Malaysians are grading the BM in political media statements. Some confirm fail SPM

Translated from our BM sister site Soscili; click here to view original article in BM.

BM teachers across Malaysia went up in arms after reading a media statement from MUDA’s Perak wing, issued on 30th March 2022, which was panned for lack of formality and various errors in writing:

But truth be told, it’s not like this is the first time we’ve seen grammatical errors in media statements; some of the ones we’ve seen in the past would be enough for Cilibos to send out a warning letter if it was one of us doing it.

Some of these may be a bit nitpicky, but do keep in mind that media statements have to be written in a formal tone, and not like one of those short stories you used to do in school. Here are the media statements we found that contain errors (whether they be related to grammar, sentence structure, or misinformation):

1) Syed Saddiq’s media statement that scored only 29/100 marks

This here’s a throwback to 2018, when Syed Saddiq was still the Youth and Sports Minister. Netizens trolled Saddiq after he released a media statement titled ‘Regarding the issue of allowing the national U-23 football squad to take part in the 2018 Asian Games’. The reason? His media statement contained some grammatical errors, ‘unnecessary’ sentences, and ‘combative’ language.

True to their form, Malaysian meme page Tentera Troll Kebangsaan Malaysia (TTKM) made it the butt of their jokes on Facebook, giving it a 39/100 for grammar and sentence structure. They added that the entire statement could have been shortened from 7 paragraphs to just 3.

Adding salt to the wound was Harimau Malaya (Malaysia’s national team) themselves, who made themselves heard via their Facebook page, deducting even more marks and telling Syed Saddiq to replace the media officer responsible for the ‘messy’ writing:

“You even got the facts wrong. Minus 10 marks. Total: 29/100.” – Harimau Malaya Facebook page

Oof.

LOL. Rajin betul cikgu BM ini. pic.twitter.com/yJ16cyGshK

— TuanMasbro Babahmu Turoi Bongkersz (@bonqkersz) July 23, 2018

2. Azmin Ali’s media statement: getting Kedah’s name wrong… twice

On the 28th of May 2020, while Azmin Ali was holding the post of Minister of International Trade and Industry (MITI), he made plans for a work trip with Kedah’s new Chief Minister, Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor. He thus issued a media statement to publicize it.

Although it was grammatically sound, Azmin’s statement contained multiple errors in Kedah’s official state honorifics and Chief Minister’s title. Which, y’know, isn’t really a good look when you’re trying to impress the leader of said state. 3 mistakes were spotted by netizens:

Yes, as it turns out,  ‘Kedah Darul Aman’ was misnamed as ‘Kedah Darul Makmur’ (Pahang’s state honorific), while their state headquarters ‘Wisma Darul Aman’ was misspelled as ‘Kedah Darul Iman’ (Terengganu’s state honorific). So, both times they got the state name wrong.

Besides that, the title of ‘Kedah Chief Minister’ was written as ‘Kedah Minister’. Which is admittedly a bit nitpicky, but don’t forget that this is formal writing, and not a chat at your local mamak.

But after getting flamed on social media, Azmin Ali retracted his media statement. And hopefully his PR person too.

3. Media statement from Dong Zong & Jiao Zong: Multiple conjunction errors

Another throwback to pre-pandemic days, this time to 2019, when a media statement from the United Chinese School Committees’ Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong) and the United Chinese School Teachers’ Association of Malaysia (Jiao Zong) went viral for having multiple conjunction errors and repeated words within the same paragraph.

Translation of bottom text: “Such an embarrassment; 60 years living in Malaysia but failing at the national language!”

After gaining traction on Twitter, a pattern began emerging of Dong Zong getting slammed for their poor BM, such as with the following:

Malaysia dah merdeka selama 62 tahun tetapi Bahasa Melayu Dong Zong terbalik lintang pukang.. Dari korang sibuk bantah jawi, baik korang fikir camne nak perkasakan Bahasa Melayu korang. pic.twitter.com/8Yr6Tuks9U

— Hazwan Zulkifli (@HazwanZulkifli9) December 28, 2019

Translation of post: “Malaysia has been independent for 62 years, yet Dong Zong’s Bahasa Melayu is all over the place.. Instead of protesting against the Jawi script (referring to Dong Zong’s protest against the use of Jawi script in Chinese and Tamil language schools), you guys are better off figuring out how to improve your Bahasa Melayu.”

BONUS: We check a few media statements from politicians

The ones already mentioned have been covered by netizens, so we thought we’d flex our BM skills and try our hand at proofreading politicians’ media statements, cos why not?

First off, let’s look at a media statement from the head of ARMADA Nasional, Wan Ahmad Fayshal, entitled ‘The Country Needs Statesmanship, Reject Selfish Politics’. Earlier, we noticed that some netizens had in fact gone over the errors in this statement, but we couldn’t find the source, so we just decided to do it on our own.

These are our corrections:

Mistake #1: ‘Seperti yang’ (‘as previously’) used at the beginning of the paragraph twice.

Mistake #2: ‘Bersama-sama Presiden’ should only be ‘bersama Presiden’ (‘with the President’)

Mistake #3: ‘Muhyiddin Yassin’ should be ‘Mahiaddin Yassin’. No nicknames allowed.

Mistake #4: ‘Mengembleng’ should be spelled ‘menggembleng’ (to mobilize).

We also looked at a media statement from Tanah Rata MP Chiong Yoke Kong:

Mistake #1: ‘ahli parliment pembangkang’ should be capitalized.

Mistake #2: ‘di antara’ (in between) is only used to denote the concept of physical space; ‘antara’ is the correct term to denote ‘in between’ two entities.

That’s all we’ve got for now, but stay tuned for updates.

Small errors in writing can give off the wrong impression to readers

In the political context, one would at least expect such important statements to be proofread beforehand so that amateur mistakes can be avoided. Case in point: the misspelling and misnaming of Kedah’s state honorifics. Because how would you feel if someone got your name wrong not once, but three times?

Now, we don’t claim to be experts on written language, but in our experience, grammar, spelling, and factual accuracy are the bare minimum if anyone wants to avoid getting flamed on social media. I mean, remember that one time your well-planned, articulate argument got shut down by a grammar nazi who nitpicked your spelling? Yep, there is no coming back from that, no matter how good you are.

But hey, lowkey, if there’s any political parties that need any proofreaders, we’d be more than happy to take up the task for a quick buck. Don’t tell Cilibos though. #ihatecilisos