LAST week’s #RAGEchat added a totally new perspective to our cover story about #Manglish.
Our story was mainly about how important English is, something we did in conjunction with the launch of Oh My English!, an edu-tainment TV comedy series by Astro to encourage Malaysians to speak proper English – an effort supported by The Star’s English For More Opportunities campaign.
But during the #RAGEchat after the story was published, many of you tweeted us saying you feel judged by other Malaysians when you use proper English, without #Manglish.

One of them, @yiminggg, tweeted: “I spoke proper English for a bit coming back from NZ during summer. Kena from all the aunty uncle ‘wah so angmoh. where can.’” @theangrymedic, apparently a doctor (and an angry one at that), replied to @yiminggg, saying: “Nvr mind aunties n uncles, I get slammed by patients and other docs! ‘Eh doktor. Saya tarak paham apa lu cakap wor.’”
@Cottonball83 summed it up by saying: “people who speak proper english in general are labelled as snobs. #malaysians”

Picking up on that, we decided to do a simple live survey. We tweeted:
“RT if u agree: In Malaysia, people often get labelled as snobs for using proper English in conversation. #Manglish #RAGEchat”
In less than 30mins, the tweet had clocked up over 50 retweets – the maximum number displayed by Twitter. And that number doesn’t include those that had copy-and-pasted the tweet.

So it appears quite a significant amount of our Tweeples, and their friends on Twitter, find it hard to practice proper English without #Manglish because they’re worried people will think they’re snobs. In any case, is there anything wrong with using #Manglish to begin with? Do we really all have to speak the Queen’s English all the time? Not for the first time on #RAGEchat, opinion among our Tweeples was firmly divided.

Where can?
Here are some tweets from people who are against the use of #Manglish, some very vehemently so:
@NurulainRW: #Manglish is damn awful it rottens my ears. And you think you can survive w that in UK / US? No way.
@carmenblur: it’s NOT okay to use Manglish. what would other nations think of us??
@fetchmyrevolver: Not okay. And yes. Even though it’s just a “conversational language”, it’s slowly seeping into our written English. #RAGEchat
@MeganChng: manglish is like fast food – convenient yet unhealthy. it’s up to gov, edu & parents to ensure that we don’t feed on junk 24/7
@tincancat: Being proud of #Manglish is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve heard all day. It’s only something I resort to at times
@puiyen: @tincancat absolutely agree! Society outside Malaysia will probably be looking down at you and you won’t be taken seriously.
@thetempremental: #Manglish, I’m afraid, has been killing our command of English until we’ve difficulties expressing ourselves overseas.
Can-lah…

And here are those who think it’s perfectly fine:
@Shuli_tutti: I use (#Manglish) everyday. Happy die me :B
@olzworld: it’s a unique part of our culture 🙂 it’s something we share in common and enables us to laugh at ourselves
@suettyng: #Manglish isn’t bad English! It’s what makes us Malaysians, our unique form of communication.
@kingofcuteness: In Linguistics, it’s generally believed that every language changes every 100 years or so. You never know…

All languages have a history of taking in words from other languages. They were also considered”Rojak” at a time.
@yiminggg: On a more positive note, one of my best friends in NZ is FASCINATED with Manglish. Angmoh speaking Manglish = best thing ever.
@kopijunkie: #Manglish is fine. so is choosing to use proper English. there shouldn’t be any snobbery either way.

Classic #Manglish
Just for fun, we asked you guys to tweet us your favourite #Manglish phrases:
@StephenPaul92: wah, you are so terror #manglish #RAGEchat
@yiminggg: at the mamak or any food outlet: “EH MACHA. *kissy noises*”
@shammyzzz: cuba try test dulu
@BeatnikSeed: I’m here oredi #Manglish #RAGEchat
@DrS94: Aisehman
@radianceleong: my one, your one, everyone’s one. #Manglish #RAGEchat
@theuptownlife: my one instead of mine.
@smashpOp: An example of #Manglish: “Wah very hot. Ah boy! Pls open the fan!”