Reasons behind my deep-seated abhorrence for Lingo errors
It is a second nature for me to feel upset whenever I see any linguistic errors in English and Bahasa Indonesia alike. I dunno why, I just feel upset abt them.
Of course ppl say that “Nobody is Perfect”, and as a human, I myself do commit such errors every now and then. But the difference between me and most ppl is that I always take great care to minimise such erroneousness (the word “erroneousness” does exist, just look up in your dictionary).
And I don’t observe colloquialisms as being a spelling mistake. It all depends on the context.
One day, an Indonesian friend of mine smsed me a poem so that I can grade it. It was supposed to be an “English” love poem, if not for the frequent grammatical mistakes here and there…
Here’s what I smsed her in reply:
‘For goodness sake, did u just send me a German love poem? I’m afraid I can’t comprehend a single line of it! It can hardly be called English!’
She was infuriated indeed, chided me for being so haughty having spent 2 yrs in
But I saw no logic in her fury. As aforementioned, her poem could hardly be called English! She disregarded any tenses, used direct word-by-word translation from Indon to English… If only she could ever meet Mdm Chew Kah Wai (a well-renowned ‘murderous’ English teacher in ACS), eh…
Below is the Indonesian rhythmical poem (sajak) I composed in response of that friend’s typo-filled poem... Don’t worry, I didn’t send it to her!
The reason I didn’t do so is actually out of fear of infuriating her even more, and not out of respect for her.
Hope you guys find this sajak amusing!
Dated
By Toshihiko Atsuyama
Kubaca sajak tak bermakna,
Untaian kata tak berarti
Tiada hal tuk dicerna,
Membuat tawa tanpa henti
Aku merasa terganggu
Membaca puisi tiruan lagu
Dari teman yang tanpa ragu
Tunjukkan karya sampah dengan belagu
Aduh ku bingung betapa bodohnya,
Sastra anak sekarang tak lagi kreatif
Dengan otak tumpul yang mereka punya
Tiada lagi pujangga yang arif.
