Mind your 'Ingriss'
Indonesians have a lovely and fascinating way of speaking 'Ingriss' and are unique in the tools they can employ to express themselves. Things are expressed more by the way they are perceived rather than by the use of words.
When a friend asked us to turn right at the “tishu tishu” building – what we soon realised – after driving around in circles and a couple of desperate phone calls - was that she meant the building with several protruding slanting roofs over the balconies.
Then again, a parking attendant stood bravely in our way – crossed his arms in front of his chest, pursed his lips and contorted his face to a very constipated grimace – all he wanted to communicate was that the basement was packed to capacity and there was no parking space.
Intensity of an emotion is denoted by the degree to which the word is stretched. “Why so angreeee?” asked a colleague to Pratap. And when he really did get very angreeeeeeeee (please note the number of e’s to realise how critical the situation was) – the next query was “Why so toucheeeeeeee?”
We have learnt to gauge the intensity a word denotes at different times. So when the gym instructor said “Pussssssssssssssssssssss!” we knew we had to use all our might, breathe out vociferously, flex our muscles and step up our heart rate all at the same time.
An Indonesian cop who pulled us over for crossing lanes – painstakingly drew an entire diagram to explain what our mistake was. Experience had made us wiser, any zebra knows that when a lion is pulling its leg, it’s no joke. All we could muster up was “We’re so sorreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” It’s another story that the apology landed far shy of its mark and he drew the picture of a rupiah note and handed over his chalan book to us. The penny dropped and a 50,000 rupiah note was slipped between the pages.
The Property Management of Casablanca ‘Apartmen’ comes up with these bewildering notices. Here’s one that was put up on our apartment notice board recently. And I quote verbatim:
Lost & Found PROGRAM
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Property Management is going to release some lost and found items; which we found them in the apartment areas since January – February 2005.
Please contact Housekeeping or Tenant Relation Department in 831-3984 ext:106 or 108 to collect your lost and found item (s).
Should there are nobody claims for their lost items during the above schedule; Property Management would release it to the item’s Founder.
Thank you for your attention.
When a friend asked us to turn right at the “tishu tishu” building – what we soon realised – after driving around in circles and a couple of desperate phone calls - was that she meant the building with several protruding slanting roofs over the balconies.
Then again, a parking attendant stood bravely in our way – crossed his arms in front of his chest, pursed his lips and contorted his face to a very constipated grimace – all he wanted to communicate was that the basement was packed to capacity and there was no parking space.
Intensity of an emotion is denoted by the degree to which the word is stretched. “Why so angreeee?” asked a colleague to Pratap. And when he really did get very angreeeeeeeee (please note the number of e’s to realise how critical the situation was) – the next query was “Why so toucheeeeeeee?”
We have learnt to gauge the intensity a word denotes at different times. So when the gym instructor said “Pussssssssssssssssssssss!” we knew we had to use all our might, breathe out vociferously, flex our muscles and step up our heart rate all at the same time.
An Indonesian cop who pulled us over for crossing lanes – painstakingly drew an entire diagram to explain what our mistake was. Experience had made us wiser, any zebra knows that when a lion is pulling its leg, it’s no joke. All we could muster up was “We’re so sorreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” It’s another story that the apology landed far shy of its mark and he drew the picture of a rupiah note and handed over his chalan book to us. The penny dropped and a 50,000 rupiah note was slipped between the pages.
The Property Management of Casablanca ‘Apartmen’ comes up with these bewildering notices. Here’s one that was put up on our apartment notice board recently. And I quote verbatim:
Lost & Found PROGRAM
Dear Sir/ Madam,
Property Management is going to release some lost and found items; which we found them in the apartment areas since January – February 2005.
Please contact Housekeeping or Tenant Relation Department in 831-3984 ext:106 or 108 to collect your lost and found item (s).
Should there are nobody claims for their lost items during the above schedule; Property Management would release it to the item’s Founder.
Thank you for your attention.
Property Management.
And to our Indonesian friends – “mind your 'ingriss' and stop being so toucheeeeeeeee!”
And to our Indonesian friends – “mind your 'ingriss' and stop being so toucheeeeeeeee!”
posted by Sangeeta Rana at 9:40 AM
12 Comments:
What one takes to be a typo would very well give you full marks in an Indonesian spelling test. For instance, 'apartmen'i.e. apartment with the the writer giving up completing the spelling in sheer lethargy.For months now I've been thinking that this has been one contagious and active printers' /writers' devil till the english to bahaasa dictionary told me otherwise..... or was it 'ingriss' to 'bhasha'????
Thank you for your emails and the beautifully written write-up on Ingriss. Have you ever thought of publishing your collection? You have travelled and lived in so many places and have a wealth of memories to share.
In fact this is a typical case of a language where the speech modulation is almost as important as the word itself. From my experience in Delhi, I can tell you that a 'relational' swear word can mean an abuse or a compliment or an exclamation or an appeal(and many other things) depending upon the voice modulation. Should you need an example, please feel free to tick me off.. ;)
This was veeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrry interestiiiiiiiiing
Hi,
I remember an incident from my college days… We were in the metal workshop and a classmate of mine was furiously and vigorously working to model a piece of metal with a file. The workshop assistant ran up to him, stopped him, and said, “Don’t do-do-do-do (Speed 4 dos/Second), you Do – Do – Do – Do (Speed 1 Do/Second)”. Meaning ease off and work slowly but steadily.
I guess everyone has their own version of ‘Ingriss’… Hmm… and coming to think of it, the ‘English’ (Brits) will now have to learn ‘Ingriss’ from us… at the ‘Ingriss Language Teaching Center’ ;-)
MJ
This is gooooooooooooooooooood piece to keep off the tensiooooooooon, cheers
Man Sangeeta you ought to be in the profession of writing... Hilarious accounting... and my daughter says it is very "funnnneeeeeeeeeeeee".
Am in India at the moment....
Swapna Raghavan via e-mail:
So funeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :)
All I can say is..... funnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee....................................
Thanks for the extremely insightful, well written and humorous postcards that you put together. They are a delight to read. Keep sending......
Hi...long time i know ..how come no more postcards from Jakarta... miss reading the funny incidents...
From Rufus Phobendra, Kathmandu. previously my student...now a good friend:
"I did read some of your weblog journals. Quite interesting you write ma’am!!! It’s interesting how ephemeral the dimensions in the world we live in and how fast it can really change..."
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