Nothing wrong with ME

I REFER to (contributor) Hussaini Abdul Karim’s article titled, “Mangling the language” (MOE, Jan 5).

Manglish is one of the many varieties of Malaysian English (ME), which have been widely researched on, discussed, and accepted as part of World Englishes. Read the World Englishes journal if you don’t believe me. So much has been written about the many varieties of English that are spoken all over the world. I am always surprised that some Malaysians are ashamed to accept the richness of their culture (ME, being one case), feeling that what we have is inferior, while people from other countries have already accepted it as the result of the uniqueness of our multilingual, multicultural, and multi-ethnic background. Singapore, by the way, embraced Singapore English with open arms and is proud to acknowledge it. Probably, the people who despise ME have no idea that English-speaking people all over the world are putting claim to their own varieties of English and that there is so much research and literature on the diverse varieties of English that exist throughout the world where English is used.

There are many points in Hussaini’s article that I can comment on, but I’ll just choose two examples he gave as wrong pronunciation of English words, “head” and “said”, which he claimed were mispronounced as “had” and “sad”. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English and other mainstream dictionaries give the pronunciation of the words as /hed/ and /sed/, using the International Phonetic Alphabet system and hence they would actually sound almost like “had” and “sad” but with shorter vowel sounds. Perhaps Hussaini thought “head” should sound like /heıt/ and “said’ like /seıd/, which are actually Malaysian English pronunciation of the words. – Sage

More seafaring terms

I WAS interested to read Capt Rivers’ letter on maritime terms (MOE, Dec 29, 2010). Thinking about it for a few moments, I was able to drag out of my (failing) memory the following phrases:

“To take the gilt off the gingerbread” means to perform a flashy move that does not quite succeed. “The gingerbread” was the colloquial term for the gilded carved work at the stern of a man-of-war (a battle ship). Some show-off had attempted a sailing manoeuvre which went wrong and resulted in him scraping the gingerbread in a minor collision.

“Taken aback” is that embarrassing moment when, as a result of ship mismanagement or unexpected change in wind direction, a sailing vessel finds itself stationary pointing directly upwind and unable to move except astern, always tricky.

“Pooped”: In stormy weather, allowing (or being unable to prevent) a following wave breaking over the rear of a ship (the poop), damaging some of the more delicate parts of the ship and flooding the officers’ cabins.

“Loose cannon”: A cannon (some with their carriages weighing five tons or more) which has become freed from its mooring and was crashing about the gundeck in bad weather. A loose cannon was capable of causing much damage and serious injuries, even deaths, in the crowded spaces before it was caught and secured. – John Leadley Brown

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