The Fox Hole

Thursday, February 16, 2006
20:40 by FoxTwo

Quirky Singaporeans - Misused Words

This is written as a "sequel" to this post I wrote a long time ago. I thought that it'd be amusing if I continued my blog on those lines - about the quirks of Singaporeans.

Today I'm going to introduce more ways that Singaporeans twist and turn various words in English into a totally Singaporean context and thus, confounding Ang Mo's that visit us and ever hear us speak to one another.

1. Quite - Oh yeah I know you have heard this one everywhere. "Oh he's quite cute hor?" and "Aiyah he's quite good only lah, not that good" etc. Did you know that the actual, dictionary meaning of the word "quite" means "very"? Oh yes indeed. If he's quite good, he's actually VERY good. Almost bordering on Excellent!
2. So-Called - That's another word totally twisted by so many people I know. One girl that used to work in my ex-company used this phrase every other sentence that came out of her mouth. She would say "Oh that Windows XP is great! They have this so-called start button all in green at the bottom! It will launch all these so-called cool programs on my computer that I can use, and I can play so-called music and video files just by using that button!". My friends, so-called means NOT. Yes you read that right. So-called = NOT. When you say "I can play so-called music and video files" you are saying you cannot play them, or that the music and video files aren't really music and video files.

Well I guess I'll leave you with these 2 new revelations for you to mull over. At least the next time you use one of these, you can be aware of the actual meaning, and the Singaporean meaning. :)

0 Comments in Blogger:

Post a Comment

Trackbacks to this post:

  <$BlogBacklinkTitle$>  

<$BlogBacklinkSnippet$>
posted by <$BlogBacklinkAuthor$> @ <$BlogBacklinkDateTime$>

Create a Link

<< Back to main page