The Singlish Controversy by Professor Lionel Wee: Chapter 3

This chapter is fun for casual readers because it has more stories.

In the first part of the chapter, Professor Wee shows the relationship the Singapore government has with academic experts.

It's fair to call it a relationship based on convenience.

Lee Kwan Yew was Singapore's first Prime Minister and many credit him for being the architect of Singapore's rapid development into a first-world economy. As such, his views are highly respected and taken very seriously.

Shortly after coming to power in the 1960s, Mr Lee realised that "the Chinese, Indians, Ceylonese and Eurasians progress at a faster rate" and there was a risk that the Malay community would be left behind. He worried that if he didn't do anything to correct the problem, he would "have a Harlem", in the sense that the Malays would become a marginalised community which would fall into bad habits such as rampant drug abuse and gang violence.

What did he do? He was aware that as a politician, he couldn't possibly have all the answers, so he read up extensively on sociology and anthropology to try to find a solution. Stumbling upon the works of Judith Djamour and Bryan Parkinson, who pointed out the cultural differences between the Malay and Chinese communities, it dawned upon Mr Lee that he had to ensure that the various ethnicities in Singapore had ample opportunities to interact with one another. This was the way to prevent the formation of racial enclaves.

This is the behind-the-scenes story of how some Singapore schemes that have to do with racial harmony came to be. Perhaps the most famous example is the ethnic integration policy in public housing. In every block of flats, there cannot be too many residents from any particular ethnic group, as there are strict quotas enforced by the Housing and Development Board (HDB). This prevents people from one ethnic group from predominating in an area.

Another example is the use of English as an official language and a compulsory first language in schools. Being neutral, it was not the native language of any of the ethnic groups, so it served as a bridge to bring them all together. Using English, people from different ethnic groups can communicate with one another. This allows them to interact and gain mutual understanding and respect for one another's culture.

In this case, Mr Lee was happy to use the expertise of academics. His English language policy was a result of this. But in other cases, he has notoriously shot down the advice given to him by academics, due to his stubborn streak and refusal to believe anyone other than himself.

For example, a linguist from the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in 2009 called for the government to relax a ban on Chinese dialects that had been introduced many years prior. The reason for the ban was because Mr Lee wanted Chinese Singaporeans to be fluent in Mandarin and not dialects, so that they could communicate with the Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese and reap the economic rewards from a rapidly booming China market.

Mr Lee was not amused by the linguist's suggestion. He felt that if people spoke dialects, they will have less time to speak Mandarin, and their Mandarin proficiency will suffer. So he directed his secretary to write this response: "Using one language more frequently means less time for other languages. Hence, the more languages a person learns, the greater the difficulties of retaining them at a high level of fluency... It would be stupid for any Singapore agency or NTU to advocate the learning of dialects, which must be at the expense of English and Mandarin." In his memoirs, he said he "thought it was a daft call" for the linguist to make.

He was less resistant to expert advice when the expert doing the advising was his daughter, though. Dr Lee Wei Ling is a neurologist. One day, she revealed to her father that it is not possible for a human brain to be equally good at two languages. Previously, he had thought that it was possible for a human brain to learn two languages at the same level, but not more, which was why he banned dialects for fear that people's brains will be overcrowded. He even went as far as to tell a group of parents at an event in 1978: "But let me reassure all parents: your child has a brain bigger than the biggest computer man has ever built. Whilst the world’s biggest computer cannot handle two languages, most human beings can, especially if they are taught when young... the fact is that your child has a brain which can use two languages, whilst the computer as yet cannot."

But in later years, he went on record to admit his mistake, saying in 2004: "But now I believe it’s only possible for the exceptionally able and the very determined... If you spend half-and-half of your capacity on two languages, it’s likely you won’t master either."

In 2009, he credited his daughter with enlightening him: "Nobody can master two languages at the same level. If (you think) you can, you’re deceiving yourself. My daughter is a neurologist, and late in my life she told me language ability and intelligence are two different things."

Coming back to Singlish, let's include a story by Goh Chok Tong, Mr Lee's successor as Prime Minister. The Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) was started during his reign.

Explaining the need for SGEM, Mr Goh told of a golfing trip he had taken to Zimbabwe some years earlier. His native caddy, according to him, spoke "excellent English". When his strokes were going off target, the caddy asked: "Would you permit me to test your putter?" In Singapore, Mr Goh quipped, a caddy would have said: "Can try your putter or not?" After the game, the Zimbabwean caddy asked: "Would you have some used balls to spare me?" Mr Goh was so impressed with the caddy's English that he gave the caddy many balls, including some brand-new ones. According to Mr Goh, a Singaporean caddy making the same request would have produced a less impressive version of the question and said: "Got old balls give me can or not?"

Mr Goh added that the Zimbabwean caddy had not completed his education and the English he learned was picked up from working with white Zimbabwean golfers.

There's a problem with Mr Goh's justification. He failed to take into account the phenomenon of style-shifting. Most people can speak more than one variety of language. We choose which variety to use in a particular setting based on context. This is known as style-shifting.

For example, the Zimbabwean caddy may have used "excellent English" with Mr Goh, but he probably used a different kind of English when out with friends. It would likely have been some mixture of English and African language influences, and Mr Goh would've found it difficult to comprehend.

Similarly, a Singaporean caddy would be highly unlikely to say "Got old balls give me can or not?" on the job, contrary to Mr Goh's belief, because he would know that that's not an appropriate manner of speech to use on a golf course where the clientele consists of high-class people.

Style-shifting is a sociolinguistic concept and it would require a sociolinguistics expert to point it out to the government. But even though SGEM has consulted with linguists in the past, including Professor Wee, the people running SGEM are not government ministers. They don't make decisions, only execute them. So the people who really need to hear from the experts, namely government ministers who decide that "Singlish is bad", don't get direct input from these experts. On their part, the experts have no open channel through which to explain concepts like style-shifting to the ministers. So they don't get to put their touch on policies, and policies may end up being theoretically unsound.

That's not to say that experts are infallible. A few are bad eggs who may spout nonsense just because they want to be famous. And all are humans who are part of the society they live in. This means they will never truly be neutral or objective. They probably favour one position or another due to personal reasons.

The way to work with and make use of experts is to take their views into serious consideration when making decisions. Don't take their words as gospel, but don't discard them either. And don't only listen to expert opinions that validate your pre-existing notions. That defeats the purpose of bringing in third-party advice.

The second half of the chapter is dedicated to the concept of linguistic chutzpah.

Linguistic chutzpah

Chutzpah means "supreme self-confidence, nerve, gall, audacity or even insolence", according to Professor Wee. He explains that applied to language, linguistic chutzpah means being confident in the way we use language and being able to explain why we use language the way we do.

For example, Singaporean radio announcers tend to adopt American accents on air. If they have linguistic chutzpah, they will be able to tell us why they adopt American accents on air.

Linguistic chutzpah is an important concept in the context of English use in Singapore because there seems to be a lot of anxiety among Singaporeans as to what constitutes "acceptable" English. This shows that linguistic chutzpah is lacking in Singapore.

Two stories illustrate this.

The first revolves around the Singapore town of Woodleigh. A new train station was about to be opened in the town when the Land Transport Authority (LTA) suddenly became insecure about the way "Woodleigh" should be pronounced: "wood-lay" or "wood-lee". It needed to choose the "correct" one because a minister was going to officially open the station and was going to have to refer to the name.

LTA wanted Professor Wee to tell them which of the two pronunciations was the right one. He didn't. He said it should be up to the residents in the area to decide, maybe through a survey.

The second incident is quite similar. The state broadcaster Mediacorp had a television show called We Are Singaporeans in which contestants were quizzed on their knowledge of all things related to Singapore. After a contestant had given their answer to a question, the host would ask them to "double confirm" their answer, which would lock the answer in. Mediacorp fretted that "double confirm" was a Singlish expression and asked Professor Wee if it was acceptable in "standard" English.

Professor Wee pointed out that in the Singapore context, "double confirm" is totally acceptable and given that the show was about Singapore and Singapore culture, there's no reason why it should be deemed inappropriate. But in the end, Mediacorp decided to change "double confirm" to "confirm confirm", which isn't actually any better.

In both cases, the organisations that asked for Professor Wee's input demonstrated great anxiety about matters pertaining to English, suggesting that they lacked linguistic chutzpah. They could have shown linguistic chutzpah if, after making their respective decisions and irrespective of what these decisions were, they had come out publicly to explain why they had done what they did. For example, Mediacorp could have issued a statement with the announcement that they would use "confirm confirm" instead of "double confirm" and the rationale behind the move. Whatever the decision, some people would have complained anyway, but at least Mediacorp would have had the opportunity to explain itself rather than remaining silent.

We shall round up this chapter with a look at the "evil twin" to SGEM, the Speak Good Singlish Movement (SGSM).

Speak Good Singlish Movement

SGSM appeared in 2010 just after SGEM underwent a rejuvenation and revival. It directly opposes SGEM, actively promoting the use of Singlish by giving tips on how to speak it, and debunking claims made by the government and SGEM about why Singlish is bad.

The people behind SGSM are anonymous, but it's likely that they are highly educated, with knowledge of linguistic, literary, and cultural matters.

SGSM has adopted a rather combative tone. For example, when SGEM started encouraging people to paste stickers with the "correct" versions of everyday expressions on signs in public places that contained Singlish, the banner of SGSM's Facebook page showed a sticker with "It's not proper English" cancelled out and "Go and die lah!" written over it. "Go and die lah!" is a strong Singlish expression that is roughly equivalent to "Get lost!" or "Go away!"

This combativeness is a demonstration of linguistic chutzpah on the part of SGSM's founders. They are supremely confident in their pro-Singlish position. But notably, this confidence is backed up by an ability to articulate arguments against the government's anti-Singlish rhetoric. Let's now take a look at how SGSM counters the government's claims against Singlish.

First, the government claims that if Singaporeans use Singlish outside the school setting, they will be confused about what is "good" and "bad" English even if they are taught "standard" English in school. This is known as the interference argument: when a person learns more than one language at the same time, there is a danger of the languages mixing together in the person's mind, leading to the person becoming confused and speaking "bad" versions of the languages. In the case of Singlish and "standard" English, Singlish features might seep into and contaminate Singaporeans' knowledge of "standard" English, resulting in them speaking "bad" English.

But SGSM points out that the government's use of the interference argument runs contrary to the bilingual education policy in which Singapore students must learn English and a mother tongue. If the government truly believes the interference argument, they should be concerned that it would apply to English and mother tongue languages too. In other words, assuming the interference argument holds true, the government should not enact the bilingual education policy because it will result in Singaporeans speaking "bad" English and "bad" mother tongues.

Empirically, the interference argument has been falsified by multiple studies.

Second, the government tends to use the term "Singlish" to refer to "bad" English, but SGSM insists there's a difference between "bad" English and Singlish. It says the government can't distinguish the two because there are "no individuals with language expertise" such as linguists, writers, novelists, or poets in the government. It adds that because of this, the government is unable to recognise the merits of Singlish such as its value as a marker of Singaporean culture and identity, and has decided to bulldoze ahead with efforts to eradicate the local variety. But grassroots support for Singlish remains strong and these efforts are doomed to fail.

Third, the government warns that Singlish may ghettoise those who speak it. This means that Singlish speakers may be regarded by outsiders as low-class, poorly educated, unintelligent, and uncouth. Anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise, however. The film Singapore Dreaming was banned from local airwaves due to excessive use of Singlish but won awards at international film festivals, suggesting that outsiders know how to appreciate Singlish. SGSM observes that Singlish "is spoken by professionals and other successful individuals, who are capable of switching between Singlish and standard English, as and when the situation demands it, or to frame particular interactions as humorous".

In this chapter, we have seen that many people are involved in the Singlish debate, from linguistics experts to authority figures, people working in the media industry, and even laypersons with the passion to start a movement for the cause they believe in.

The next chapter continues the discussion with an examination of the topic of voice. We will see who exactly are the people talking about Singlish, and whether or not there are people whose perspectives and interests are not being represented in the debate.

The Singlish Controversy by Professor Lionel Wee: Chapter 2

This chapter explains the phenomenon of ideology pooling and relates it to the context of the debate over Singlish.

Ideology... what??

Let's think of the simplest kind of debate. There is an issue being discussed, and two opposing camps. It seems odd to say that the two camps actually agree on certain things during a debate. After all, what makes a debate a debate is that there is disagreement over the issue. But in most public debates, there is a set of assumptions that both sides share, and these assumptions usually go unquestioned and are taken for granted as obvious truth. That's the idea of ideology pooling.

For example, when Halimah Yacob became President of Singapore after an uncontested election which had been reserved for Malay candidates, there was much public debate over her right to be called a Malay given that her father is Indian while her mother is Malay. Detractors pointed out that she is not "pure" Malay so she should not have been allowed to run in the election, while others who defended her insisted that she is "Malay enough". The debate was framed as revolving around the "dividing lines" between the Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Others (CMIO) racial categories: in the case of someone with mixed parentage, which category does this person fall into?

In Singapore, citizens are slotted into one of these four categories. It has been this way for as long as anyone can remember. So Singaporeans take it for granted that race can only be defined by the CMIO model. But race is practised differently elsewhere. Countries in the West are experimenting with elective race, in which people can self-identify as belonging to a particular race. The CMIO model is not the be-all and end-all of race. But it is seen in that way by Singaporeans discussing race, regardless of their stand on the particular issue being discussed. This sets boundaries on the course of debates. If Singaporeans accounted for the possibility of elective race, for example, the debate over the legitimacy of Halimah's presidential bid will look very different from what it is today.

Ideology pooling is not a bad or good thing. It's just something we need to keep in mind when debating issues. We need to ask ourselves: Are there any truths we are holding to be self-evident? If so, are these "truths" really true?

In the case of the Singlish controversy, some of the "truths" are based on faulty logic or false "facts". They also prevent the debate from progressing. Indeed, the points for and against Singlish that are brought up today are the same ones that were brought up when the debate first erupted twenty-odd years ago.

Now, we will look at these shared assumptions one-by-one.

Assumption 1: It's possible to use only Singlish for entire interactions

Can you hold an entire conversation, let's say chatting with your friend for fifteen minutes, using only Singlish? Meaning, you must not switch into "standard" English a single time.

Both pro- and anti-Singlish camps seem to think it's possible to do something like that. The government, through its anti-Singlish messages, has painted the picture of a speaker who speaks Singlish and nothing else, because he is incapable of switching into "standard" English. According to the government, there are such people in Singapore. They use this as a justification to criticise the more well-educated Singaporeans who still use Singlish occasionally despite being able to use "standard" English. By creating an environment in which Singlish is present and accepted, these better-off speakers are hurting their Singlish-only counterparts because these Singlish-only speakers will not have a chance to learn and practise "standard/good" English. They will be cursed with being only able to speak Singlish forever, and won't be able to reap the economic benefits that come with a command of "proper" English, such as higher-paid jobs.

Defenders of Singlish don't question the existence of speakers who only can speak Singlish. Instead, they say that the pro-Singlish movement is morally superior because they are encouraging these Singlish-only speakers to speak up despite not using "proper" English, unlike the government which is putting these people down. Another common argument this camp uses is that Singaporeans know when to use Singlish and when not to. They would probably use Singlish when in the company of only fellow Singaporeans, and "standard" English when foreigners are present. Note that for this argument to hold water, there has to be a clearly defined dividing line between Singlish and "standard" English, so that speakers can switch from one to the other. It's as if Singlish and "standard" English are totally different languages.

When languages are distinct, they are easier to differentiate. But Singlish and "standard" English are not distinct. This is because Singlish is not fully developed as a language of its own. Its grammar is not different enough from English, so it can be very hard to tell if certain utterances are made in Singlish or English. On a larger scale, it is almost impossible to imagine a scenario where Singlish is used as the sole language in an interaction. At some point, it is likely that a sentence or two will appear to follow the grammatical rules of English. For example, the sentence "I will be there" is grammatical in English and has no alternative in Singlish, so a Singlish speaker will also say "I will be there" in the appropriate context and when he does so, he can be said to be speaking "standard" English. So it's not true that Singlish can be used as the only language for an entire interaction.

One more example: the government body in charge of regulating the media in Singapore forbids the use of Chinese dialects and Singlish on local television. The former has been easy to enforce, because Chinese dialects like Hokkien, Cantonese, and Teochew are fully developed languages and it is easy to recognise them. When the television operator buys shows from Hong Kong, Taiwan, or elsewhere which use these dialects, it simply dubs over them with Mandarin, an approved language. Sometimes the television news will interview people who use these dialects, and their responses will be similarly dubbed. But the latter rule has proven to be a slippery one to enforce. There's no such thing as a movie or show made entirely in Singlish. Rather, there are English shows and movies that contain Singlish utterances here and there. And even then, it's hard to pin down what exactly is a Singlish utterance that requires dubbing into "proper" English. If a character says "You love Suzy, meh?", is dubbing really called for given that "You love Suzy?" is the grammatical equivalent in English and the only thing that makes the first utterance Singlish is the inclusion of "meh"?

Assumption 2: Singlish = bad English

Singlish and "standard" English tend to be mentioned in the same breath, which only serves to highlight the contrast between them. English that is "correct" is "standard" English, and anything that is not "standard" English is automatically "wrong". Singlish is not "standard" English, so it is wrong.

Obviously, the government gleefully exploits this to attack Singlish. Equating Singlish with "improper" English, then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong in 1999 lamented that the popular television character Phua Chu Kang's use of Singlish was affecting schoolchildren's ability to learn "proper" English because it was fashionable to throw around Singlish catchphrases like "Don't pray pray" ("pray" is the Singaporean pronunciation of "play"; the phrase means something along the lines of "don't take this lightly") from the show rather than express themselves in "standard" English.

In defence, vocal Singlish supporter Colin Goh wrote that having children who don't speak "standard" English is a global occurrence and Singlish has nothing to do with it. He added that he had nothing against learning "standard" English because he agreed that "mastering the rules of grammar is both empowering and enjoyable". By saying these things, he is accepting that Singlish is not "good" English and has no rules of grammar that need to be mastered.

Linguistically speaking, it's difficult to parse out what are features of Singlish and what is simply "broken" English. But the very act of contrasting the two is a deliberate ploy. The anti-Singlish camp uses it as an offensive weapon, arguing that Singlish is a poison that destroys "good" English in Singapore so it must be wiped out before it does irreparable harm. The pro-Singlish camp uses it more like a badge of honour, as it unites Singaporeans from all walks of life. Educated Singaporeans are proud to deliberately use Singlish as it signals that they stand together with their less-educated counterparts. Both sides find it useful to return to this assumption again and again, which is why it persists.

Assumption 3: The Singlish issue is significant to the nation as a whole

The Singapore government is somewhat (in)famous for its "crisis mentality", in which it inflates the issues it deems important so much that it reaches a fever pitch in the national agenda. They don't do this because they are panicky people. They do it on purpose to frighten the population into doing what the government tells them to do. One of the ministers once said: "And one of the things we can do to get a little further down the road a little faster is to raise the specter of total disaster as the alternative... Within this context, sooner or later they [the citizens] will change."

Singlish is a victim of this tactic. As explained before, the government has portrayed Singlish as a threat to Singaporeans' ability to speak "standard" English. The government goes on to paint a startling picture: if Singaporeans can't speak "standard" English, they won't be understood by the rest of the world. The rest of the world won't do business with Singapore, and Singapore will become a poor country. In this way, the Singlish issue gets elevated to the level of national importance, as it concerns the economic well-being of the country.

Singlish supporters also see Singlish as a matter of national importance, but in a different sense. They portray Singlish as an important marker of the "Singaporean identity", warning that erasing it would damage Singapore's cultural heritage. Pointing out that Singlish grew from the mixing of port labourers from many countries in Singapore's early days, pro-Singlish commentators say that Singlish's unglamourous nature is to be embraced because it represents who Singaporeans truly are: people descended from these migrant workers whose lives really were difficult and dirty. This is something "standard" English can never do, because it has no link to the early migrants.

These three shared assumptions appear many times in claims made by both sides over the years. Let's now look at two claims in which we can see these assumptions being used.

Claim 1: Singlish has no value

One of the goals of the Speak Good English Movement (SGEM), especially in the first few years of its existence, was to stamp out Singlish. This was because the government worried that Singlish would affect Singaporeans' ability to speak "standard" English per Assumption 2, which would in turn spell the economic downfall of the country per Assumption 3. As Goh Chok Tong put it, Singlish is something "the rest of the world will find quaint but incomprehensible".

But despite its best efforts, SGEM has not managed to get rid of Singlish. Realising that it had set for itself an impossible task, SGEM now adopts a softer stance on Singlish. In recent publications teaching people "good" English, it refrains from mentioning Singlish at all. This is in stark contrast to what it used to produce. A 2003 lesson by SGEM featuring a British expatriate named Jane includes the line: "First impressions are very important. In her first few hours in Singapore, Jane has heard mostly Singlish, and she’s clearly not impressed..."

As a whole, the government flips between being strongly anti-Singlish and reluctantly accepting of it depending on circumstances. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) touts Singlish in its promotional materials for tourists, calling it Singapore's "own brand of English" as "fondly referred to" by Singaporeans. See how this violates the assumption that Singlish and English are two different things, per Assumption 1. STB goes on to say: "With our multi-racial background, it’s not surprising that ‘Singlish’ borrows from the many different languages spoken in Singapore." It is this very same multi-racial background that supporters of Singlish argue Singlish represents, per Assumption 3. It suits STB's agenda to be positive towards Singlish and use it as a selling point in attracting visitors, so Singlish does indeed have value, even in the ever-pragmatic economic sense of raking in tourism dollars. We will encounter this concept again in Chapter 5, which discusses how Singlish is like a commodity.

Singlish having no value is the government's justification for using SGEM to try to destroy Singlish, but this is a problematic claim that even the government itself through STB seems not fully committed to.

Claim 2: Singlish is not elitist

Singlish supporters like Singlish because its unglamourous nature supposedly represents Singapore's heritage as the descendants of humble port labourers, per Assumption 3. They portray Singlish as the everyman's language that all Singaporeans use, whether they are rich or poor, educated or not.

But this is not borne out by how Singlish is actually used, especially by the supporters themselves. Singlish is often used in a purposeful and playful manner by people with an excellent command of language, and its features are usually exaggerated for dramatic or comedic effect. Take for example this sentence: "It’s si beh condemn that as Chinese peepur, our standard of Chinese am not as powderful as our Engrand." (It's very bad that even though we are Chinese, our standard of Chinese is not as good as our standard of English.) This sentence is quite distorted even if we apply Singlish norms. The phrase "si beh" is used to intensify adjectives, such as "si beh siong" meaning "extremely stressful", but here it is used to intensify the verb "condemn". The words "powderful" and "Engrand" replace "powerful" and "English" respectively in what is meant to be caricatures of Singaporean pronunciation, but it's highly doubtful that real Singaporeans speak that way. The only instance of accurate representation of Singaporean speech is the spelling of "people" as "peepur", because documented research evidence does show that Singaporeans routinely drop the ending consonant sounds in words. Also notable is that per Assumption 1, not the entire sentence is "ungrammatical" English: pronunciation aside, the tract "that as Chinese peepur, our standard of Chinese" conforms to the rules of "standard" English.

A related observation is that many of the strongest advocates for Singlish are highly educated, often in the artistic, cultural, and literary fields. The aforementioned Colin Goh has a Master's degree in law. They are coming from the perspective of elites, so there is a problem when they try to make the claim that Singlish is not elitist because their views do not represent the views of the non-elite in society, such as those who, due to lack of educational opportunities, don't have a good enough grasp of language to use Singlish in the same playful way that the elites do.

We will see this idea again in Chapter 4, when we will take a closer look at who the parties are in the Singlish debate.

For now, let's end off with an amusing, if mildly disturbing, anecdote of how language experts, including linguists like Professor Wee, tend to be treated with dismissal and disdain when they try to give their inputs to public debates about language.

A linguist was on a panel of experts at a public forum. Someone asked her if the standard of English in Singapore was declining. She replied that it's not a simple question to answer, because tracking the standard of a particular language over time is tricky. The ways in which people use language are ever-changing, so what may have been unacceptable use of a particular language years ago may now be acceptable and vice versa, making it difficult to develop a fair test of language standards that can account for such generational variations.

This is a textbook response to a deceptively simple question. Unfortunately, the audience wasn't looking for textbook responses. They wanted an expert opinion that validated the conclusion that they had already arrived at on their own: that English standards in Singapore were indeed slipping. The linguist's answer didn't satisfy them and an elderly man stood up to let her know this in no uncertain terms.

"When I speak, even the university’s president has to listen to me!" he began, to impress upon her what an influencer he was and how much weight his view carried with the powers-that-be. Then he berated her for not reaching the same judgement as the audience.

Sadly, this reflects the role that language experts are confined to in public discussions about language. One side seeks input from a language expert, and the expert's views which align with that side's agenda are used to prop up that side's argument by lending it an air of credibility. At the same time, the expert's views which don't align with that side's agenda are discarded. Worse, if the expert disagrees entirely with that side, the expert risks being denigrated, possibly in humiliating fashion.

In the next chapter, we return to this topic of language experts.