Reported Speech

That was what I was trying to teach a nine year-old over the weekend.

Q1. "Why is your sister crying?" Mother asked.

The response I got was, "Mother asked why is my sister crying." Wrong.

So I explained that you cannot report it as it is spoken directly, and that the subject has to come first, that it has to be in past tense, etc etc. So it should have been, "Mother asked why my sister was crying."

Q2. "Why are your hands dirty?" Mother asked.

The response came as, "Mother asked why were my hands dirty." Wrong again.

So this went on or quite a while, without him getting it right. Then it reached the point where I decided to prompt him halfway through his answer.

The question was, "Why is the floor wet?" my mother asked.

He started off, "My mother asked why...." and before he could finish, I interrupted with, "Remember ah, the subject comes first!"

He continued, "My mother asked why the floor wet."

???

Was I to laugh or to cry, you tell me?

I scolded.

But I think it's a very common mistake that Singaporeans (many adults at that) make by reporting the speech in exactly the order which it was spoken, the way Q1 was answered. And then, it is again very common for people to go all-lazy when speaking and leave out the verbs-to-be. Haven't we heard people going, "Eh, why you so late?" or "Why the chair so dirty?"

Which explains the deterioration of the next generation's English.