by Gwee Li Sui

“ANYHOWLY” is a rather recent Singlish permutation of the word “anyhow”. It has the same meaning as “anyhow” and conveys the same sense of acting blurly or randomly as “anyhow”. It can be used in the same adverbial way as “anyhow”. So you may ask: if a word looks and sounds like another word and has the same meaning and use as that word, why the fiak did Singlish speakers even go and make it up? For what?

You steady poon pee pee! Here’s a good time for me to share about one way Singlish typically develops. To be sure, “anyhow” is a very tok kong word for the Singaporean mind, which is stuck between a love of freedom and a fear of chaos. It’s like God made this word for us. But, when any term gets used a lot by many people, what is known as Gwee’s First Law of Singlish Dynamics kicks in. This law states that a frequently employed expression tends towards a rhyme.

The history of “anyhow” proves this lor. Other than its regular form, Singlish also uses a number of its own versions, the oldest being “any-o-how”. This phrase follows the England “any old how” or “any old way”. If you dun hear it as much nowadays, it’s because your Ah Peks and Ah Mahs, who have lived through the British colonial era, are its main users. I think that even Ah Kong used it before, but I need to double confirm with some Ah Kong expert – like the people at the Ah Kong School of Public Policy – first.

Soon after, two other forms came into play: “anyhow whack” and “anyhow pong”. These terms are an improvement because they buang the whole need to remember and name the action verb itself. So, instead of saying “Dun vote anyhow!” or “Dun any-o-how vote!”, you just say “Dun anyhow whack!’ or “Dun anyhow pong!” If the context is clear, the meaning is automatically clear. “Whack” and “pong” are generic action words in Singlish although the meaning of “whack” is more obvious. “Pong” actually comes from the mahjong game, where a player forms a pong by grabbing four three (Editor’s Note: Gwee Li Sui apologises for not knowing how to play mahjong and so do we) identical tiles and shouts “Pong!” Anyone who anyhow pong is damn one kind.

Then “anyhow” evolved further! “Anyhow-anyhow” as construction is lagi best as it dispenses with not just a precise verb but a verb altogether. Song bo? But note first how Gwee’s First Law of Singlish Dynamics has already crept in, with a rhyme appearing. Also note how, while “anyhow-anyhow” is super-irregular, it shows awareness in a way the earlier forms dun. “Anyhow-anyhow” is careless – in having two adverbs with no verb and the same adverb twice – and so highlights that “anyhow” is about carelessness! It becomes what “anyhow” means.

Do you see how self-consciously Singlish incorporates humour yet? People who dun geddit can go on and on studying Singlish for this linguistic influence and that linguistic influence and wholly miss the point. Singlish is a constructed language in the most kilat sense: it’s not no-brain one. If a wordplay feels shiok, we will sure use it more and more, arm chio in the knowledge that we may be abusing a word but our version is better. All this becomes part of Singlish at some point.

So it is that we arrive at Gwee’s Second Law of Singlish Dynamics, which states that a frequently used expression tends towards humour. In “anyhowly”, “anyhow” has found its most compact rhyming form; this use is also its most complex, if not undecided, since it can be constructed with a verb and without one. But nemmind: we mustn’t miss the pure Singlish shiokness that’s here. It’s in the joke that “anyhowly” has improved on “anyhow” – by making an adverb look lagi like an adverb.

– Gwee Li Sui is a poet, a graphic novelist, and a lite-ra-rary critic who also likes to talk cock sing song. This is a weekly series.

Featured image pockets hole or zip? by Flickr user s2art, CC BY-NC 2.0.

If you like this article, Like the Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Anyhowly appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

BEFORE some ngiao si geena tells me that it’s “steady pom pee pee”, let me make one killer point. Have you noticed that people who say “pom pee pee” also have no idea where this expression came from? Because it’s “poon pee pee” – as in “blow a whistle” in Hokkien – lah! Walao! But I’m happy to go with “steady pom pee pee” if Singlish eventually settles on this form through natural selection… but notchyet. Not when so many Singlish speakers are still saying “poon”.

And, in my head, it was Mark Lee who taught Singapore to shout “steady poon pee pee” back in the late 1990s. Who can double-confirm this nagging suspicion of mine? Normally, Singlish shortens, but here’s one tok kong instance where it actually lengthens. Last time we just said “You damn steady!” or “Steady lah!” and can already. It takes a real genius to show us how “steady” is still not steady enough.

“Steady” doesn’t denote a lot in Singlish. It means confident or promising without all those more objective senses in England. An England speaker may thus call a gradual or constant development steady, but a Singlish speaker means something reassuring. In this sense, what is steady for angmos may well not be for Singaporeans, and terbalik (or tombalik). Ah Huey may be steadily moving up her career ladder, but she may not be steady. Ah Kow may act steady about his love life that isn’t too steady.

Then there’s “poon pee pee”, where “poon” means blow while “pee pee” is onomatopoeic – walao, cheem England word alert! But relak: an onomatopoeia just names something as it sounds like. So, for example, in “Poot you lah!”, the word “poot” names the magic gas from your lobang where the sun doesn’t shine that goes “poot”. “Pee pee” therefore has nothing to do with peeing, and, in Singlish, we dun even say “I go pee pee” lah. It’s “I go she-she” – a more kilat onomatopoeia.

“Poon pee pee”, as this image of hope, comes to us from an entertainment or sporting context. There was a time when members of an audience would blow whistles until they khee hong to show love for a performer or a team or to express how shiok they felt. Yes, that age of gila, ear-pecahing noise pollution was something! I’m not too sure if the gila-ness still goes on, but, the last time I tuned in to a variety show on TV, uncles and aunties were clapping with long balloons. That’s quite considerate hor – but, as far as idioms go, “steady bob bob bob” isn’t very happening.

Joining “steady” with “poon pee pee” succeeds in making a speaker feel song song kao Jurong. The result is so shiok that it absorbs a range of contexts, as when, to show approval, you say “You very steady leh!” or “Steady poon pee pee!” To spur someone on, you say “Steady ha!” or just “Steady poon pee pee!” To express your concern, you say “Steady hor?” or – you guessed it – “Steady poon pee pee!” This idiom is so versatile that it’s not hard to see why it is itself steady poon pee pee. Or pom pee pee. Whatever lah. Not so steady liao leh.

– Gwee Li Sui is a poet, a graphic novelist, and a lite-ra-rary critic who also likes to talk cock sing song. This is a weekly series.

Featured image Whistle by Flickr user Kate Te Haar, CC BY-NC 2.0.

If you like this article, Like the Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Steady Poon Pee Pee appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

Dun anyhowly do the quiz ah… If you not sure, see all SinGweesh articles here!

Gwee Li Sui is a poet, a graphic novelist, and a lite-ra-rary critic who also likes to talk cock sing song.

Featured image, Exam by Alberto G, CC BY-NC 2.0.

If you like this article, Like the Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Quiz time! appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

YOU may have used it by instinct many times; it may have been used on you as often, if not more. You lost your promotion to a yaya Foreign Talent who is then revealed to hold a fake degree. Kua kua. You didn’t win a literary contest, and you hum-tum your judges for sexism – but they’re feminists, and one even wrote your book preface. Kua kua. You bought an atas home and fill your pond with expensive koi; then otters come over, thinking that you belanja them fish. Kua kua.

How does this strange sound “kua kua” even get tied to such flashes of cosmic irony? To be sure, it has nothing to do with the goblok term for effeminacy, “ah kua”. If you didn’t know that, well, kua kua to you lor! (And stop calling people ah kua – it isn’t nice!) Unlike most Singlish words and phrases, “kua kua” doesn’t come from one language or a rojak of languages: it’s taken from the movies! This shouldn’t be a surprise at all since Singaporeans are so siow on about movie-watching.

“Kua kua” takes after a convention in filims (not films ha) – and largely Asian comedies – where a suay plot twist leads to us hearing “kua kua kua kua”. (The number of “kua” determines just how much suayness we are to feel.) But how has this sound become associated with comic pumchek itself? Dunno leh. It’s not like God goes “kua kua” at us from the sky all the time. But the convention stuck, and we hear it in many instances when someone or something kena malu-ed.

“Kua kua” is used like the Western drum roll “bada-dum”, which follows a joke’s punch line. To understand its purpose, you need to be aware of something called bathos in England. The word “bathos” looks cheem because it is: it’s a lite-ra-rary term. (Waah, “lite-ra-rary”!) Bathos refers to an effect in a story when some shiok, airy-fairy feeling suddenly pecah and becomes a joke. That’s exactly what “kua kua” highlights! It sees things in a wider context and catches some super-ironic twist.

“Kua kua” does this by being another technical thing: a non-diegetic sound. Yes, it’s another cheem word, but please dun mind me hor – “kua kua” is just that tok kong! In filim studies, a non-diegetic sound is a sound whose source isn’t in the action on screen. Remember the movie Jaws (which, if you do, you’re confirm-plus-chop an uncle or an auntie)? Remember the “dun dun dun dun” you hear whenever the scary shark approaches? Well, “dun dun dun dun” and “kua kua” are sama-sama because “kua kua” also at once casts real life as a movie. In this movie, by making the sound, you transform yourself into a detached, higher commenting presence!

So you know this now: “kua kua” concerns bathos and is non-diegetic. Bagus. You also know that, while “kua kua” describes a downfall, it actually pulls the speaker out and lifts him or her up to a different plane. Thus, when a minister says that our transport system is already betterer and then it ends up still koyak, you go “kua kua” – why? Because you’re aware that, from a higher point of view, this minister’s rep is habis liao. Being able to say “kua kua” grants you such God-like transcendence. That’s, of course, until you ownself do something that causes another person to go “kua kua”. You realise that that can happen anytime, right? Dun dun dun dun!

By the way, you can test your SinGweesh here! But don’t anyhowly do ah!

– Gwee Li Sui is a poet, a graphic novelist, and a lite-ra-rary critic who also likes to talk cock sing song. This is a weekly series.

Featured image Capuchin Big Smile by Eric Kilby, CC BY-SA 2.0.

If you like this article, Like the Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Kua Kua appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

AT SOME point in your life in Singlish, you will come to a jialat discovery. You will realise that many Singlish expressions actually involve chochoking other people and making them look like goondus. Singlish seems to like to kachau others and to chip away at their self-esteem. This discovery is mo tak teng because you’re getting to the heart of why Singlish is so shiok. It is shiok because every speaker is playing a part in a gotong royong of mutual humbling!

“Pumchek” is a perfect place to understand this cheem point. The cantik term is a corrupted form: it’s really the Malay word “pancit”, meaning puncture, kena gabra in a multilingual society until liddat. But “pumchek” works like a past participle and so should mean more correctly “be punctured”. It’s used in the same sense of a flat tyre and implies that something quite steady has gone out of shape quickly or suddenly.

Of course, the term needn’t be used on tyred vehicles – such as bicycles, motorbikes, cars, buses, and lorries – only. It’s fine to say that a MRT train or a Singapore River ferry or a budget airplane pumchek. You can, in fact, take the word to mean the deflation of just about anything. A senior civil servant’s grand plan at re-structuring can pumchek, and so can his or her ego. An election campaign can pumchek, and, when this happens, a political leader’s pride can also pumchek. When you’re knackered after a long day’s work, you, too, are pumchek.

“Pumchek” should be differentiated from another word “pecah”, with which it is sometimes confused. “Pecah”, meaning broken, is harsher and involves a harder entity being damaged until habis. Here is one way I can think of to help you tell “pumchek” and “pecah” apart. If it refers to something you can poke holes in, be it a theory, a policy, or a self-image, the word you want is “pumchek”. If it’s what you can’t, that is, if the object can shatter like a dream, a rice bowl, or an argument, then it’s “pecah”.

There is at least one exception to my anyhowly ownself-made rule, and it’s in the familiar phrase “pecah lobang”. (Do I dare to say that “pecah lobang” pecah lobang my rule?) This expression describes having made a hole or a lobang – note the past participle form – which seems very much like “pumchek”. But “pecah lobang” has the added sense of an intent to deceive, which the pecah sabos. It is to be busted, to have a weakness, a secret, or a lie exposed. Also, while something pumchek, someone or something else pecah lobang that thing: “pumchek” is passive whereas “pecah lobang” is active.

So, the more carried away a property agent gets in his or her sales pitch, the likelier he or she will pecah lobang. Conversely, you may say that this agent’s intention to sell off a koyak condo unit pumchek. Ah Seng tells his girlfriend Mui Mui that he has been OT-ing, but a whiff of cheap perfume pecah lobang. Or you may say that Ah Seng’s attempt to fool Mui Mui pumchek. This is what has caused their relationship to pecah. Soon after, his motorbike pumchek. For reasons Mui Mui’s friends cannot pecah lobang.

– Gwee Li Sui is a poet, a graphic novelist, and a lite-ra-rary critic who also likes to talk cock sing song. This is a weekly series.

Featured image Flat tire by Flickr user Marufish, CC BY-SA 2.0

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground’s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Pumchek appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

SINGLISH is a very zai, lean speech form. It generally doesn’t believe in saying more when saying less can get you to the same place. You can see this in how it prefers to use fewer words: so why say “How did your day go?” when you can just say “Ho say bo?” Why say “What were you thinking?” when you can go “Siow ah?” You can also see it in the shortening of long words. Any word that requires you to roll your tongue and make macam more than two sounds is considered long in Singlish.

No wonder Singlish speakers feel so sian about having to make meaningless sounds like a hard “s” ending! That last squeeze on the tongue muscle can be very siong, OK. By not doing it, many England words – and almost every long word that ends with “-ise” – has kena pumchek. So, instead of “Don’t criticise!”, you hear “Dun critisai!”. Instead of “Can subsidise?”, you hear “Can subsidai?” When you walk into your neighbourhood MacDonald’s to order a meal, the counter auntie smiles and asks: “Upsai?”

Which brings me to our current tok kong term “politisai” – because it’s all that and more. “Politisai” is a sibei long word that is hardly shortened by a missing hard “s” sound. At least it follows Singlish’s preferred simplification of verbs, which buangs conjugation (simi sai?) and tense (go Zouk and tense ha?) so long as the context isn’t lost. Thus, there’s no colonial rubbish like “I politicise”, “You politicise”, “PAP politicises”. Everybody – I, you, PAP, WP, whatever-P steady poon pee pee, The Online Straits Times Citizen, hampalang – politisai. You also dun say “I politicise”, “I am politicising”, “I have politicised”. It’s just “I politisai”, “I politisai”, “I have politisai”.

Then, there’s the whole point of “sai” itself that is so shiok when used in relation to politics. “Sai” in “politisai” isn’t the same as “sai” in “ay sai” and “buay sai”, which agak-agak mean “can be done” and “cannot be done”. In those Hokkien phrases, “sai” denotes ability. But the “sai” in “politisai” – despite its gentler tone – invokes sai the shit. I can prove this with the solid Singlish saying that has made the word itself famous: “Simi sai also politisai”. See how a pun and a rhyme make you see “politisai” in terms of “sai”? The more geena version goes “Everything also politisai”, but it isn’t as shiok lah. The real meaning is: “It’s amazing how any shit can get politicised.”

“Simi sai also politisai” is used when you’re either tu lan or pumchek, and it taps into a deep social awareness every Singaporean has. We’re all warned by our Gahmen since birth not to meddle in politics because politics is divisive – and it is! This truth has led to our well-meaning politicians setting themselves up as our role models. They ownself check ownself and seek not to do what their own job profile says that they do. So, while a taxi-driver drives a taxi and a food-seller sells food, a politician in Singapore doesn’t politisai. To politisai is so wrong that our politicians attack one another by precisely accusing the other of having politisai!

In fact, our politicians dun just not politisai; they go lagi further to warn others not to politisai. Nobody else issues such a warning, and thus you can pretty much define a Singaporean politician as anyone who tells everyone not to politisai. This is despite the fact everyone else knows that he or she can hardly live a day without a sense that everything to our Gahmen is somehow politics. Buay tahan about the cost of seeing a doctor and retirement age? Dun politisai. Want to make filim or draw ang kong about Singaporean history? Dun politisai. Want to have gay sex? Dun politisai. And you know what’s bestest of it all? You can’t even begin to point out how telling others not to politisai is also to politisai. Because then – kua kua – you politisai! Shiok or not?

Featured image Five Poops by Flickr user delvanjah, CC-BY SA 2.0. 

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Politisai appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

Feeling sian is a very real part of Singaporean life. In fact, you can tell a native Singaporean from a New Citizen just by how much sianness he or she exhibits on a daily basis. “Sian” isn’t easy to translate: it doesn’t only mean “bored” as when there’s nothing on TV but MediaCorp dramas and you go “Damn sian”. When your internet connection kena sai or when McDonald’s jacks up the price of McSpicy (again), you can feel sian too.

You can further feel sian from doing too much Zumba as well as from not doing Zumba. You can feel sian about the PM’s National Day Rally speech even though his whole audience is smiling and clapping – why ha? Aisay, how many angmoh words do you know that can be used in so many ways? “Sian” seems to have found an emotional constant across feeling bored, tired or pumchek, uninterested, frus, buay tahan, like ikan bilis, resigned, disillusioned, and cynical. In all of these is an element of sianness.

The word “sian” must be pronounced correctly or you’ll sound cuckoo. You shouldn’t say it like the “sian” in “Dun sian char bor!”, which means “Don’t dupe women!” That “sian” is a verb that ends with a sharp, hovering tone. “Sian” shouldn’t also be said like the noun “sian”, which is something like a Chinese fairy. So, when someone keeps missing his or her meals because of work, you say that he or she wants to “zho sian”, that is, become a celestial being. But our “sian” is different; it has a kilat, sian pronunciation. It pulls downwards to a low note like an echo in a dark well.

How many ways are there to say that you’re sian? Firstly, there are gradations of sianness, so you dun play-play! When it’s mild, you just remark “Sian” or “Sian man”, as in “Man, I feel sian”. Then you go on to “So sian”, “Damn sian”, and, in the most tok kong case, “Sibei sian!”, which agak-agak as “I’m freaking sian!” An older generation is prone to also exclaim “Sian jit puah” – which literally means “Too sian by half”. “Sian leh” is said when you’re reacting or rebelling against a task or something you have yet to experience. “Sian sial” is “I can’t freaking believe that this is so sian”.

At some stage, we must see that, in sianness, Singaporeans are at their most philosophical. A sian person isn’t just feeling listless; this listlessness is also, curiously, restless. This person knows that things shouldn’t be a certain way, and yet here we are. He or she knows that one cannot fight the world and get one’s way – because life itself is deeply meaningless. To be sure, not everybody who uses “sian” recognises its philosophical potential although the option to lepak and feel is double-confirm always available.

This is why NS remains the greatest gift we can give a Singaporean since every guy who has to book in by 2359 or draw arms at 5am or kena guard duty on a weekend becomes a philosopher. NS is a gift we should aim to bestow on our women and New Citizens too not for equality’s sake – no, no! – but for the quality of life they can have. How much more soulful everyone can be! But, until that happens, there’s at least a faster and more senang way of sharing sianness with all of Singapore. And that’s by voting PAP back into power decisively at the General Elections.

Featured image Bored Seaworld Employee by Flickr user Ed Suominen.CC BY-NC 2.0.

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground’s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Sibei Sian! appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

STOP teaching angmos that “lah” is the easiest Singlish word to use liao! It isn’t even the easiest Singlish end-particle since its meaning changes according to its tone of use. If you anyhowly “lah”, you’ll sound like a cuckoo jiao. (Maybe that’s the point.) “Lah”, “ha”, and “hor” belong to a class of complex particles that dun have satu core meaning and are understood more through a mix of context and tone.

The easy particles are the rest: “leh”, “lor”, “wor”, “liao”, “mah”, “meh”, whatever. “Leh” is easy firstly because it taps into a feature of life in our patriarchal society called tnehing. “Tneh” here is pronounced “tnare” and not like “teh”, as in tea. “Tneh” is a verb from The Ah Beng Big Book of Love that describes how his chickadee Ah Lian resorts to unintelligible sounds to manipulate him and get her way. Yes, it’s a kind of manja (not ganja), but the sounds aren’t cute. They’re more often damn sian to hear.

“Leh” is a word that tnehs, that makes a sentence tneh. It whines, pleads, grovels, quibbles; it doesn’t exactly argue a case. In fact, when you use, say, “Panchan leh”, “panchan” meaning “give me a chance”, you disrupt good arguments. “Leh” appeals to some subconscious link between friends, relatives, lovers, or – at the most basic – humans. But it isn’t gendered like “tneh” is; it isn’t used on or by a perceived “weaker” sex. It’s definitely the opposite of “ha”, which is hostile and confrontational: “leh” just wants pity or kindness.

The commonly used “Dun liddat leh” means “Don’t treat me like this” where “leh” functions like “please” or “come on”. When you’re quibbling, you say “This nasi lemak cannot make it leh” to register your grouse. “Leh” softens a request or an objection and does so in at least three ways. Unlike complex end-particles, “leh” differentiates by a change not in tone but in length or volume only! Here’s also why “leh” is easy:

1. The normal “leh” is mouthed like the rest of a sentence. So you say “Do for me leh” or “You quite stupid leh” while feeling a bit paiseh that you’re saying it.

2. The long “leh” goes “leeeeh” to make sure that your point is heard in case your hearer is a bit slow from low EQ. This form is used especially to manja.

3. The loud “leh” – or “LEH” – is a buay song command to be taken seriously. It screams “You insensitive or what?” and implies feeling hurt.

So easy, right? To give in to a “leh” request or grouse, just reply “OK lah” or “OK lor”, and you hosay liao! But, to bo hiew, you can act blur or you can say “Sorry lah” or “Cannot lah” or – lagi best – “Go and die lah!”, “Siam lah!”, “Siow ah!”, or any one of Singlish’s colourful expletives. Of course, talk logic is an option too, but you’ll soon learn that harshness remains the most kilat. You see, it’s one thing to have to turn someone down; it involves an entire psychological battle to repel an onslaught of tnehing.

Featured image No whining allowed at the shack by Flickr user davef3138, CC BY-SA 2.0. 

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Leh appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

NTUC, that kilat champion of Singaporean workers, has given us more than just shiok discounts at their ownself-run supermarkets and kopitiams. It has also helped to grow Singlish although this one contribution bo nang talk about – why ha? Well, the next time you catch some cynic use idioms like “upturn the downturn” and “cheaper, better, faster”, thank NTUC! Thank it too for “betterer” and “betterest”, such steady poon pee pee examples of Singaporean wit!

The solo genius behind all these terms is that last-time our Labour Chief, Lim Swee Say – so I swee-swee say! Recently, Lim has warned that, if Singapore hadn’t become independent in 1965, “today you and I would be Malaysians, heng ah“. Poor guy kena whacked a lot for these words – but how come not for the way he spoke ha? Indeed, Lim speaking Singlish has always confused Singaporeans who are told by our Gahmen that our economic progress will pecah if we keep fooling around with Singlish. But then we switched on the TV, and there was our Labour Chief, talking.

Lim’s Singlish is bo chut zhui one – that is, it doesn’t spout water like a faulty pipe. It’s so powderful that we not only treat it as zhun but listen to it to expand Singlish vocab. That’s already in the same class as Jack Neo, Mark Lee, and MrBrown liao! So, when Lim at last decided to take on the England comparative and superlative, we were all ears. Until then, the Singlish way had just been to use the Malay “lagi”. If you note that Ah Kow is lazier than Rajoo, you dun say “Ah Kow is more lazy” – that’s bad England hor! You say “Ah Kow is lagi lazy”. If Ah Kow’s laziness is world-crass, you say that he’s “lagi best” or “lagi worst”: either also can.

Meanwhile, from the 1980s, Singaporeans kena lagi more pressure from Ah Kong’s terror propaganda machine to fall in line. His then Labour Chief, Teamy the Productivity Bee, came up with an amazing earworm to charm us:

Good, better, best
Never let it rest
Till your good is better
And your better, best!

Teamy’s ditty was super-huat! If it didn’t con hearers into working harder, it’d have made them speak better England. Every geena was singing it! Every uncle or auntie was humming it! You just couldn’t get more tok kong than that. Lim knew from the start that he had big shoes to fill since it was his own predecessor, Teamy the Productivity Bee, he had to upstage, dammit! So, on that fateful day in 2010, he was very zai. He just recited his own poetry lor:

If you’re the best today,
strive to be better.
If you’re better today,
strive to be betterer.

And, if you’re betterer today,
strive to be betterest

so that, over time,
Singapore’s service standards
can just keep getting
better, betterer and betterest!

Everyone went siow. In one fell swoop, Lim out-Singlished “lagi” and out-Englanded “better” and “best”. He showed that, as “best” was a false height, bestness could at best only be in degrees. Singlish speakers were so inspired by him that we invented another word to denote being abstractly lagi betterer than the betterest: “bestest”. So, in a matter of days, the Singlish scale bettered England’s by doubling into “good”, “better”, “best”, “betterer”, “betterest”, and “bestest”. The language had never been so productive before! And this, my kawan-kawan, is the till-now untold story of how Lim Swee Say made Singlish history.

Featured image by Najeer Yusof

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Betterer and Betterest appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

If someone tells you that Singaporeans think like robots, it’s very Singaporean to agree. But next time, instead of agreeing, just tell the talk cock king to go look at Singlish similes. Similes can show how people are making mental associations, and Singlish similes show that Singaporeans actually love nature a lot OK! Consider “blur like sotong”, “happy like bird”, and “smelly like shit”. Then, most recently, we have “stunned like vegetable”.

“Stunned like vegetable” is sibei new. It’s from a mock-retro song sung by Cheena actor Chen Tianwen in an online music video that went viral earlier this year. But no true-blue Singlish speaker will question its place in Singlish even when its entry appears to have happened overnight. Nor will anyone doubt that the expression stands a high chance of being used in Singlish like forever. “Stunned like vegetable” just makes perfect sense if you’re a born-and-bled Singaporean!

Before I show you why, let me clarify the other similes first. “Smelly like shit” is hopefully obvious to you hor. “Happy like bird” should also be clear since a flying or singing bird is an easy image for being happy and relak. But what about “blur like sotong”? Well, “blur” doesn’t mean indistinct in Singlish; it means confused or stupiak like a bodoh. A sotong is a squid, and squids look gong-gong when they swim backwards and especially when they chut inky clouds in panic, right?

Compared to these similes, “stunned like vegetable” seems hard to make sense of. How can a vegetable be stunned at all ha? Well, if you unlink your thoughts from that image of Chen Tianwen holding flowers and broccoli, the real meaning should ownself be clear lah. Of course, “vegetable” here doesn’t mean a plant but the state of lacking normal mental or physical activity due to brain damage. Thus, when you’re flabbergasted or stunned, you become speechless as though you were a vegetable. That’s what the expression means. Yes, it’s horrigible, I know, but we’ve somehow come to treat it as funny. Singaporeans damn jialat one.

The unlimited possibilities of using “stunned like vegetable” are what makes it so tok kong. You can tio stunned in a number of contexts – from feeling impressed or amused to feeling shocked or buay steady. Singaporeans regularly experience such gila moments as when we encounter surprising election results, terok PSI levels, another expressway pile-up, or a stupiak forum letter in The Straits Times. To be stunned is a good thing. It shows that your good sense is still working even though, because of it, you look goondu. The simile inverts the face of intelligence as Singapore is a deeply irrational place.

To prove this point, here’s something you can do the next time you’re showing the Chen Tianwen video to someone new to it. Quietly pull out your smartphone and take a photo of this fella watching the video. When he or she later laughs like a monyet and remarks “Ha ha ha! Why this song so dumb one! How can you be stunned like vegetable?”, that’s your cue. Whip out your phone and show him or her the photo lor.

Featured image by Najeer Yusof

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Stunned Like Vegetable appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

MY HEART breaks whenever I hear a young Singaporean say that, at the end of a workday, he or she pang kang or thng chu. Those are Hokkien phrases meaning “let off from work” and “go home” respectively. But what happened to the good ol’ days when people had enough good sense to see what they were doing all day and when life truly began? What happened to folks announcing that it was time to cabut, that is, escape?

Maybe hor people still use it, but they aren’t using it enough – and that’s sad. Cabut is pronounced “cha-boot” and comes from Malay where it means to pull out. In Singlish, it’s always used chin-chye chin-chye, in an ordinary context, with a tinge of casual humour. Its use involves three things: first, there’s the reality or a kay-kay act of a hurry to be somewhere else. Second, there’s the implied guilt or feeling paiseh about having to leave. Third, there’s the implied pleasure or relief – a sense of, in Lim Swee Say’s words, “Heng ah!” – that you’ve found a way out.

Whether any or all of these aspects are real or bluff one cannot be known although all three are always present. So, when you’re hiding from an Ah Long to whom you owe money, you say that you must cabut. But this word can also appear in innocent situations, as when you need to leave an office meeting to see a client. To cabut here may or may not mean that you like to be excused or that you’re excited about your next appointment. The ambiguity is what lightens the context. “Cabut” becomes a bouncy, la-dee-da way to be cheeky, evasive, and yet polite in Singlish.

“Cabut” thus has a lot of character and isn’t the same as two other Singlish terms: “siam” and “take cover”. These latter two dun involve guilt and refer more to evading a job that you know too well can fly back in your face. “Siam” – pronounced as “see-yum”, not “sai-yam” – and “take cover” aren’t as final as “cabut”; so, in the army, there’s a lot of siaming and taking cover but hardly any cabutting. You can siam or take cover from guard duty, but you can’t cabut from it! “Cabut” assumes some personal power to call an end to work and some knowledge that you’re indeed going to a better place.

As such, returning to the use of “cabut” at the workplace, I like to stress its importance if you want to have the thing we’re all so sian about not having: work-life balance. You see, work-life balance really begins with the way you think, how you tell yourself about what your life is like. If every day you’re just pang-kanging or thng-chuing, then you’re not demonstrating whether you possess direction in life. Why do you even deserve to be freed ha? You need to show passion for what comes next, everywhere else you’d rather be! You need to believe that every day you work… in order to cabut!

Featured image Penguins, Sea Lion Island ,Falklands by Dwilliams851. Licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Cabut appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

COME let’s talk about vehicle imagery in Singlish. Sure got a lot one since everywhere in Singapore there are roads, roads, and more roads. Not only that but these roads are also packed terok-terok with vehicles! Big ones, small ones, long ones, short ones. Some more, so much of Singaporean life is tied to driving a car, such as impressing your Ah Lian girlfriend, her family, your uncles, aunties, friends, and clients. Furthermore, there’s very little to do on this island – so what do you do besides shop-shop-shop? Hit the road and play Daytona lor.

With vehicles being such a big part of our sian-jit-puah lives, their prevalence in how we think about life itself is to be expected. A well-known Singlish word related to vehicles is “gostan”, which you might once hear a co-driver shout to get a driver to reverse. “Gostan” is a corrupted form of “go astern”, an instruction used in sailing. Dun ask me how come sailing word can become driving word hor. These days, you’re likelier also to hear “gostan” in contexts where someone goes back on his or her words or some tok kong plan backtracks. Like when our Gahmen wanted a population of 6.9 million and then had to gostan.

Then we have “langga”, which means collide, and you can use it as much on vehicles as on blur sotongs who text and anyhow walk. “Pumchek”, a version of puncture, describes how something kena deflated – so your ego can be like a car tyre and go pumchek. From the army, our men learn a lot of vehicular phrases which we then take back into our civilian lives, infecting everyone else. We dun get into a three-tonner or a land rover; we “load up” like cargo. We dun alight but “unload” or “de-bus”.

All these phrases are kinda established compared to “uplorry”, which has appeared only in the last decade. “Uplorry” sounds straightforward, but it doesn’t just mean loading up a vehicle. “Lorry” should already give you a sense of a specific context although this context is still up for debate. Some say that it’s a Chinese funeral procession, whose hearse comes with very cantik trimmings one. Others say that it refers to last-time gang fight, where lorries transport groups of Ah Bengs to secret locations to hoot people. In this sense, being loaded up refers to being injured or dying.

“Uplorry” is both a verb and an adjective. When used to talk about death, you say, for example, that this year “Ah Kong uplorried” or “Ah Kong uplorry liao”. It can also be used to mean how some plan or event habis or causes something to end or someone to grieve. So the plan to build a columbarium in a HDB neighbourhood can uplorry, and some Sim Lim shop can also uplorry customers before it becomes uplorry itself. You can further use it on trends whose downturn somehow cannot upturn: so property prices, Malaysian riggit, and PSI index can uplorry too.

The beauty of “uplorry” is that it reminds us of how vehicles aren’t just means with which we go from Point A to Point B. They’re so much a part of our sad lives that they’re also transport of death. Be it a hearse or a gangsta truck, the lorry conjures a Singaporean image of finality. Angmos may have their mythical boat of Charon to ferry people to the other world, but we Singaporeans have our lorry. And, some day, we’re all gonna load up that lorry on our last grand journey to where we all kena saman for the way we’ve driven our lives.

Image Newton Circus roundabout, Singapore by  Jnzl’s Public Domain Photos, Public Domain Mark 1.0

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Uplorry appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

Let’s find out if you are good or betterer! But if you really sian to do the quiz (why you liddat??) then see all SinGweesh articles here. If you’re a champion and want to do more, then try the first quiz!

Featured image, Project 366 #26: 260112 Turn Your Papers Over by Pete, CC BY 2.0

If you like this article, Like the Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Quiz time #2! appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

TO ME, “meh” and “wor” are the easiest Singlish end-particles. Unlike all the other end-particles, “meh” and “wor” have just one way of speaking and one way of using. They have only one tone, unlike “lah” and “ha”, and volume alters nothing in what they mean, unlike the case with “leh”. When you say “leh” loudly, you turn a tolong into a threat – but, if you say “meh” or “wor” loudly, the amount of doubt or surprise is still same-same.

“Wor”, however, expresses surprise in a positive way. When you say “Wah, you not bad wor!”, you mean to sound impressed even as you mean “I can’t believe you’re this good!” “Meh” is its exact opposite; it casts doubt and turns everything into a negative. When you say “You so good meh?”, it means “Are you sure you’re so good?” or, worse, “Nobody will believe you’re so good”. Just one word and pecah lobang: everything comes crashing down!

“Meh” appears only in a question and never on its own. You can’t say “Meh?” in the way you can say “Ha?”. In fact, when someone goes “meh” as a one-word non-question, you can bet that this fella is angmo pai one. After all, there’s also an England “meh”! If you hear “meh” let out to signal how one is bored or bochap – perhaps in response to you showing off your new home appliance, entertainment system, or smartphone – this speaker is jiak kentang one. A Singlish speaker would have used “sian”.

The shortest form of meh-ing in Singlish takes two words such as “Got meh?” or “Really meh?”. “Really meh?” is also what most sentences with “meh” can actually be reduced to saying. So, when your supervisor tells you to zho kang in a particular way and you have your doubts, you can say “Are you sure it’s done this way?” – which is quite a mouthful, but England, you know lah – or you can just say “Do like this one meh?” Or you can shorten further to “Really meh?” Or you can also say “Sure or not?”, which means the same thing.

“Meh” expresses doubt or disbelief as though people are out to con you. True-blue Singaporeans are damn suspicious one. We have an ingrained problem with received information – thanks to an era of kilat Gahmen campaigns maybe? – and so we’re no longer innocent liao. We never believe that there’s a free lunch. A shop that gives out freebies gets us thinking immediately: “So good meh?” We don’t believe that humans, for no good reason, can be kind or nice, and so genuine kindness surprises us (and then we arm chio). Remember that ours is the culture that also brings you “double-confirm” – because one-time confirm is not enough. You can’t trust what you see, hear, or read!

“Meh” proves that people who regard scepticism as an angmo intellectual tradition only talk cock. Questioning everything is deeply Singaporean, and you can hear our folks test the fabric of the universe all around you, always, with “meh”. It’s, in fact, not hard to imagine the following cheem conversation taking place…

Ah Seng: I think Mina likes me.
Muthu: You likeable meh?
Ah Seng: She says my Instagram selfie is cute!
Muthu: You cute meh?
Ah Seng: I think I’ll go ask her out!
Muthu: You dare meh?
Ah Seng: Bro, lend me money can?
Muthu: I got money meh?
Ah Seng: I’ll pay you back after the date lah. You know me!
Muthu: I know you meh?
Ah Seng: You dunno me meh?!
Muthu: You dunno I dunno meh?
Ah Seng: You think I know everything meh?
Muthu: You think I think meh?…

And the Socratic dialogue goes on.

Featured image Scared cat is really scared きゃりこ / Kabukicho Shinjuku / Tokyo by Flickr user dat’, CC BY -ND 2.0.

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground’s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Meh appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

Singlish has long-long history one! Dun listen to some people talk cock sing song, anyhow say this, say that. Say got no Singlish before Singapore was independent. Say last time only got Chinese dialects maybe mixed with some Malay but no England – because people weren’t educated. Or, worse, say Singlish only became tok kong when Singaporeans felt rootless and then buay tahan Speak Good England Movement. Wah piang eh! No lah!

Lucky the Grand Ah Ma of Singlish, Ms Sylvia Toh Paik Choo, had preserved for us in the 1980s some knowledge of how old Singlish used to be like. When I was a geena, her books titled Eh Goondu! and Lagi Goondu! were national bestsellers one OK. Sylvia was correct to have turned to her own childhood in the 1950s for evidence of some oral tradition. We should all do this too lah – especially if you’re a born-and-bled Singaporean. Go into your childhood. Try to recall all those gila rhymes your grandparents and parents would sing to you!

Of course, if your upbringing angmo pai one, then kua kua, kena sai lor. But, if it wasn’t, you may remember, you may remember, for example, that the term “fatty bom bom” came from one such rhyme. “Fatty bom bom” refers to an Ah Pui; “bom bom”, as the sound a heavy, wobbling body makes, dramatises fatness. Yea, not very nice, but we call others that – or hopefully used to do that – because we learnt it from Pioneer Generation one. They would chant to us when we were babies:

Fatty fatty bom bom,
Malam malam churi jagong!

Which can be loosely translated as:

Fatty fatty bom bom,
Every night go out and steal corn!

Yea, that allegation not nice either, but imagine what rubbish got into our little heads! This ditty has involved English and Malay with at least some vague cartoon logic, but then there’s a scarier one I now remember which involves English, Malay, and Hokkien and got geero (zero) sense! It goes:

ABC,
Kiam chye char loti
Loti bo ho jiak
Ah Ma pang sai ho ler jiak!

A rough translation is something like this:

ABC,
Salted vegetables fried with bread
Bread doesn’t taste good
So Grandma shits for you to eat.

You’re welcome to kiam chye char loti literally to heart the meaning here. When my Lao Bu sang this to me long ago, it wasn’t to educate me in England alphabet but to amuse me during mealtime. Yea. You realise how perverse that was? Would you have liked to be eating while being told that Ah Ma’s sai was always waiting for you if you not happy? Sylvia’s version of this rhyme is a bit different, with its third and last line as “Chow sek chow mati”. Hers has Cantonese thrown in, and the new line means “The moment you eat, you die.”

“Kiam chye char loti” has since become macam detached from its rhyme, and some who use it today dunno its source. Yet, interestingly, it has come to mean exactly the kind of nonsense that makes the rhyme. When someone cooks up his or her own theory or talks a lot of cock or anyhowly addresses issues or does things, we say this fella kiam chye char loti. The person – whether a CEO, a politician, a bureaucrat, or some expert – looks good only, is really half-past-six, bo substance one, as good as a chef who fries salted vegetables with bread.

Feature image by Akiru.

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground’s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Kiam Chye Char Loti appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

HELLO everyboz, Uncle is back! Sorry my toilet break took a bit too long – was away for four months! But nemmind, now I is back, and we can have fun talking Singlish cock again! Today’s Singlish term is “Wah piang!” or sometimes said with an “eh” to lengthen the experience: “Wah piang eh!” Or you can also shorten it to just “Piang!” Regardless, “Wah piang!” has to be said with an exclamation mark. This is true even if you’re whispering or muttering it to yourself – because the phrase is an expression of intense negative surprise.

The “wah” of “Wah piang!” is the same “wah” as the one in “Walao!”, “Wah say!”, and, errr, “Wah lan!” This means I or me in Hokkien. Contrary to familiar generalisations made in the West and by jiak kentang kay angmos, Asian culture isn’t clearly pro-authority and anti-individual. The I of Singlish proves this. “Wah” isn’t just used in normal sentence constructions to signal who is speaking or doing or being referred to or acted on. In moments when deep emotional impression is made and one is reduced to near-speechlessness, it’s what tumbles out of the mouth as a self-checking statement.

“Wah” contracts to the only certainty and measure of reality the Singaporean can have: himself or herself. This truth seems to be understood by Singlish speakers unconsciously. Compare it to how the West has learnt the same: it needed the French philosopher René Descartes to make the famous discovery Cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am”. But then, when shocked to the core, Westerners turn to cry “Oh my God!” or “Oh my goodness!”, in different languages. But what do Singaporeans cry? “Walao!” “Wah lan!” “Wah piang!”

“Wah lan!” is the earliest of the three cries and, in fact, the horrific core which the other two seek to conceal or suppress. You see, “Wah lan!” translates as “Oh my penis!” – which sounds scary especially when you hear Ah Lians and Ah Huays shout it. But, since Singaporeans are an intrinsically polite people, we misspoke it often enough that it became “Walao!”, this “lao” meaning old. “Oh my old!” is meaningless but safe – although many have gone on retroactively to interpret it as swearing by one’s ancestors. That’s OK with me.

Then “Wah piang!” – the sweetest and most G-rated of the three – came along. While a focus on the self is still there, nobody can actually say what “piang” means. If you do have some idea, let me know? It has this sound of something shattering – like when you drop a porcelain plate, and it goes “Piang!” The notion of shattering does add to the sense of reality being smashed, which is what the self has just experienced. It works in a way… but I dunno lah.

I haven’t explained “Wah say!” yet since that’s quite a different kind of exclamation, being positive. Some say that “Wah say!” came from the England “I say!”, but “say” is Hokkien for style or cool too. When you have say, you are very sut-sut. So “Wah say!” may mean “My, what style!” or “I’m impressed!” Yet, in all honesty, Singaporeans aren’t an easily impressed bunch, and so we like to walao and wah-piang much more. If you need practice with these, just get a copy of The Straits Times and read the forum page. In no time, you’ll be referring to yourself like a true-blue Singaporean too.

Featured image by Sean Chong.

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Wah Piang! appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

Featured image Surprise! by Flickr user photogramma1 CC BY 2.0

If you like this article, Like the Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post Surprise SinGweesh quiz appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

“Horrigible”, as a word, is not horrigible hor. In fact, it’s very sut – meaning cool. How so? Well, many Singlish terms are formed by applying on a word a rule from another language or by chum-chumming words from two or more languages. So “jiak kentang” – which points to an atas Western-educated yaya-papaya – is made from the word “jiak”, or eat in Hokkien, and the word “kentang”, or potato in Malay. “Agakration” comes from turning “agak”, or estimate in Malay, into an England noun.

But “horrigible” is sibei interesting in a cute way – because it’s changing one England word with another England word! Kong simi? See, the two components of “horrigible” are “horrible” and “incorrigible” – a big England word for most geenas today. “Incorrigible” means being unable to be improved. Last-time teachers used it on us a lot one. So “horrigible” implies being worse than hopeless – being horribly hopeless. I think that it must have gone into circulation in the 1980s?

The way different words combine to form a new word is common in the development of any language. In England, the merged word is called a portmanteau, which is – alamak! – a French word from “porter”, meaning carry, and “manteau”, meaning mantle. So it’s like… carrying a cloak. Riight, angmo logic hor. Anyway, you’re surely familiar with the portmanteau “brunch”, which joins “breakfast” and “lunch”. The shiokest writer Lewis Carroll introduces us to “chortle”, which fuses a chuckle and a snort.

In Singlish, we have “paktorlogy”, which chum-chums “paktor”, or dating, and the ending “-logy”, which signals some science. So “paktorlogy” is the science of courtship – simple, right? A-level education becomes “air-level”, a takedown term used on the well-educated, where “air” suggests being airy-fairy or vacuous. So the air-level bugger always thinks that, because he or she got paper qualifications, he or she is very smart. But Singlish speakers know better.

Then there’s “heliucated”, which combines “helicopter” and “educated”. A helicopter in Singlish is someone from a cheena background who can’t speak England well. His or her traditional enemy is, of course, the jiak kentang kay angmo. “Helicopter” is said to morph from the mispronunciation of the word “educated” by Chinese speakers. If so, with “heliucated”, we’re getting an interesting fusion of two words that mean the same thing! “Heliucated” is used to call someone Chinese-educated or to hint that you ownself speak auta England.

With “horrigible”, there is immense shiokness just by saying it because really it improves on the England “horrible”. The extra syllable “gi” renders it not only longer but also more cheem-sounding. It adds to a sense of terukness, making “horrible” feel lagi horrible. The word is sibei aural and bears a Gothic weight of disgust. Imagine how you’d feel if your teacher or boss regards your work as horrigible! Or when you hear that the next place you plan to take a vacation is, in fact, quite horrigible! Sibei sian, correct? Flip table even!

Featured image by Sean Chong.

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Horrigible appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

THOSE atas kay angmos are always trying to correct the England of us Singlish speakers – for fiak?! It’s like an exercise in racism for them. They think they know and can comment on what they’re hearing, but they really dun and can’t. Every time they comment, it’s like kena sai man. Singlish isn’t broken England, and it has its own rules like how England has its own rules. This is true even when a sentence construction uses only England words.

A steady poon pee pee example is a construction with “Can dun”. Maybe you’ve heard it used before or you ownself use it in ways like these: “Can you dun” – or just “can dun” – “put your feet on the seat?” “Can dun stand so close to the yellow line?” “Can dun Majulah this and Majulah that?” “Can dun commit adultery?” All these questions aren’t asking “Can you not” or “Can’t you” – and to anyhowly assume is your first step down the road to bigots’ hell. It may look England, but it isn’t. It’s not poor England!

The proof of this lies in how Singaporeans dun say “Must you dun” or “Must dun”, “Should dun”, “Will dun”, and so on. We say “Mustn’t you” or “Shouldn’t you” or “Will you not” or “Won’t you” – we can one! We only say “Can dun” – which, if you’re at least an air-level jiak kentang fella, should ring some bell that something else is going on liao. Tio bo? “Can dun” is a meta-sentence construction, meaning that there are actually two sentences, two points, being made. The first is a “Dun” sentence while the second is a “Can you” sentence.

What cock am I talking about here? Let me gostan a bit and explain. In England, when you say “Can you not look at me?”, you’re asking another to do just that, not to look at you. It’s a request, a polite one, and your addressee can choose to oblige or not to – depending on whether he or she is a creep or not. But, when you say “Dun look at me!”, that’s no longer a request: it’s a command! You’re ordering the bugger not to do something, and your tone is fierce. You’re hardly subtle about seeing the other as a creep.

“Can dun” means to say “Dun”, “Stop it” – but, being such nice people, we Singaporeans double back to rephrase a command as a request. Yet, despite the politeness, the irritation remains intact. In fact, the politeness is a last signal to the addressee that a line of tolerance has been crossed. Yes, we the Majulah people are passive-aggressive one; it’s a mode of social interaction that permeates our Gahmen, workplaces, schools, and homes. Singaporeans can’t just speak our minds. We go the distance to make others learn for themselves how we’re really feeling.

“Can dun” is such a mark of a folk stuck between the custom of face-saving and the assertion of self. We want to be brutally honest, but then hor we also dun wish to deal with any backfiring impact. As a result, we talk liddat one lor. So let’s state it plainly here in case you’re still blur. Whenever you hear “Can dun”, just treat it as “Dun”: you’re not invited to consider. There’s no choice involved, you gila babi. To disregard my advice and persist means that you’re either a creep or one bodoh kay angmo.

Featured Image by Sean Chong.

If you like this article, Like the Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post Singweesh on Wednesday: Can Dun appeared first on The Middle Ground.

by Gwee Li Sui

THE words “teruk” and “jialat” have very different origins, but they are brotha-brotha in Singlish. At some point in the history of their use, their meanings started to coincide, and then they became interchangeable. So we now say “The traffic jam is teruk”, but we also say “The traffic jam is jialat”. We may say “The recruits kena tekan teruk-teruk” or we may say “The recruits kena tekan jialat-jialat” – both also can. Their meanings are sama-sama.

“Teruk” means tough or serious in Malay and is used in Singlish in a number of ways. It can refer to how siong or difficult a task is or how horrigible or buay tahan an outcome is. It can also point to very harsh conditions. Which meaning is in play is decided largely by the context it’s used in. So a remark like “The surprise test sibei teruk!” can be quite ambiguous without more info one. It can mean that the test is tough or that the test results kena sai. It can also mean that the general climate involving the test is what kena sai.

“Jialat” comes differently from Hokkien and is more poetic by comparison. But it has nothing to do with eating lard or the Malaysian cartoonist Lat hor. The “lat” here refers to strength. So “jialat” means strength-eating – or rather energy-sapping, like how listening to some taxi-driver rant on and on about PAP is sibei energy-sapping. But “jialat” doesn’t seek to say that a task is tiring, draining, or sian jit puah; the right Singlish word for that is “siong”. “Jialat”, like “teruk”, points to the gravity or impact of something.

So, when a said thing is teruk or jialat, it’s awful, gloomy, no-joke. It’s serious crap, like how a bad case of lao sai is serious crap literally – that, by the way, is teruk or jialat too! You can, in fact, go on to suggest a more active or dynamic form of terukness, and you do this by simply repeating the Singlish word twice. Interesting, right? When you wanna call for a kid to be punished until there’s serious consequence (but dun lah), you say “Whack the si geena until teruk-teruk!” or “Whack the si geena until jialat-jialat!”

Here’s where it gets complicated. Repeating also does another thing: it lets you turn “teruk” or “jialat” from an adjective into an adverb – like magic! So “teruk-teruk” in “Whack the si geena until teruk-teruk!” isn’t quite the same as in “Whack the si geena teruk-teruk!” The latter means punishing the kid severely now. See how “teruk-teruk” functions as an adverb this time? It further highlights a shiok aspect of many a Singlish adjective, which is its versatility. In England, “solemn” may become an adverb as “solemnly”, but “terrible” becomes “terribly” and not “terriblely” – why ha? But, in Singlish, you just repeat the adjective, extend “teruk” to “teruk-teruk” or “jialat” to “jialat-jialat”, and – wala! – it’s an adverb.

We must ask finally: got differences between “teruk” and “jialat” or not? This is a good, tok kong question. The short of it is got, but the differences are quite subtle lah. Your Singlish must be damn steady to understand why I say that it’s more about fweeling than about actual sense. “Teruk” is more solid than “jialat” and signals real difficulty whereas “jialat” includes imagined, potential, and future difficulty and is thus more adaptable. In normal use, nobody really cares about their differences, but, if you wanna how lian-how lian, try using “teruk” just to show that you can be specific lor.

Featured image by Sean Chong.

If you like this article, Like The Middle Ground‘s Facebook Page as well!

For breaking news, you can talk to us via email.

The post SinGweesh on Wednesday: Teruk appeared first on The Middle Ground.