lala

The art of looking busy while blogging is not something one can learn overnight. It takes weeks of practice and often there will be setbacks. Only in very rare occasions does someone with the natural ability to act busy come along. How good is such a person? He is so good that he knows how to write long sentences of completely insignificant nonsense just so that it looks more like a company report.

I haven’t really talked much about my office other than Mr. Helmet. Maybe now is a good time to talk about the rest. After all, the office seems particularly quiet today. Not sure where everyone went to but I don’t think they’re absent. They’re just everywhere but the office.

Being a Dutch company, I shouldn’t be surprised to see a few Dutch in the office. But I have to admit I was. I realize it’s natural for companies to make sure that the top man in charge always comes from the country of origin. And I can also understand why this would lead to more Dutch being hired in middle-management positions as well. But it still startled me when I saw all these Dutchmen. And no they are not flying. Haha

I think it’s quite easy to tell when a Caucasian is a Dutch. Firstly, when they speak English, the accent is extremely unique. This is probably due to the influence of their mother tongue, just like how the Indians and Chinese have their own accent as well. Singaporeans have their own accent too but it’s hard for me to distinguish since I probably have it too.

Of course, individuals have their own variation. But in general, people from the same country do share a common base for accents. Of course, it’s impossible to describe what a Dutch accent sounds like. At best, I can say it sounds like a mix of German and French. The most important thing to me is that it is clear. I find it quite easy to understand, at times even easier to understand than the Australian accent. To be honest, I actually like the Australian accent the most. For some reason, the accent in itself already sounds cheerful, stress-free and cordial. However, it doesn’t sound as nice when Singaporeans stay there for a couple of years and pick it up. More often than not, their so-called Australian accent is more like a mix of Singaporean and Australian. And that just sounds a little odd. It’s interesting to note that it’s a lot harder to use Singlish when one no longer has a purely Singaporean accent. I mean think about it, it’s weird to say “lah” and “aiya” with an Australian accent. For instance, “aiya” will probably end up sounding more like “oh ya” and that just destroys the essence of the word doesn’t it?

The thing is that Singlish is inherently lazy. It is a language used by Singaporeans who just want to get a message across without having to think of what preposition to use. While others would ask “where are we meeting for lunch?” Singaporeans would just say “lunch meet where?” See how much easier it is?

This laziness is also audibly evident in our accent. We skip the arduous process of correct intonation. We don’t pause at certain vowels or stress certain syllables. We just take the easy way out and drag everything. So even our own country sounds more like “Seeng- car- pourrrr” when it should be more like “sin-ga-por”. I don’t claim to be some expert in English. But it’s hard to deny that the Singlish way of talking, both in style and content, is basically just a lazier form of English.

On the other hand, you could say it’s a more efficient form of English. So who knows? Maybe English will one day be like Singlish! Haha…