MERCY!)
I didn’t see the previous article. Many times we only get part of the story, and I can’t help it, I am so curious. Thank you for helping put together a couple more pieces of the puzzle for me about the interrogators! Now I think of them roasting on top of a building!
hi,
was really interesting the part related to newspapers, articles floundering there with the ‘english part’. ofcourse im not a ‘native english speaker’, but somehow ve been used to reading proper soudn english, atleast that is what one would expect in newspapers. the pleasure of reading is marred by such instances.
youve been at this, blogging, for a while i guess. just starting out, and hope to enjoy the process. peep in sometime, wouldnt mind some insights. 🙂