Singaporeans launch petition against 'Chinese helicopter' in Oxford dictionary
KUALA LUMPUR: A Singaporean freelance writer and translator Goh Beng Choo, 64, on Monday launched an online petition to have the term "Chinese helicopter" removed from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Singapore's The Straits Times reported yesterday.
The term, used in the 1970s and 1980s, describes a Chinese-educated person who spoke and pronounced English poorly. It was among 19 new words added to the OED in its quarterly update in March including shiok, teh tarik, char siu, sabo, blur and sotong.
"Chinese helicopter" appears to have been derived from a mispronunciation of "Chinese-educated".
Goh, who was a bilingual journalist for The Straits Times, described the term as degrading and insulting.
OED itself defined "Chinese helicopter" as being a derogatory term for a Singaporean whose schooling was conducted in Mandarin Chinese and who has limited knowledge of English.
On Friday, Goh told The Straits Times that the term was an insult to the Chinese-educated in Singapore.
"With it in the dictionary now, it will give the impression that it is an acceptable term, when actually it is insensitive and highly derogatory," she said.
She also said she would write to and present the petition to the dictionary's editorial board after the number of supporters passes a minimum 200 mark. As of 12.40pm today, there were 347 signatures.
On the petition page, supporter Kia Boon Wong commented: "The mockery is crass and uncalled for," while ST Kum commented: "It's a totally discriminatory and derogatory term, with an intention to humiliate the then Chinese-educated."
Another supporter Chua Hui Lee, who is a teacher, said she and her colleagues will stop using OED as a reference.
Former civil servant and National Institute of Education lecturer Tan Teng Lang e-mailed OED's world English editor Danica Salazar asking for the term's removal.
In the e-mail, she said the term "had long degenerated into a label that equated Chinese-educated Singaporeans with inferior quality and low status in society. It was blatantly intended to belittle, humiliate and demean someone on the basis of his less fluent command of English".
She added: " 'Chinese helicopter' is unequivocally a painful reminder of their long and difficult struggle to find their rightful place and dignity in the Singapore society. Fortunately, by the 1980s, this highly derisive term had mostly lapsed into disuse with the closure of Chinese schools. Not many younger generation Singaporeans have heard of 'Chinese helicopter', much less understand its meaning. My friends and I are therefore shocked and saddened that an almost forgotten Singlish term now resurfaces in the OED, rubbing salt into an old wound that never healed."
Dr Salazar, when contacted by Straits Times, said that she was aware of the petition but could not comment on it. She said she had earlier stated that the process of including new words is "very exacting and rigorous".
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