Crap curry, you wan a not?

Finally someone addresses the severity of the issue. This should be published in the Straits Times and not simply the New Paper!

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From the New Paper, Oct 4 2004.

I WAS queueing up at a Singaporean snack shop in Perth and the Australian in front of me was asking what the vats of brown mud (ie. curries) were.

The Singaporean lady explained that the first vat contained chicken, the second mutton, the third fish, and that the fourth was crap.

'Sorry?' said the Aussie, thinking he had either misheard the name or that the lady didn't think highly of her own cooking.

'Crap,' said the lady, stirring the vat. 'It's our special today.'

The Aussie caught sight of a large red pincer surfacing briefly in the curry and a look of recognition (and relief) flashed across his face. 'Oh, CRAB curry! Yeah, I'll try some of that!'

Later, as she took a break, I mentioned the conversation.

'Oh yes,' she said blithely. 'Australians speak English quite funny, not like us.'

The more I travel between Singapore and Perth, the more aware I become of how Singlish (which sounds perfectly normal to Singaporeans) sounds like advanced Martian to most foreigners.

The difference has nothing to do with our celebrated use of 'lah' nor with local terms like 'makan' nor the unique rhythm that derives from Hokkien.

It has everything to do with the way we shorten or soften or totally jettison our consonants and vowels.

It's quicker and easier to mouth a 'p' instead of a 'b' so 'slab' becomes 'slap'. Other people climb cliffs; we just 'clime' them.

Our 'ds' end up as 'ts' or disappear altogether, so that 'find' becomes 'fine'. You don't wind up an alcoholic; you 'wine' up an alcoholic.

It takes too long to stretch the 'ee' sound in 'feet' so that word ends up as 'fit', which has a totally different meaning (unless you're selling shoes).

A weary Singaporean tourist might say: 'I nit a sit to ress my fit'.

It has been cruelly suggested that we amputate and exterminate sounds because we're just too lazy to make the effort to pronounce fully.

I reject that. We often ADD sounds where they aren't needed (like the famous 'Can I helptch you?').

There's a certain naturalness about Singlish which I find very endearing, and I would be sorry to see it disappear (if we can make our 'bs' and 'ds' disappear, we can make anything disappear).

But maybe putting a bit more effort in schools to check basic pronunciation might not be a bad idea.

That way, I can be spared hearing air stewardesses advising me to straighten my 'sit' and to raise my 'windowshits' or offering to get me a pen and a 'pissoff paper'.