Writing.

Well, i'll be lying i i'm absolutely sane, coz i'm feeling rather critical of the world at large right now (just one of my crazy moods, hope it comes to pass after i write this finish and not during - my sister is watching Malaysian Idol, and for the record i hope Nita wins - Daniel has very little talent, but lots of gushing (bluek) female fans).

Anyway, i've been noticing the way Malaysian writers are trained to write (here the word writer means anybody who can pick up a pen and put it to paper). There is such a huge gap between the natural flow of words that seem to bless those darned reviewers at magazines like, say, PC Plus - Briton edition. Or even the firmly tongue-in-cheek writing of Ross Gillen or another one of the cronies at PC Gamer (not Malaysian edition arr...)

My English teacher goes on about how we must write "As a conclusion" or "In conclusion" or "To conclude" and not stuff like "In a nut shell" at the end of every essay. Does she even know how stiff that is to the reader? It robs the composition of a peerless flow of words and, (more importantly) ideas. Things that the Malaysian Education Department absolutely advise to do (such as putting in sequence connectors (In Addition, anyone?) makes it robot like and plagues the article (such as the politically correct newpaper delivered to my house every morning, complete with typos galore and repetitive phrases) *rolls eyes*) with jerks. An example of this would be the headline:"Vegetable Dies After Motor Accident."

Now what springs to mind? A poor old man, completely unaware of his surroundings, somehow manages to zombie walk over to the road and gets himself flattened by a car? Heh. Not. The actual story is of a vegetable seller who got hit by a car on her way back from the market. Sheesh. I wouldn't want to be referred to as a vegetable if i started selling fresh produce. Would Michael Dell like to be referred to as a silicone chip? I didn't think so.

But that is acceptable, since our standard of English ain't that all good to start off with. Perhaps i'm wrong in complaining of average writing, when i should be complaining of lousy writing? Hmm... That's the problem when you're good at something. You see the flaws of other people's work a mile away, but at the same time truly appreciate the work of a genius. My sisters have officially banned me from watching soaps with them - i'll point out character discrepancies whenever a poorly written scene appears. And how i recognise lousy writing? Coz i made the same mistakes myself. Ask Paul - we were buddies in writing once upon a time.

So, in a durian shell, this article could either be just one of my useless comments, a show of my stubborn personality, or a real, heartfelt yell for a push in quality english writing.

Somehow i think its the third.