An overview of the Post

An overview of the Post

There was a duplication of your news item on "City agency
planning to lower car parking levy" in The Jakarta Post of Oct.
6, 2000. This news report was printed side by side and shouldn't
have missed your attention.

A similar duplication was noticed in the Oct. 9 edition on
pages 10 and 12 on Singapore's new airport terminal designed for
A3XX.

In your reporting, you have also been consistent in "inking"
rather than "signing" the treaties. "Kick off" and not "start" a
meeting is another expression often found in the Post. One thing
is for sure -- you would never "lose" but only "loose". It was
not in my dictionary that these two words have the same meaning.

Your editors, at times, do have a sense of humor. Last month,
there was a catchy headline reading Rats overrun Kuching. For a
second, I wondered how could it be possible for rats to overrun
cats. The news underneath clarified that Kuching, a city in
Borneo, Malaysia, was notorious for its rat problems. I was
curios to know if the authorities were attempting to deal with
the rodents or were they aiming at corruption, collusion and
nepotism in the administration. Of course, there weren't any
mention about the latter.

There was another headline in the Post, some days ago, which
read South Korea won.... I was expecting to read about some
sporting event but it turned out to be a comparison between the
South Korean currency and the Philippine peso. Certainly, South
Korea seem to have "won" the race in recovering from the monetary
crisis faster than any other country in the region.

However, I was unable to "digest" South Korea celebrating,
last week, their 4333rd anniversary of their National Foundation
Day. I haven't heard of any country in the world, including the
oldest living civilizations of China and India, being that exact
about their official national anniversary.

Some time back, one of the articles in the Post mentioned a
"programmatical weakness". It was utterly problematical for us
to decipher what this phrase meant. See how people escape
responsibility by confusing others.

Euphemisms are defined in the dictionary as gentler or evasive
expressions for unpleasant one. For instance, "handicapped" is
more kindly to the ears than "crippled". Pensioners are now
called "senior citizens", certainly a respectable term. However,
euphemisms can also be great cover-ups e.g. "downsizing" for
"dismissals", "deficit" for "over-spending", "the down-trodden"
for "the poor" etc.

In my previous employment, I used to prepare memos for the
marketing division to be forwarded to the finance division for
issuing credit notes for uncollectable debts. In one instance, I
had suggested, with enough justification, that a certain amount
might be written off. The finance division came down heavily,
saying: "How come marketing assumed authority to suggest write-
offs?"

I realized that "write-off" was a taboo word in financial
parlance and promptly withdrew the memo. One week later, I
forwarded a reworded version stating that the amount may be
"absorbed" by the company. This time, the finance division was
gracious enough to accept the credit note. The debt was duly
written off later.

Well, that was the time I learnt my first lesson on how to
make a "soft landing" in official correspondence. I must admit
that I didn't know then that the word "euphemism" existed in
English to describe blunt terms mildly.

D. CHANDRAMOULI

Jakarta