Tuesday December 18, 2012
Good Manglish
I WAS very interested to read Dr Alistair King’s article on ‘Just don’t call it Manglish!’ in the Star on Nov 27 and the comments by readers the following Tuesday. As a fellow Briton, I liked what he wrote.
However, Jason C’s letter using the word “wanna” makes me think he’s been reading too many subtitles where nonexistent words like “wanna”, “gonna” and the use of “I got” instead of “I’ve got” for present tense (there’s no verb “to got”) are just so common and thereby teaching viewers bad habits. It’s one thing to use slang in some cases but not bad grammar, surely.
I love to hear the way Malaysians speak, with their different accents and use of words. I remember when Malaysian TV showed cigarette ads like “Plez Golld Liff”. I prefer that rather than those American or pseudo-American voices used on some stations and pay TV.
I’m very disappointed when teachers of English here often make the same grammatical mistakes as English-born speakers. The word “whom” has almost completely disappeared when it’s the object of a sentence. Even a university stated on its cover for enrolments “Who would you choose?”
There are cases where local teachers write or say for example “A friend told my husband and I...”. Surely he didn’t tell “I” - try omitting “my husband and” and you’ll see what I mean. I would rather listen to Malaysians using (good) “Manglish” than hear bad English grammar.
Some Malaysians who learned English years ago from English-born teachers still speak perfectly good English. In 1967, for example, when I was working in Butterworth, one of my senior staff approached me with a parcel stating: “Excuse me, sir, this parcel has just arrived from overseas but I do not know for whom it is.” That had me stumped temporarily until I realised that he was perfectly correct. I’m looking forward to more on this subject.
Peter Hannington
Sungai Petani, Kedah
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