The NY Times has a really nice article on what it is like for the Korean women who go with the L.P.G.A. Tour. As per the article, there is more than survival English to worry about:
(Jang Je-ong)spoke of the pressures that come with being her family’s Chosen One. “I really appreciate what my dad is doing,” she said. “But think about it. How you’d feel if your dad retires because of you, and your mom is lonely because of you. I don’t want everything to be about me.”
The link is here.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Make me puke.
“How you’d feel if your dad retires because of you, and your mom is lonely because of you.”
Where’s the question mark?
Parents sacrificing for their kids is heartwarming and all… but one has to wonder what would happen if Korea all of a sudden had a U.S. style social security system in place.
If all parents knew that they didn’t have to ride their kids as some sort of gravy train for their retirements would they try as hard to make sure the kids became Einsteins (or Tiger Woods)?
This is one example of how poor so many American magazines and newspapers have become, including the New York Times. Business-speak and poor educational standards have eroded the English language.
I remember hearing somewhere that the New York Times Manual of Style has long prescribed periods for rhetorical questions.
I am, however, prepared to be proven wrong.
#5,
It still wouldn’t make it right.
It wasn’t intended to be a question. This fragment and the one before it should be more like, “This about how you’d feel if your dad retires because of you, and your mom is lonely because of you.” She’s asking the interviewer to think about how one would feel under similar circumstances. It’s still bad grammar, but it’s a direct quote, so I guess they couldn’t really rewrite it. Could they?
I totally feel her pain. A lot of young Asian women go through this pressure, including Asian-Americans whose parents worked themselves to the bone to get us to college. If one decides not to become a doctor or a lawyer, she pretty much has to deal with the “responsibility” of having ruined her family’s well-being. I was blessed with years of listening to my mother’s “pep-talk” about how I could use my talents and intelligence to one day land a 6-figure job, marry a wealthy educated man and finally cure her of the ovarian cancer that I had caused.
Woops, mistyped “Think about how you’d feel…” as “This about how you’d feel… .”
Financial crises and recession threaten world economies, Barack Obama may be the next president, and “Occidentalism” has been “suspended.” Are these signs that the end of the world is near?
http://www.occidentalism.org/
Sorry for the above. Wrong thread.
Alienman is right on the punctuation question. I hope you other guys aren’t teaching English for money.
I disagree “slim”. They should have put in a [sic] but they don’t even know or care about it.
the residents of the “lost 10 yrs” in Korea already started a meager social security system in Korea.
it’s already short changed and bankrupt.
taxes are lower in Korea versus US, but people spend so much more on everyday goods, and spent as high as 20% of their income on private tutoring, so their children can beat out other children in the road to higher education.
I side with alienman and Slim. Media writing has declined, but in this case, the NYT appropriately printed the quote as is. And BTW, a couple of commas are missing from your comment:
“I disagree, Slim.”
“They should have put in a [sic], but they don’t even know or care about it.”
A comma is needed between ”
Respectfully yours,
the language Nazi
That’s cool, Sonagi. I need an editor too and I feel that one should always try to improve their skills in life.
Deleting the first comment would have been better as I had hit the “post comment” button too soon, leaving that dangling phrase at the end.
“”With a little ingenuity, this gap can be bridged. For the last two years, the tour stop in Portland, Ore., has held a separate pro-am for Korean-speaking players. They are paired with Korean-speaking amateurs for 18 holes, and a meal catered by a local Korean establishment is served afterward. Everybody wins. The players gain practice interacting with strangers, and the tournament is tapping into a new fan base. This year, the Portland tournament sent out nine foursomes with South Korean pros, up from five in 2007.”"
So now, the US not only has a solemn duty to provide a forum for Korean golfers to cash in huge, we are also DISCRIMINATING against ALL other Americans who might like to play a pro-am by cutting off anyone who can’t speak Korean. AND we’re cutting off any non-Korean restaurant that might otherwise benefit from the dinner party.
Why? Because the Koreans can’t / won’t speak English. What a great world. Great.
AT the same time, an American kid can’t go play hoops in the KBL because there is a 2 foreigner limit on the roster.
I hope the tour dies a hideous death. This is institutional discrimination, and it’s occurring because Americans no longer have the balls to stand up and protect what is theirs. To all the Americans who roared in outrage over the now-dead language requirement, you get what you deserve.
#7,
I won’t argue semantics with you, but grammatically it remains a question.
Let’s say you walk out into the parking lot and see a guy and a gal dancing the charleston on the hood of your car. You shout, “What are you doing?”. What’s the normal reaction? Getting the hell out of there or answering, “We’re dancing. Do you want to join us?”. Since “What you are doing?” is, semantically, an order to stop destroying your car, should you drop the question mark?
#7,
It’s called a ‘rhetorical question’.
Rhetorical or not, it’s still not a question. Would you say, “Think about how you would feel?” Would you say, “Think about how you’d feel?”
No. She’s suggesting to the listener that they think about how they would feel. As aforementioned in no.7, “…think about it” and “how you’d feel…” are meant to be in the same sentence.
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