Mangled metaphors, scroowy sayings

[rajagainstthemachine]

Titration experiment in Chemistry class:
First add a bit of the solvent and then continue to adding the solvent in small quantities.

"first you put! Then you put put put put put".

[ecureilx]

Wife always says 'I'm boring' when she means 'I'm bored'

Ooh dear, that's an unfortunate one

I've heard a classic Singlishism a few times this week. Next time I'll try and remember it... it relates to going and picking something up, or fetching, or maybe it's a misuse of 'bringing'...

Can I bring you to the store? No, but you can take me to the store.

And the other direction..... Can I send you home? Sure lick a couple of stamps, stick it on their foreheads and shove 'em in the letterbox.

Or "Can I follow you to the store?" Why not just come with me? No need to follow.

follow, bring and send ...the first few words in Singlish 101 ...

in my first employment here, my employer let me have a HiJet and one day I was getting ready to go to a customer site.

A female colleague walked over and asked if I am going somewhere and I said yes, and she said, 'wait, I follow you then .. '

I was confused and asked another colleague if this female drives, and the guy said no, and I asked how will she follow me then ?

the answer was enlightening ..

so was 'send me .. '

and bring ...

oh, I was also educated here that, something like .. you always come home, so if you are talking to your wife / spouse at home, you say "I am coming later", don't say "I am going there later .. "

because you only Come home, you don't Go home .. or something like that but hey .. it works for the natives .

that was also the time I got yelled at some coffee shop uncle for not speaking English, because it wasn't Singlish .. well, he forgot to pause and blamed me for misunderstanding his question ..

I pointed to a packet of Ribena and he went packet drink ? and I said "YES" and he got mad, and only later did I understand he meant "PACKET, or DRINK"

I had every right to say yes as Ribena is in a carton packet and I wanted to drink it ..

[Wd40]

Just heard another epic sentance in the background.

"I wei wei wei wei wei for her and she neber come, loh"

[JR8]

^ +1. Good one.... !

[Brah]

These are good, I was thinking of something different though, maybe it is me who is doing the mangling...I just can't think of examples right now so started the thread to add to it when they come up.

Something like "Hitting your head against the tree" (wall for the rest of us) - I've heard so many things like this here but never wrote them down.

[Brah]

And the other direction..... Can I send you home? Sure lick a couple of stamps, stick it on their foreheads and shove 'em in the letterbox.

so was 'send me .. '

and there is 'collect', as in "I will collect you at the door" - I always say something snarky about action figures, collect the whole set, or something stupid like that. Then watch that fly right over their head.

I was once 'ushered' to the door of a bar when it was closing, and I wasn't drunk, but that was apparently what the waitress at that long bar in Peranakan place was accustomed to saying. I told her I'd never been "ushered' before, and wanted to try it. Again, blank stare.

[JR8]

And the other direction..... Can I send you home? Sure lick a couple of stamps, stick it on their foreheads and shove 'em in the letterbox.

so was 'send me .. '

and there is 'collect', as in "I will collect you at the door" - I always say something snarky about action figures, collect the whole set, or something stupid like that. Then watch that fly right over their head.

I was once 'ushered' to the door of a bar when it was closing, and I wasn't drunk, but that was apparently what the waitress at that long bar in Peranakan place was accustomed to saying. I told her I'd never been "ushered' before, and wanted to try it. Again, blank stare.

If you have an English wedding, the male wedding party will often be 'ushers' maybe 4 to 6 of them. It means they're briefed to the family/guest hierarchy, and when said guests arrive they will 'usher' (escort) said guests to the appropriate pews for them.


p.s. a parallel is an usher in a cinema, who escorts visitors to their seats.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I was always partial to one of my homeboy's short stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher". (Edgar Allen Poe is from Balmer, MD.)

[singapore eagle]

Is anyone else getting emails signed off "Thanks much"?

I had an email yesterday in which the recipient acknowledged the information I sent her with "Noted pls".

[Brah]

And the other direction..... Can I send you home? Sure lick a couple of stamps, stick it on their foreheads and shove 'em in the letterbox.

so was 'send me .. '

and there is 'collect', as in "I will collect you at the door" - I always say something snarky about action figures, collect the whole set, or something stupid like that. Then watch that fly right over their head.

I was once 'ushered' to the door of a bar when it was closing, and I wasn't drunk, but that was apparently what the waitress at that long bar in Peranakan place was accustomed to saying. I told her I'd never been "ushered' before, and wanted to try it. Again, blank stare.

If you have an English wedding, the male wedding party will often be 'ushers' maybe 4 to 6 of them. It means they're briefed to the family/guest hierarchy, and when said guests arrive they will 'usher' (escort) said guests to the appropriate pews for them.

In the US there are ushers at funerals, and at weddings men do user ladies to their tables. The term at a bar is an example of overstated usage, much like the ridiculous faux British accents the SG flight attendants use.

[Wd40]

Another Indian favourite is prepone. I can bet, 9 out of 10 Indians don't know that prepone is not a word in the dictionary

I just did a search on this site. 2 uses of the word and both by Indians

Edit: Just realized that the word has been added to the dictionary

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/repor ... ly-1353503

[curiousgeorge]

Another Indian favourite is prepone. I can bet, 9 out of 10 Indians don't know that prepone is not a word in the dictionary

I just did a search on this site. 2 uses of the word and both by Indians

Edit: Just realized that the word has been added to the dictionary

http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/repor ... ly-1353503

"The common Indian use of the verb ‘revert’ too has the OALD stamp now."

:shocked:

[JR8]

"The common Indian use of the verb ‘revert’ too has the OALD stamp now."
:shocked:

It was not that long ago that I'd be drafting documents in the US, for senior review, and that word would get red-lined out: And here we are not 15 years later and it's in the dictionary

I'd always considered it corporate-speak, and/or management-consultant-speak.

I'd not heard prepone before. Though on the face of it it makes more linguistic sense than revert ever did.

[the lynx]

spoil

"Switch spoil already."

"Don't spoil the machine!"

But the veggies and fruits don't spoil here, "they bad already".

And no, not gone bad. Just "bad already".

[Fortan]

Sign on machine in my office: Once on, cannot off....
The constant use of the word actually. Recently we had an introduction by a new travel agency and I ended up counting the girl presenting, using actually more than 50 times in 30 mins.