Sunday, April 23, 2006

run run run

The art of word-repeating has been prevalent in the Malaysian conversation since who-knows-when. Perhaps when the British came and the Chinese-Malaysians tried to speak English? I'm sure this art form has some heavy Chinese influence. The following are some common usage and my attempt to clarify them.

(1) Dude says, 'When I saw the dog, I run run run run until I cannot see the dog anymore'. That means she kept running, this is a continuous act i.e. no stopping. Remember she DID NOT STOP, else it would be 'I run stop run stop'.
(2) Dude says, 'I talk talk only'. This means that he is only expressing his opinion and that you should not take it seriously. Note that 'talk' is only repeated twice and it's followed by the word 'only'. Similar example: 'I play play only'. If the verb is repeated more than twice and is followed by the word 'until', as in example (1), for example 'I talk talk talk until they cannot talk'. Again, this means that he was talking continuously.
(3) 'Can you do this for me?' 'ok ok ok ok' - Repeating number is unlimited. By repeating 'ok', we are stressing that this is a high priority and that we will do it ASAP.

more examples to come ...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

testing

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