Words With Different Meaning in Malaysian English
Some words and phrases used in Malaysia have different meanings than in British or American English.
| Word / Phrase | Malaysian meaning | American / British meaning |
|---|---|---|
| parking lot | parking space | parking garage (US) |
| photostat | a photocopier; also used as a verb meaning "to photocopy" | a historical copying machine using a camera and photographic paper, which was superseded by the photocopier. See Photostat machine. |
| flat | low-cost apartment or flat | apartment (US) |
| apartment | medium-cost apartment or flat | flat (UK) |
| condominium | high-cost apartment or flat | commonhold (UK) |
| to follow | to accompany, e.g. "Can I follow you?" meaning "Can I come with you?" or, "I will follow you." meaning "I will come with you." | to go after or behind, e.g. "The police car was following me." |
| to revert | to come back (reply) to someone, e.g. "I had sent our clients an email this morning, but they have yet to revert." | to return to a previous state, e.g. "We reverted to our initial plan of hosting the party in a restaurant." |
| to send | to take someone somewhere, e.g. "Can you send me to the airport?" | to cause something to go somewhere without accompanying it, e.g. "I sent this letter to my grandma." |
| blur | condition of a person who is dazed, confused, appears mentally slow, e.g. "You look very blur right now, take a break." | vague, visually indistinct, e.g. "Everything is just a blur when I take my spectacles off." |
Read more about this topic: Malaysian English
Famous quotes containing the words words, meaning and/or english:
“Public opinion contains all kinds of falsity and truth, but it takes a great man to find the truth in it. The great man of the age is the one who can put into words the will of his age, tell his age what its will is, and accomplish it. What he does is the heart and the essence of his age, he actualizes his age. The man who lacks sense enough to despise public opinion expressed in gossip will never do anything great.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The sick are parasites on society. In a certain state it is indecent to go on living. To continue vegetating in cowardly dependence on physicians and machinations once the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost ought to occasion a deep contempt within society.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“He utters substantial English thoughts in plainest English dialects.... Indeed, for fluency and skill in the use of the English tongue, he is a master unrivaled. His felicity and power of expression surpass even his special merits as historian and critic.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)