I am not a fan of Apple but I believe Spring Singapore chairman Philip Yeo has gone overboard with those tactless remarks about customers of Apple's Appstore.It was a brilliant marketing strategy by the publisher of the highly successful ‘For Dummies’ books to refer to its customers as “dummies”. It works well for the publisher and these self-help books contain useful and non-intimidating information for beginners. Every book even has a subtitle that says - “A Reference for the Rest of Us” – to highlight the book is not literally meant for dummies.
Mr Yeo may get away with using “dummies” in the same context as in those self-help books but adding boorish term like “gullible customers” and implying that many of them were wasting their money on “all sorts of useless applications” is uncalled for.
Minister Ng Eng Hen gave the ‘wrong impression’ on the mother tongue issue and he apologized. Mr Yeo gave the ‘wrong impression’ too but all we got was an English lesson on the difference between idiots and dummies.
When a senior civil servant is so reluctant to admit to a simple faux pas, it may have many unexpected ramifications for the civil service and the Government.
I guess a book on ‘Etiquette for Dummies’ would be useful in this instance.
2 comments:
That's him - in one of the radio interviews about the late Dr Goh KS, he even used the word BS. Only dummies do that. A wise man will not use his tongue this way, only a reckless tongue pierce like a sword.
Hubris of Mr. Philip Yeo. Enough said.
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