I really like studying etymology and the origins of words, and I'm interested in the fairly omnivorous nature of English, which has a huge "borrowed" vocabulary. (Random fact: "bugger" is related to "Bulgaria".) So I thought every now and then I'd put up random lists of words English borrows from various languages - well, besides French, German, and Spanish, or I'll exhaust myself from typing. I thought I'd start with Malay, national language of Singapore. Wikipedia already has a partial list , but I thought I'd come up with a list that also included a few other loan words. The obvious ones are words for things that are indigenous to the region - plants (durian, rambutan, bamboo, sago, camphor ), animals (orang-utan, pangolin, cassowary), and cloth ( gingham , sarong). But there's a whole bunch that're less obvious, even to native English speakers from this region: amok . If you asked me to name one English loan word that'
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You'll see what I mean if you take a look at my other blog. Oy.
I just thought the graffito was appropriate: yeah, the iPod is cool and all, but really, what does it matter if you fill it with Britney Spears or Avril Lavigne songs?
Um, apologies if you like either of those two. :)
Sir, I am offended. (Well not really, because admittedly, I do enjoy that one song "Toxic". But ONLY that one song.)
I've already got 115 Nine Inch Nails songs ready for that sexy hunk of metal, for starters.
Purrr.
eric: Thanks for noticing the pun! :)
Yeah, what do you expect? We killed god years ago, and the only thing that'll fill the void he left is more and more and more and more and more and more swag.
EMBRACE THE SOULLESS WORLD OF THE MACHINE, YOU PEONS!