There has been some recent commentary about Thais posting in English in the blogosphere. While some have deplored the appalling language and personal abuse, drawing sad conclusions about the state of education in the country, others have speculated on what the unrestrained name-calling says about current society. But all have assumed that the posts have been spontaneous and untutored expressions of the emotions of the moment.

Perhaps not.

It seems that in a small but growing sideline, Bangkok’s cramming schools are offering courses on how to compose English-language comments for web boards. These are proving more popular than the more traditional staples of English for Tourism and English for Tailor’s Touts. They respond to the perception among urban middle-class youth that spouting nonsense in English has greater cachet than spouting nonsense in Thai.

A recent visit to a small classroom in Siam Square revealed that the market may have high growth potential.

‘Now, before we start, maybe we could all say what our expectations of this course are. Now, you, the young lady on the end. What do you hope to get from the course?’

(The reply is a fit of the giggles.)

‘OK, well how about you?’

(As is normal in Thai classes, the student directly addressed never understands the question, but the friend next door can always supply a translation.) (Unless you ask the friend directly, when the roles are automatically reversed.)

‘I jealous all my friend. They are Twitter against red shirt all the time in English. I want same. Be Twit like them.’

‘OK, well I think that’s clear. Now let’s start with names. As you know you can use any name you want on the internet and no one will know who you really are. Do you all have web names? You?’

(Very coyly) ‘My name what my boyfriend call me.’

‘And what is that?’

‘“Cutie-poo”.’

‘My name “Yellow-in-my-heart”.’

‘Well perhaps we’ll schedule a class on cybernames later on. Maybe we can just go straight into the subject matter. Now can you all see the PowerPoint slide on the screen there? Yes? Good. Now I want you to suppose that this has been posted on the web somewhere and you are going to comment on it. Yes? You have a question?’

‘Why so long?’

‘Well, it’s only one paragraph.’

‘Acharn, cannot understand. What develephant?’

‘What?’

(A fellow student translates ‘development’ into Thai. The students decide to be bored.)

‘No, listen. One of the great things about web comments is that you don’t have to understand what the other person says. In fact, it’s often better not to understand.’

‘But what to say?’

‘Well, one easy thing you can do first is attack the writer. That’s where many web comments start.’

‘So who write?’

‘Oh, sorry, this is by a university professor sympathetic to the reds. I forget his name. So what could you say about a teacher?’

‘Teacher very kind to give knowledge to student.’

‘No, I mean, what is bad about teachers? Think about the worst teacher you ever had. What was bad about him?’

‘I very boring him.’

‘That’s not really ...’

‘My teacher bio in matthayom, he ladyboy.’

‘Now that’s better. So you can start by saying the writer is – well, do you know any bad words for gay? Poofter? Arse-bandit?’

(The students look bemused.)

‘Never mind. We’ll be doing negative vocabulary later on. Maybe we use ladyboy for now. We say the writer is a red ladyboy, so what he says is rubbish. OK? Now to make things look more convincing we can add statistics. How many professors are ladyboys, do you think?’

(The students are still bemused.)

‘OK, just think of a number between 0 and 100. Any number.’

‘62?’

‘Good. So you say that 62% of ladyboy professors always lie. And to make it even more credible, you say “It is a well-accepted fact that 62% of ladyboy professors always lie”. That’s a good opening sentence. Yes, at the back? You have a question?’’

‘Well, it seems to me that the writer makes a very valid argument about the nexus between development and economic inequality.’

(A hush falls over the class.)

‘I’m afraid that is a totally inappropriate comment. Could you see me after class? And we’ll discuss sending you back to the Orientation class for re-education.’

About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).