Letters to the Editor, January 5, 2014

George Chen's article ("Fluency in Chinglish doesn't count as World City yardstick", December 16) carries a valid point. There's no question that many Hongkongers do not have perfect English. This is understandable, given that English is not the first language of the vast majority of Hongkongers.

Chen's tone is derisive and elitist - unnecessarily so. He nitpicks on a slight grammatical error - "Now opened" - and spends two paragraphs showing off his knowledge of grammar. All he has done, in effect, is show that he is better at English than a store manager who possibly learned most of his English at a local secondary school.

No doubt George Chen is highly educated, sharp, and probably smarter than I am. Yet I see no problem with an imperfectly-constructed sentence or two. The message has been clearly conveyed, and has achieved its purpose of informing others that the shop is, indeed, open.

In his second example, Chen (or rather, his friend) talks about how a staff member at a Hang Seng Bank branch found acceptable a sign that stated: "In avoidance of congestion, could customers please queue up?"

The sign might not have been strictly perfect grammatically, but nevertheless, I would argue that the staff member was completely correct in his assessment that: "If I can understand, I believe others will understand too".

One further possibility: the staff member knew that the sign wasn't grammatically perfect, but he was overworked and tired, and didn't see how he could reasonably induce a bank to change all of its signs to cater to the whims of one guest.