Have They No Shame?



Nor proofreaders?

This is one of the most shameful, worthless pieces I have seen written in the Nation for a while.

In a country that is as far from being a meritocracy as possible, one of the most laughable examples of pure incompetence on display is in the local English language media. Those media outlets where Thais shamelessly parade their substandard English skills for all to see.

In many of these cases, I'm guessing that the fools are children of wealthy Thais, who after their time spent studying abroad, decided they were entitled and capable of writing or speaking English for a living.

The article linked to above is fraught with spelling errors, fucked up grammar and skewed syntax. A level of writing below what appears in daily newspapers from the west is to be expected but this is just plain careless, slipshod horseshit. It appears the moron who banged out the mistake-riddled load of tripe was intoxicated while writing it. The bloody fool apparently didn't even have the brains to run it through the spell-check on his computer.

I counted at least 14 errors, and that's not even including all the run-on sentences and, at times, almost nonsensical syntax. Here are a few examples:

While marketing can always be done, but as the history of Thai tourism development proves,

...either in terms of services and balance of demand and supply. (We're waiting...)

The competition in Asia for wealthy tourists have never been more intense.

He warned that if there isn't any clear policy related to management and preservation, balancing the supply-and-demand and carrying capacity of tourism destinations, improving service standard, security and HR, the rapid growth of visitors will not be appropriate for an industry that has problems accumulated over many years. (Rambling and with errors.)

And so many careless mistakes:

He cited for for example,

...he wrotes in a recent paper.

...the Hong Kong habour...

...known for his sytematic and long term thinking, (Especially amusing when a word related to competence is spelled incorrectly.)

To be fair, there are some skilled Thais who write in both English language dailies in Bangkok. Though his name escapes me, a film reviewer for the Bangkok Post regularly posts entertaining, error-free pieces with fresh insight.

However, they've got to start doing something about shit like the article cited here. The individual in question must be informed that he doesn't have what it takes. He is a disgrace to himself and the Nation. Regardless of the wealth or status of his family or however else he finagled himself into this position, he is clearly unqualified to perform.

Let the Nation know that we expect more from them.

letters@nationgroup.com