Seen on a Tibs bus: ‘To find out more about paying correct fares, it is available at...’
Make it To find out more about paying correct fares, visit or call...
The sentence as originally worded is reminiscent of topic–comment in Singlish, Chinese and Malay, where the topic is first stated (paying the correct fare) and a comment or more information is then added (it is available at...).
Other, perhaps more typical, examples include Japan, you can’t live cheaply (‘You can’t live cheaply in Japan) and My neighbour, he owns a famous restaurant (‘My neighbour owns a famous restaurant’).
Often, the comment portion has what is called a resumptive pronoun, which may be either a subject or an object — in the last example, the subject pronoun he refers back to the topic, my neighbour.
In our original example, we have a subject resumptive pronoun, it. But what does it refer to? Presumably the topic: loosely, finding out about paying correct fares.
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