A police report has been filed against rookie Marine Parade GRC MP, the PAP's Tin Pei Ling, for allegedly posting a comment on her Facebook page on Cooling-off Day, when election candidates were disallowed from campaigning in any manner whatsoever.
The police are now investigating the complaint. said to have been made by a member of the public.
My posting today is not about this particular case, except to use it to comment on the use, by the various media here, of the phrase "member of the public".
Apparently, that GRC's since-defeated opposition candidate Nicole Seah (from the NSP) had approached the Elections Department about Ms Tin's alleged violation of the Cooling-off Day. But it transpired that any such complaint will have to be lodged with the police.
Now, it seems, someone -- a member of the public -- has. Both Ms Seah and NSP secretary-general Goh Meng Seng have said that no one from the NSP has done that.
Okay, I'm in my language nit-picking mode now...
Is there such a person as a "member of the public"? If you are a member of something, there must be someone or others who are not, ie, who are "non-members" of this whatever you are a member of.
Think about it. We all -- from those in the highest stations in life to the commonest folk -- are members of the public, which makes the expression totally meaningless, unless there are people out there who are NOT members of the public. So, let's banish this term!
The dictionaries provide synonyms for member of the public, from the direct and unambiguous someone/somebody to the imprecise man in the street (I'll quibble on this last expression another time!).
Moving on, I was intrigued by this headline in TODAY (17 May): "Strauss-Kahn a 'rutting chimpanzee', another victim says".
The world's media have been going to town on this story, so I won't go into its details here except to say that a French woman had come forward to describe the man who tried to sexually attack her as a "rutting chimpanzee' (un chimpanze en route in the original French version).
But I have yet to see any of the media explain what is "rutting" and why an association was made with chimpanzees.
My online check showed that the appropriate reference here is the "rut" when it means the mating season of so-called ruminant animals (hoofed animals that chew on stuff like grass) such as deer, antelope, elk, moose, sheep and goat etc. But while rutting can mean the male animal's sexual excitement, it also suggests that the rutting season involves more than one male in competition -- locking horns, for example -- with the emergence of one horny winner!
There is another meaning of "rut" -- a deep mark, hole, or groove. Hence, the idiom "to be stuck in a rut", ie, to find oneself trapped in some boring, unexciting or monotonous work routine or lifestyle. But I am sure this is not the intended meaning above!
Finally, the chimpanzee. It is a primate (like humans) and is no ruminant animal, so when the male of the species is horny/wants to mate, it can't be said to be in a rut (both meanings, if you will).
Conclusion: Show me a rutting chimpanzee, and I'll show you a member of the public.
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