First, a little joke.
Two Singaporeans - Ah Lim and Ah Peh - entered a pub in Hong Kong's Lan Kwai Fong.
Ah Lim: "Send me a girl!"
Ah Peh: "I want a Thai girl."
The ang moh lady bartender looked shocked and offended: "Sir, we don't provide such services here. If you want girls, you have to go down to Wanchai's girlie bars."
Ah Lim and Ah Peh looked at each other with puzzled looks.
What talking her? What girls?
We only wanted a San Miguel and a Tiger beer!?
LOL! (OK, pathetic laughing at my own joke hor?)
I remember my Swiss German boss telling me that he found Singlish hard to understand. We don't speak in complete sentences.
The above misunderstanding can be avoided if we speak in complete sentences:
"I'll have a San Miguel beer please."
But that will take the fun and brilliance out of Singlish!
Where else can you express so much with so economical use of words?
"Why cannot?" versus "Why is it not possible?"
"How much?" versus "How much do you charge love?" Opps! I meant "How much does it cost?"
Isn't it brilliant? See? So fake.
Power right? That's better!!! (save one word and three syllabus what!)
Singlish relies a lot on being "understooded". We are expected to "fill in the blanks" ourselves.
So imagine if we can make decisions like we speak Singlish?
Power or not?
But no.
For some Singaporeans to make decisions, we need to first check with mother, consult with our superiors, check dictionary this and check thesaurus that, and even want to refer to the whole bloody encyclopaedia or SOP manual just to be safe!
Why can't we "fill in the blanks" ourselves with the limited information - like in Singlish?
For investors who buy high sell low, I guess that's the price to pay - for waiting for confirm and double-confirm - whenever you make an investment decision ;)
Singapore Man of Leisure (welcome to my blog; just google it!)
