DURING his National Service days, a colleague remarked to Mr Jack Tsen-Ta Lee: 'Aiyoh, why are the tables all senget today

Full Story

He who has a right spirit will hear what the spirit is saying. Catch not the grammatical ethic of the speaker or you will confuse your own spirit. LOL!

Aiyoh, the tables not senget lah, your mata not good lah! Mata is malay for "eye".

If there were an award for the use of Singlish in media, I would like to nominate Channel 8, where one commonly comes across subtitles that include such local oddities as "win you" and "go bath".

in other words, we are lab rats lol.

a pro-singlish article. this must surely be a first for ST!

Don't play play uh, some more say we got no standard one.

A spokesman said: 'The presence of Singlish causes damage to standard English only when people do not have a good grounding in standard English.

Define "damage". Given that Singlish tends to be the first English dialect that is heard and spoken in SG, please explain how "the presence of Singlish causes damage to standard English." It's more like mastery of English remains elusive when Singlish is constantly negated if not spat on!

'That is why an environment in which good English is spoken is so important for young children.'

Non-sequitur. Define "good, spoken English". Tell me what is "standard spoken English". No linguist has been able to define it.

Originally Posted by heretiquely

a pro-singlish article. this must surely be a first for ST!

"pro-singlish"? not at all! this is a mere reporting of what we've known for ages. that this should even be a "first for ST" is extremely belated and highly embarrassing for many SG-based/related (socio)linguists!

honestly, ST's gross under-reporting on work done on singlish speaks of its unshakable position as a govt lackey in terms of sociolinguistic policies!

altho i read the ST nearly exclusively, i'm often at a loss for words when i interact with fellow linguists and am asked about the local sociolinguistic planning and policies.

Dunno what Jack Lee is studying but he used to be a high-powered lawyer. Since he's already started tracking and collecting Singlish terms used in the local mainstream media, I hope he's taken a basic course on corpus linguistics.

scenario 1 ;

where going ? little india. little india where ? mustafa. OK.

scenario 2 ;

key toh-lok ? ang swa. ang swa toh-lok ? ABC. a-sai.

scenario 3 ;

sung na-er chee ? tah bar yao. tah bar yao na-li ? e- siang. how.

scenario 4 ;

mana piggi ? ang mo kio. ang mo kio mana ? ang mo kio hub. OK.

scenario 5 ;

good morning, where would you like to go, sir ? could you pls take me to the fullerton hotel. Right away sir.

all the above are cater to different type of pax we met daily.