Inggerish

Hello and Hye ena

So, weekend is here huh? Yaaawwnn.......ok.....doesnt matter, cos its a working weekend for me. Sleepy slow weekend. Its my cycle, to work in alternate weekends. Im used to this. Great thing is, there is no Monday blues for me next week....only Monday wohooss!...hahaha. And some more, i will only work on Weds and Thurs. How cool is that?

When we're in working environment, we always communicate in English, right? The emails in English, communicating between colleagues mostly in English, communicating with bosses would be in English. In fact, this all starts in Uni time. Communicating with lecturers was done mostly in English. Answering exam would be in English. Essays, assignments...all in English. The texbooks all in English. I tried reading a malay book on programming, and hell no i dont understand. I also found malay Physics book when i studied Advance Physics in Uni.....nope, its really strange that i cant understand my own language. Its all because they use malay terms....which really sounds unfamiliar.

Programming = Pengaturcaraan.......get it?

So...is it weird that i feel i cant communicate and convey my ideas in plain Bahasa Melayu well? The other day, i was at office, lepak by the balcony. Me and my friends we were talking about Birkinstock shoes and I said the shoes are comfortable. And suddenly Sukh ask:

'Genggaman dia ok tak?'

And i look at him weird.

'Genggaman?'

'The grip of the shoes. Tapak dia ok ke?.....what do u call 'grip' in malay? Genggaman right?'

'Oo0o0o....grip of the shoes! yeah man, the grip is fine.'

Like example of conversation above, what would u call 'grip' in malay? It is 'genggaman' right? It is suppose to be a usual word right? But why does genggaman sounds funky there? Is there any other unfunky word to describe the grip of a tapak kasut? Or do u think is sounds fine?

Isnt it funny when we find the word in Malay is too bombastic. Padahal memang selalu cakap BM (tapi bahasa pasar). Like Sukh said, 'after several years using English, speaking simple malay also can sound bombastic.' I think it happens like this cos BM can be so pasar. English is a bit more steady. It does not have to much sleaziness in the language.

What Sukh said made me laugh, cos its absolutely true. We have been using English as our (almost) primary language for some years already, which I, sometimes cant find a proper word in Malay. I sometimes feel English language has more accurate word than Malay. Im not doing a Sharifah Amani stunt here (remember Sharifah Amani once said, speaking in malay makes her sound stupid...and then everybody slammed her the very next morning in the papers? even the menteri kesenian makes his remarks on what she said). No, im not pulling 'a Sharifah Amani' here.

There is a lot of beauty in BM. But i just think BM can be too pasar, that when u tried using a proper word in Malay, it sounds bombastic. Of course I can still speak malay. I can speak proper malay but i dunno why, i felt like it sounds a bit......funky. Because like i say, sometimes malay words dont come out right. Just like the word 'genggaman' up there.

Take care all........xOxO