It's a nice spring afternoon, the birds are happily chirping, your neighbour is having a barbeque, but you're just home alone, with nothing interesting to do.
You look out the lounge window, and decide that some gardening needs to be done. You walk out into the backyard, open up the shed, and begin looking for your gardening tools and glove. You look in every corner, rumage through all the boxes of tools and other goods you have in the shed, but you can't find you're gardening gloves. After about 10 minutes, you finally find them. There they are, sitting on the top of the old shelf thats next to the shed's window, along side some old and cracked flower pots. You reach up to get the gloves.

You stick your left hand into one of the gloves and as your fingers reach the fingertips of the glove you feel something funny. No, not a piece of thread. No, not something prickly. Not something slimey. Wait...it's moving, maybe its a bug, an ant? Your hand begins to feel itchy. You feel there are things crawling along your hand. Hang on, its just one thing that's crawling up your hand. No, it's many things...no, just one? But it seems there are many....you're unsure what's there and how many are there. As your right hand pulls at the fingertips of the left glove, you see little things crawling up your left arm. You take a closer look. Spiders are scurrying up your arm. You quickly pull the glove off your hand and throw it to the ground. You want to scream but you're too scared to. You're looking down at you're hand, its looking back at you. The mother of the baby spiders. You're not a spider expert and don't know what breed it is. It's long black legs begin to move. That was the thread. You notice that its body is shaped like an almond, except the ends are more pointy. That was the prickly thing. You notice that one leg is missing and is half sticking out of your middle finger's fingernail. You notice some blood on the tip of your middle finger. The spider is injured. That was the something wet and slimey. The baby spiders have scattered themselves all over your body. The spider clan has captured you - you are covered by live spiders.

*shivers* Better not put those gloves on. Forget the gardeningfor now!


-Monsieur Nuage-

Comment! (0) | Recommend! | Categories: story [t], garden [t], gardening [t], gloves [t], spiders [t], thoughts [t]

Have you ever wondered why the Singaporeans always add 'lah' or 'leh' to the end of their sentences?

I walked into a Chiense grcocery store yesterday, where I heard a group of Singaporeans speaking Singlish (Singaporean English). I couldn't catch what they were saying. Its amazing. They speak their variation of English very quickly. The only thing I could understand was 'lah' and 'leh'...and maybe a few random words. Too bad I couldn't record their conversation.

So here's my question. Why do they finish their sentences with 'lah' or 'leh'?

Just a little background info...
Singlish is spoken by many Singaporeans, however this does not mean they can't speak Standard English (what people consider as 'good' English). The 'well-educated' Singaporeans are able to switch their use of Standard English and Singlish according to the situation.
Singlish consists of vocabulary from Standard English, Chinese dialects (mainly Hokkien and Teochew, a bit of Cantonese), Malay and Indian languages.

After some research, this is what I have discovered.

As we know, different particles can have different meanings. The particle 'lah' is believed to have originated either Chinese or Malay. In Chinese, 'lah' can be used to emphasise things or change the tone of phrases. In Malay, 'lah' is used to change a verb into a command. So in Singlish, it has many functions (which is probably why it is used so much). It can be used with imperatives, (e.g. "Stop lah!" - meaning "Just stop!"), or it can be used for reassurance, (e.g. "Okay lah." - meaning "It's all right"), or it may also be used to indicate impatience as in, "Hurry up lah."

The particle 'leh' is believed to have come from Hokkien (a dialect of Chinese) and is used to soften a command, claim or request something that is often mean or rough. So the particle 'leh' may be used like this: "How come you don't know anything leh?" meaning "Why don't you know anything?".

This wasn't part of the question but from the research, it seems to me they use 'meh' quite a bit as well. 'Meh' comes from Cantonese and is usually used to ofrm questions. For example, the Singlish speaker may ask "You don't speak Chinese meh?" This question actually means "You don't speak Chinese, I thought you did."

Comment! (1) | Recommend! | Categories: Singlish [t], language [t], random [t]

Yesterday, I learnt about a teenager's mother's death...very sad story. Although I idon't know this girl, but when I was told her mother died from cancer, it felt like someone had dropped a rock onto my heart. This girl is very strong, even after the loss of her mother, she still carries on with life, and tries very hard in everything she does. I suppose this is better for her and her mum. It would be horrible for her mum to go through the pains of cancer...such a horrible way to die. Anyway, to this girl's mum, R.I.P, and to this girl that I don't personally know, strive on with life...you can do it!

Today, on the way to school...as dad was driving me to the station...we went past a car on fire. That was one scary moment. Again, this suggest to us that we should treasure every moment we have, no matter with whom these moments are shared with, make the most of it. The traffic lights happened to turn red as we approached the car on fire. From inside the car...I could feel the heat, hear the flames. I couldn't see anyone in the car, I really do hope there was no one in the car. or if there was, they got out safe and sound. It hasn't been until recently, that I realised how fragile life really is, it just comes and goes...with no warning sometimes...

Comment! (1) | Recommend!

I recently found out that,
- sheep don't drink from running water (what makes the difference?)
- pigs can have orgasms for up to 30 minutes...(woah, what are they really doing when we hear them snort?)
- in Europe, when you ask for a mocha, you could be asking for either a coffee-with-chocolate drink, or a coffee brewed from mocha beans.

Comment! (6) | Recommend!