Fine
Friday, August 11, 2017
I've always been fascinated by words with dual meanings so for my ESL408 definition essay, I chose the word "Fine".
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When you hear the phrase, “Singapore is a Fine city”, your mind automatically jumps to define Singapore as a city that charges you for money over offensive acts and you aren’t wrong to think this way because according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2017), the noun, “Fine”, means “a sum of money exacted as a penalty by a court of law or other authority.” Singapore may be a minute nation in comparison to other countries however, we have countless laws set in place to maintain order in our little red dot. Just to name a few, you could get up to a $1000 fine for littering on the streets, $200 fine for parking offences, and fines for spitting in public and for jaywalking. There are also some offences that are seen as trivial or outrageous to foreigners, such that it has resulted in them ridiculing our country. For instance, you could receive a fine or be imprisoned for up to 3 months for singing songs that contain obscenities. You could also be fined up to $150 for leaving a public toilet unflushed after using it. Even in your own home, the place that is supposed to be your personal property, you could be fined $2000 or jailed for up to 3 months for walking around nude without drawing your curtains, as it is deemed to be an act of public nuisance. One of the more incredulous “crimes” involve chewing gum. Chewing gum is a type of sweet that can be bought easily in other countries. However, in Singapore, selling gum can warrant you a fine of up to $100, 000, or imprisonment of up to two years, such that people don’t dare even eat it in public. In secondary school, when people were seen eating chewing gum, their friends would immediately chide them, saying, “Orh hor, you eat chewing gum! Later police catch you!!”
All these laws and fines for the simplest of issues have led us to lead such cautious lives and become law-abiding citizens. This behaviour has been instilled in us for as long as we can remember, such that even though these foreigners laugh at us for having petty laws and constantly ridicule us for “being under the rule of a dictatorship”, they still agree that it is one of the safest countries in the world. However, because of all these laws, our mind does not jump to the adjective meaning of fine, which is, “of very high quality; very good of its kind, worthy of or eliciting admiration.” Despite all these tights rules set in place though, Singapore is a beautiful country. It’s clean, safe, and we have managed to become a first-class nation in a span of less than 50 years. When you stand at the Esplanade Bridge and look around, especially at night, you can’t help but marvel in awe at the grandiose skyscrapers of our city skyline, bathed in the light emitting from the buildings in the central business district and shopping malls, and the stars. We also have so many highly acclaimed tourist attractions such as Gardens by the Bay, Sentosa Island, and Orchard Road. According to the Straits Times, Singapore recorded the highest number of visitors in 2016, at a whopping figure of 16.4 million, despite several economic problems, terrorist threats and the Zika virus outbreak. The fact that numerous tourists choose Singapore as their Number 1 destination makes Singapore a fine city indeed. Singapore is also a land of opportunity and it is seen with the amount of migrant workers who come to Singapore to work and make a living for themselves and their family. Why did they choose to come to Singapore, and not any other countries?
The last definition of Fine, however, does not entirely have to do with Singapore, but we do use it. It is to do with our mental state of wellbeing. The last definition of Fine this essay will touch on is the adjective, meaning, “good, acceptable, or satisfactory, used in an ironic way to refer to things that are not good or acceptable.” Many times too often, when people ask us how we are feeling, or if we’re feeling good, we tend to respond with a simple, “Nah, I’m fine.” It is probably a white lie we tell everyday about the true status of our mental state. Even when we aren’t feeling all too well, we still give that response, either because we do not feel we are close friends enough to the asker to self-disclose our true thoughts and feelings that are eating away at us, or we simply just do not want to worry that individual with problems that are really affecting us. Also, sometimes when we’re arguing with somebody and feeling annoyed with them but we don’t feel like continuing with the argument, we reply with an, “Yeah, ok fine.” It can also loosely imply us ironically saying that everything is ok, when in actual fact it is not and that the argument is still not concluded, but we do not want to waste our breath on the other party.
The examples above show how many different meanings there are of Fine and also how some original meanings have changed over a period of time and in different contexts. Who knows? Maybe in a century or so, Fine would have a completely different meaning than what it is currently.
References:
Merriam-webster.com. (2017). Definition of FINE. [online] Available at: https://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fine [Accessed 31 Jul. 2017].
Singapore, 1. (2017). 16 odd things that are illegal in Singapore. [online] Business Insider. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/things-that-are-illegal-in-singapore-2015-7/?IR=T&r=SG [Accessed 31 Jul. 2017].
Channel NewsAsia. (2017). Singapore’s tourism numbers hit historic high in 2016. [online] Available at: http://www. Channelnewsasia.com/news/Singapore/Singapore-s-tourism-numbers-hit-historic-high-in-2016-7590730 [Accessed 31 Jul. 2017].
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