Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa

Ingin saya ketengahkan satu gejala berat yang menular masyarakat kita dewasa ini. Masalah ini adalah berkaitan dengan penterjemahan beberapa istilah Bahasa Inggeris ke Bahasa Melayu. Penterjemahan yang langsung telah dilakukan ke atas istilah-istilah Bahasa Inggeris ini walaupun terdapat istilah-istilah Bahasa Melayu sedia ada yang sudah cukup memberikan maksud yang sama dengan istilah-istilah Bahasa Inggeris tersebut.

Contoh terbaik pada fikiran saya adalah "informasi". Jelas kepada kita semua bahawa "informasi" adalah penterjemahan langsung perkataan Bahasa Inggeris "information". Istilah ini sering digunakan dalam media massa, malah kebanyakan daripada kita tidak berfikir dua kali untuk menggunakan istilah ini dalam percakapan harian. Sebenarnya tidak ada sebab untuk kita menggunakan istilah "informasi" kerana penterjemahan "information" ke dalam Bahasa Melayu adalah "maklumat". Apa salahnya dan apa kurangnya jika perkataan "maklumat" digunakan berbanding dengan "informasi". Sebenarnya banyak lagi istilah lain yang pada fikiran saya tidak perlu digunakan, sebaliknya istilah Bahasa Melayu yang sedia ada sudah cukup sesuai. Senarai contoh istilah-istilah ini adalah seperti berikut:

Informasi - Maklumat
Konsumer - Pengguna
Bajet - Belanjawan
Final - Perlawanan Akhir
Opsyen - Pilihan
Fokus - Tumpuan
Global - Sedunia
Transformasi - Penukaran, Perubahan
Program - Rancangan
Rasis - Perkauman

Saya pernah membangkitkan perkara ini kepada teman-teman. Alasan atau sebab yang diberikan selalunya:

1. Bahasa Melayu sememangnya bukan satu bahasa yang asal, dan kebanyakan istilah Bahasa Melayu berasal dari bahasa-bahasa lain - Indonesia, Inggeris, Portugis, dan sebagainya.

2. Tidak ada sebab perkara ini perlu dibangkitkan kerana jika kita menonton rancangan dari negara jiran kita, penggunaan istilah-istilah Bahasa Inggeris yang telah diterjemahkan secara langsung adalah berleluasa.

Alasan-alasan di atas pada fikiran saya tidak dapat diterima sama sekali, dan seharusnya tidak digunakan untuk menyembunyikan kemalasan masyarakat kita untuk menggunakan istilah-istilah Bahasa Kebangsaan kita ini.

Senarai di atas akan saya perbaharui dari masa ke masa. Saya juga mengalu-alukan apa-apa cadangan atau pandangan pembaca, samada hendak menambah kepada senarai istilah ini, atau pun hendak mempersoalkan istilah-istilah yang sedia ada. Saya mengaku bahawa penguasaan Bahasa Melayu saya sendiri tidaklah begitu sempurna, malahan di peringkat PMR dan SPM pun saya tidak pernah sekali pun mendapat tahap "A" dalam peperiksaan. Oleh itu, saya amat berbesar hati jika pembaca dapat sama-sama memberikan pandangan terhadap masalah yang berat sebegini.

In-ger-landd!!!!

None gave them a chance. Justifiably so, given they lost both ties last time round. And with the miserable performances under Capello so far, some even hint that they just should've stuck with McLaren and saved a lot of money in the process. Even Bilic, the Croatia coach, was critical of England's struggle to a 2-0 win over part-timers Andorra on Saturday, and was confident of his own team's success. I wouldn't blame him, after all, they are unbeaten at home FOREVER (well since they were formed in 1990), and have let in a measly ONE goal in their last 10 home games. For England, merely getting a draw would be a huge achievement, and noone really took Capello seriously when he said he wanted to go for the win.

It was a convincing 4-1 MAULING of Croatia.

Forget Beckham, forget Wright-Phillips. With his awesome display in Croatia, Theo Walcott has made the right-side of midfield his own. Yes, his crossing may not yet match the best in the business. But then Walcott's business is scoring, and he's someone who has a real chance of hitting the target when he gets a chance in the area. But despite his hattrick, it's not all Walcott. Rooney, under heavy fire so far early in the season for his lack of scoring, ran Walcott close to be the man-of-the-match. His 2 assists and 1 goal showed they you do not neccessarly need to score in every game to be a great striker. Lampard showed his club form, and it's not a mere coincidence that every time Gerrard does not play, Lampard excels. In fact, the first 11 is the most balanced and settled England have been in quite a while. Ideally a naturally left-footed player is needed on the left, but with the inconsistent Downing the only contender, swashbuckling Joe Cole would do for now, though I would prefer him more as a supersub, which he has proven with devastating effect with his 3 goals in the previous 2 games.

England now have to build on this win, and hope that in the time to the next qualifying game, they don't get too over-confident and cocky. They haven't won the World Cup yet. Problem for Capello ultimately is how to fit Gerrard into the first 11. I say, if both Lamps and Barry are fit, the balance of the team should not be upset, and Stevie G can provide some company to Defoe, Downing, et al on the bench.

Anyway, this win is Capello's "Munich" moment. Munich here referring to the famous 5-1 AWAY win over Germany in Munich in the 2002 World Cup qualifiers that marked the start of the Sven-Goran Eriksson era. I just hope and pray that the Capello era ends on the highest note for England.

England til I die!
I'm England til I die!
I know I am, I'm sure I am,
I'm England til I die!

Introducing.... Honda Civic 2.0s - Nighthawk Black

After more than 2 months of waiting, we finally got our new car! It's something I can finally be proud of driving. Don't get me wrong, my trusty 'ol Wira's contributions in the past have been immense. But now, for once I'm not envious of other drivers on the road. It's a really FAST car, which is evident even in the current running-in period when I try not to exceed 3000 revs. Getting behind the wheel, with its two-tiered dashboard and the LCD speedometer feels like you're in the cockpit of a jet fighter. And I just love changing through the gears with the paddle-shifts located behing the steering wheel - ala Formula 1. An additional extra is the "Aux in" jack, which means I can listen to stuff on my iPhone without headphones (don't get me started on those FM radio iPod transmitters - they SUCK). The only problem so far is that you can NOT see the front of the chasis from inside the car - means that I have be extra careful when manouvering through tight spaces and even when parking the car. Getting used to it now, but may still opt to install front bumper sensors, just to make sure.

I'm also a fully-fledged member of the 8th-Gen Civic Club of Malaysia, and with the help of my new brethren, our Civic would be slowly but surely transformed into something special. Watch this space!

Fergie gets a Bulgarian

So, there ends the summer transfer window. And after a day of high drama (Spurs accepting a higher offer from Man City), United finally sealed the deal for Berbatov at the very last minute before the window shut. Going out the other way were Saha to Everton (how on Earth did he pass his medical test?), Silvestre swapping the United reserves for the Arsenal reserves, and Frazier Campbell going on loan to Spurs.

Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez, Berbatov. Now THAT'S a strikeforce to be reckoned with. Can't wait for the chants from the Stretford End, though I honestly can't think of anything that rhymes with Berbatov! And the Bulgarian has the perfect opportunity to make himself an instant legend with the Old Trafford faithful in his very first game - Liverpool at Anfield. With both Gerrard and Torres out of the game, I'm really really looking forward to 13th September.

For now, I just hope that Berbatov doesn't get crocked in this week's World Cup qualifiers. Speaking of which... COME ON IN-GER-LAND!!!!!!

Flying Murder

Read this interesting article on The Independent online. To SUCCESSFULLY kill a fly, youshould ANTICIPATE where the fly would fly away when you attempt to swat it, rather than swat exactly at the place it was resting. This is because of flies' super duper reflexes.

This is true, as I usually do the same thing, which is to clap my hands OVER the fly rather than hitting the table. Try it - it works!



(graphic is the copyright of independent.co.uk)

Coming soon......

The new PSP!!

Other than my iPhone, the other device that I almost always have with me is my PSP. And being the Winning Eleven/Pro Evo Soccer addict that I am, the ONLY game that I have on the PSP is of course Pro Evolution Soccer 2008.

Anyways, Sony have just officially announced the PSP-3000. Admittedly it looks EXACTLY the same as the "slim and lite" PSP-2000, but what excites me about the new version is that Sony claim that the screen is better, and is actually useable OUTDOORS.

One thing that I don't like about the current version is that it's just useless outdoors, and on more than one occasion has led to me making the stray pass or failing to make the last ditch tackle on an opposing striker. Now if only the new PSP has built-in DualShock than it would be PERFECT!

Premier Fantasies

FINALLY, the new season is upon us! For some less succesful teams (Arsenal and Liverpool) you could say their season starts tonight with the Champs League qualifiers.

Anyway, I've joined the OFFICIAL fantasy league at http://fantasy.premierleague.com and set up my team for the season. Hopefully you can join me there, with just a few simple steps:

1. Register a team (it's FREE!!) at http://fantasy.premierleague.com
2. Choose your players - make sure to just choose all the stars as you have to stick within a certain "budget"
3. Join my league - my league ID is 568355-171013

That's it! Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

My very first treasure hunt!

I've always wanted to join a treasure hunt. And no, I'm not talking about real treasure here, the kind associated with pirates and Indiana Jones. But rather, the more urban type of hunt where teams drive around "hunting" for answers to riddles in a set amount of time. It's become a popular pastime here in KL, where even "professional" teams of hunters exist. I've had experience with a "walk-hunt", and also entered the The Sun hunt a few times (even managing to win myself RM100!), but when the opportunity arose, I made the leap to enter my first ever PROPER treasure hunt.

So there we were - me, the missus and another couple - at the flag-off point somewhere in the USJ area at SEVEN in the morning. The hunt's organised by Lexis Nexis and the KL Bar and unfortunately for us, there wasn't any separate Masters category - so it was a baptism of fire for us as we had to compete with the "professionals".

For those of you who haven't joined these hunts before, the questions are mostly "cryptic". The hard part really is to decipher the questions. Once you have (sort of) figured out what the question wants, it's then just a matter of looking out for the answer amongst the multitude of shop signs along the specified route. As an example, the first question that was asked was as follows:

Some trial with its logics revolutionized.

Some of you may be thinking "huh?????". Well this a typical cryptic clue, and you need to know what words to look out for to solve it. There are actually 2 parts for the answer here:

1. "Some" is a partial indicator, which means that a portion of the next word forms the answer. The next word is "trial", so the answer could contain "TR" or "IAL" or even "AL".
2. "Revolutionized" in the question is an anagram indicator, which says that the answer is made up of the jumbled up letters of other words in the question. In this case, "its logics" is the anagram.

Once you've deciphered the question, it's then up to everyone to stare at all the shop signs looking for a name or phrase that fits the question. Lo and behold, the answer was:

IAL LOGISTICS (MALAYSIA) SDN BHD

See how the answer fits the question? "IAL" is part of "trial", and "LOGISTICS" is an anagram of "its logics".

So actually, a LOT of thinking has to be done on the day. Worse still if you have NO IDEA on what the question means, and you end up trying to scrutinize EVERY single shop sign to see if it fits the question in some way!

So how did we do? Well, we got 30 answers out of 40 correct, but didn't get any of the four required "treasures" - more on the treasures in a future post. Including some bonus points, we had a grand total of 95 points. There were prizes for the top 30 out of a total 60+ teams. And guess what? Even the team that finished in 30th place got more points than us!! BOTTOM HALF!! All that effort for nothing!

Well, this is just a start, and there are a few more hunts on the horizon. For the next ones, hoping to enter a Mercer team with the name "The MERCERnaries". Hopefully some luck from our 5-year winning streak in the annual Actuarial Society of Malaysia quiz would rub off!

Staying put - for now

Well, well. Who would've known. Seems that the Ronaldo-Madrid transfer saga has ended - at least for now. And seems that he's staying at Old Trafford - at least for now. The full transcript of his interview with a Portuguese paper can be found at Guardian's football site.

Short of a press conference with Fergie by his side, the interview is the closest you can get to a concrete statement from Ronnie on his future. He says all the right things, that he takes full responsibility for wanting to move, that he didn't want to move because of money, how he's "grateful" to United (reason why he sees a potential world-record transfer fee as his "gift" to the club), and his denial of his support of Blatter's slavery comments (though it was said during a TV interview), bla bla bla bla bla.

Personally, I still don't forgive him for the way he has handled this. To be fair, I accept and understand his reasons for leaving, as I've pointed out in an earlier post. What I CAN'T accept is the timing of him letting us know of his intentions - on the triumphal night of United's Euro win in Moscow itself. The whole summer (or at least the couple weeks after Moscow), the backpages of newspapers worldwide should be filled with praises, analyses and reports of United's unprecendented double triumph. However what we get are "will he or won't he?" articles on Ronaldo. So much so that - together with the Euro tourney - people have all but forgotten the TEAM'S achievements. The least Ronnie could do was to wait until the Euro started, better still AFTER Portugal were kicked out. You get this feeling that the transfer saga even affected his own performance at the tournament.

In the meantime, even if he is staying - say it with me, at least for now - he's still crocked until October, and United have an injury crisis for the first few games of the season. Nani's still banned for that stupid red card last season, Rooney and Carrick both have a "mysterious" African virus, Hargreaves, Saha and Park are all injured (what's new?), and Anderson's at the Olympics. And it's been quiet on the transfer front with United and Spurs stil not agreeing on a price for Berbatov. Oh well, at least we're only playing unlucky Newcastle at home on the first day - my outside bet for relegation this season.