http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quip
In an earlier post, I opined that The Straits Times used an inappropriate word, "misplaced", in a court story it published. The Today newspaper used a better word, "missing" for its account of the same court case.
There is a word that journalists seem to like to use: quip (see link above).
It can mean a witty remark, perhaps said sarcastically, or is a clever response, often spontaneously, to something someone else said. But the context is important. The setting is usually social, whether friendly or otherwise. Certainly, a judge hearing a case concerning a man who killed his own daughter would not want to be said to have made a quip.
But the Today report today (9 Nov), "Killer dad gets four years more", has this longish paragraph: "Two days before she died, Nikie had also played with Sallehan's cigarettes. This led Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin... to quip to Sallehan's lawyers: 'One would have thought that a two-year-old child would be playful and curious. Why did he not place his cigarettes somewhere else? It looks like your client is in need of disciplining more than the child."
Sarcastic? Certainly. A quip? Nope.
The Straits Times did not try to be too clever. This is its version of that last remark: "If anyone needed disciplining, he [Sallehan] needed disciplining," said the judge.
Moving on, I thank "L" for sending me a list of "twisted puns", in response to my post on 7 Nov. I have in my own collection the item with the heading "Small medium at large", about a midget fortune teller who escaped from prison (L's version). But my version comes from my "naughty" collection -- here, a small-sized temple medium, having taken advantage of a young woman, has gone missing.
I might as well put here -- for the record -- a few more naughty ones; hopefully, no one is offended.
The first also has a woman who had been taken advantage of. The perpetrator is a fellow of unsound mind. The pun heading goes like this, "Nut screws and bolts".
Next, with worries about living costs (hard times?) in mind, I found this double entendre very classy: "Newly weds face mounting problems".
I'm a bit afraid to put up this one, but what the heck. This poor-sighted chap goes to the optician to get his eyes checked. He keeps getting the letters on the chart wrong. The optician finally yells out: "A you see B. F you see (sorry, you have to fill in the blank to complete this one. I'm not putting that in.)
Last one, and it is rendered here all in caps so that anyone who is still clueless stays that way: MEN RISE AT THE CRACK OF DAWN.
Switching to serious mode now...
In yesterday's post, I referred to the fluidity and uncertainty in world politics today, centred on the rise of China and the alarm this seemed to have sparked in the United States and many other countries. But I wonder how many Singaporean lay readers find the countless commentaries that have since spewed forth enlightening. The really good ones are well argued by experts who know their stuff and likely have access to good sources, stick to a theoretical perspective rather than pick and choose (mix and match) from different schools of thought, and avoid jargon or at least explain such terms if they have to be used.
What am I saying? If you don't understand what the writer is saying, don't waste your time. Put your antenna up, if say, some "expert" talks about "the security architecture of the region". What the heck is that? If an expert is writing for a lay readership, nothing should be fudged.
On this score, I found the commentary "The weary titan" by Pierre Buhler, a former French ambassador to Singapore, in today's ST (9 Nov, page A20) well written, soundly argued and lucid. It is also premised on a theoretical model, the Hegemonic Stability Theory.
If you want to see this commentary online at its original website, Google for it thus: "The weary titan" "Project Syndicate".
To find out more about the theory he used, likewise Google "Hegemonic Stability Theory".
Homework assignment? Hey, I used to teach political science at NUS.
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