With the help of fellow blogger who commented on my last post on this subject, we can expand our list on Unique Malaysian Words:
“tackle” – to pick up, flirt with, go all they way with a member of the opposite sex (or same sex depending on your orientation!)
“attached” – place of employment. e.g “Where are you attached?” which means “Which organisation do you work for?”
“MC” – means “on sick leave”. MC is short for “medical chit” or “medical certificate”.
“terror” – means great, cool or proficient as in “That fella terror you know, he can chat up all the girls.”
“fella” – means “fellow” which is a reference to a male person.
“outstation” – means “out of town” as in “she’s gone outstation”. I wonder if this is a relic of our colonial past.
“member” – a friend e.g “He’s my member lah”. This is certainly not a reference to a male organ!
“next [insert day of the week]” – as in “next Monday” which means the coming Monday plus one week. In Australia and perhaps the UK, “next Monday” means the coming Monday. Confused? “Next Monday” in Malaysia equals “Monday week” in Australia.
Well, that’s the list so far …
Care to contribute more Unique Malaysian English Words? 
12 responses so far ↓
ezzaaziz // June 1, 2009 at 7:11 am |
salam Tunku
dah lama tak datang sini…..
emm rasa nya banyak English words yang kita malaysian kan…malah DBP pun buat jugak….
apa lagi sekarang ni zaman sms ni..sampai tak faham kita di buat nya….
saya pun dah lupa ayat lazim yang selalu di omputih kan…naik beku pulak otak ni memikir kan apa dia …tapi ini dah kira otak dah blank dah!
Kak Teh // June 1, 2009 at 2:52 pm |
Tunku, Now that ‘ve got your asigned copy of your encyclopaedia, I so action already. I can tayang to all my friends that I have your book, in fact books.
To action is to be proud and can show off laa.
Or , jangan action tau! When you come back to london, let’s meet up again, dont action-action.
Andrea Whatever // June 1, 2009 at 3:48 pm |
Tunku,
How about this – - the way the phrase “one kind” is used in the following manner:
When your friend asks you, “Why are you looking at me like so one kind?” , it’s probably ‘coz you looked askance or you are giving her that weird “duh!” look.
Alternatively, she might say: “Why does this food taste one kind?” which is a good reason to stop eating it right away ‘coz it may be stale.
Or , in the middle of a game, she might give an exasperated “You all are so one kind” either ‘coz no one is willing to take the risk and go on a limb; or everyone’s behaving like a clique.
Naz // June 6, 2009 at 10:17 pm |
Salam Tunku,
Got so many one maaa.
Once hit by this Manglish bug, you’ll feel like driving on and on without any gostan gostan. Not to mention all those colourful prefixes and suffixes.
I’ll drop by again later hor
tunku halim // June 8, 2009 at 8:40 pm |
Thanks Folks for all your great comments. I’m going to use them in my next post! Take care!
Nigel // June 9, 2009 at 2:23 am |
“liddat” as in “Wah. Why you so” liddat” waann?” Meaning, “come now, there’s no need to take on so, old chap.”
Or in answer to the question “how are you?” “Liddat lor” meaning “so,so.” depends on context. And of course “one” or in true manglish, “waaan.” No real meaning. Just as a punctuation. 
manglish // June 11, 2009 at 8:15 am |
how about “shake leg”?
manglish // June 11, 2009 at 8:53 am |
just thought of another………how about “swat fly”? means the business is so poor that you have nothing to do but to swat the flies off
Melyong // June 22, 2009 at 9:31 am |
Hahaha!!! How true and hillarious.
tunkuhalim // June 28, 2009 at 11:39 pm |
Nigel – Hmmmm, now I get you … “liddat” is “like that”! Maybe “Liedat lah” …. or don’t be so liedat lah! Nice one, Nigel.
Manglish – You must be the expert. Vely instructive one!
Melyong – Most amusing, isn’t it?
ladymariah // July 18, 2009 at 4:14 pm |
‘fire stone’ for ‘batu api’. hahaha.
tunkuhalim // September 4, 2009 at 9:23 am |
ladymariah – Firestone is a name of a tyre, I think!