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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But I couldn't take the punishment, and had to settle down
Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes I cut my hair ...
"Expect your brain cells to shrivel up and die suddenly from an overwhelming sense of inferiority" ... Hahahaha. I agree. ;)
justme: Heh.
germ: :)
quirk: Thanks. I was not intending to mimic good ol' Tommy S. Raffles (aka T-Stam), but I suppose that's a flattering comparison...
anon: Ah well, win some lose some.
In the same boat with a lot of your friends
Waitin' for the day your ship'll come in
And the tide's gonna turn and it's all gonna roll your way.
:-)