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Mon 15 Apr, 2019 12:23 am
Dr Mahathir, 93, said he has the right to speak about Johor, as it remains part of the Malaysian federation.
He was quoted by Malay Mail online news as saying last week: "I am (of) the opinion that if we assume that those who choose prime ministers and menteri besars are the monarchs, we will no longer be a democratic country.
"This is because a party that was rightfully chosen by the people, that has the power to appoint menteri besars, have had their rights denied. We would be a country with an absolute monarchy."
In the second paragraph, why is the "of" enclosed by brackets?
Thanks.
@tanguatlay,
It's a direct quotation. When people talk they sometimes miss out words. Spoken English has all sorts of other non verbal indicators to help meaning. That's not the case with written English so the newspaper sometimes adds words to make sense.
What Mahatir actually said was,
I am the opinion that if we assume that those who choose prime ministers and menteri besars are the monarchs, we will no longer be a democratic country.
That doesn't make sense, so the newspaper adds (of) to make sense and the brackets show it was added by someone else.
@tanguatlay,
It's also a way the newspaper can show that it's not an error they made and avoid complaints. Another device they use is to put (sic) after a particularly grammatically disastrous quotation to show that they're aware it's awful but they are quoting the person verbatim.
Many thanks, izzythepush.
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