In looking up entries, it will help the reader to be familiar with the conventions used in this encyclopedia in regard to the order in which the entries are arranged, as well as the style in which people’s names are given.
Alphabetization
All the entries in the book have been arranged alphabetically, letter by letter. The articles ‘the’ and ‘a’ are either dropped or moved to the end of the heading. For example, an entry on the newspaper, The Straits Times, appears as ‘Straits Times, The’, and can be found under S.
In alphabetizing, titles such as ‘Sir’, ‘Major’ or ‘Lieutenant-General’ are disregarded although they appear in the entry header. The entry on Air Chief Marshall Sir Robert Brooke-Popham is listed as ‘Brooke-Popham, Air Chief Marshall Sir Robert’, but his rank and title are disregarded in determining the order in which the entry appears.
Entry headings that start with numerals appear alphabetically as if the number were spelled out. The movie 12 Storeys appears in the letter T, as if the number 12 were given as ‘Twelve’.
Personal names
Names are listed in the form in which they are commonly known. Chinese names appear as they are used in Singapore. Ambassador Chan Heng Chee is listed as ‘Chan Heng Chee’, not ‘Heng Chee, Chan’. Musician Dick Lee is listed as ‘Lee, Dick’ rather than ‘Lee Peng Boon, Dick’ or ‘Lee, Dick Peng-Boon’. Sir Stamford Raffles is listed as ‘Raffles, Sir Stamford’, rather than ‘Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley’. Commas affect the order: ‘Lee, Dick’ precedes ‘Lee Boon Yang’.
Tamil and Malay names do not have surnames. Entries on people with Tamil or Malay names are listed according to given names. Thus, former president Yusof Ishak comes under Y while Cabinet minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam is listed under T. The terms ‘bin’ and ‘binte’ for Malay names and ‘s/o’ and ‘d/o’ for Tamil names are omitted.
For Japanese names, the encyclopedia uses the Japanese convention of having the surname first. This does not affect the order in which they appear in the encyclopedia. However, readers will need to be aware that when an entry refers to Shinozaki Mamoru, Shinozaki is the surname.
Cross references
In the text there are numerous cross references so that readers can find related information elsewhere in the book. If a word, term or phrase is set in small caps, this means that there is an entry under this heading in another part of the book. Related entries are sometimes referred to at the end of entries.
Currency
The dollar sign ($) in this encyclopedia refers to various dollars, depending on the period, as follows:
• Most of the 19th century: the silver dollar
• 1897–1904: both the Straits dollar and the silver dollar
• 1904–38: the Straits dollar exclusively
• 1938–42: the Malayan dollar
• 1942–45: the Japanese military dollar
• 1945–50: the Malayan dollar
• 1950–67: the Malayan and British Borneo dollar
• 1967–present: the Singapore dollar