SINGAPORE – We’ve been together for agak-agak four years, but I’m still waiting for him to ask me to BTO, really jialat.
Reading the above sentence and deciphering its meaning should come as a piece of cake, or to the more Singlish-inclined, kacang putih.
For others who can’t make head or tail of what it means, the Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) latest update on March 24, which added some new Singlish words, might come in handy.
The OED added to its word list 11 new entries with a Singaporean or Malaysian English etymology.
The new entries included “BTO”, “wayang” and “kaypoh” that can be used in multiple forms as nouns, verbs or adjectives.
The initialism BTO has come to refer to the Build-To-Order scheme, or a flat under the scheme managed by Singapore’s Housing and Development Board (HDB, a 2016 entry), but is also used as a verb when applying for a flat under the scheme, said Oxford Languages, the dictionary’s publisher, in a release explaining its new entries.
The publisher added that the word often comes up “when discussing a couple’s relationship status, as applying for a flat together under the BTO scheme is seen as an important milestone, similar to an engagement”.
Hokkien loanword “jialat” originated from the words that literally mean “to eat strength” and started out being used to describe something irksome or exhausting. The Oxford entry states that it can now also be used to describe a person in trouble or difficulty.
The dictionary also noted how a borrowed Malay word like “wayang” which would refer to a Indonesian or Malaysian theatrical performance, has developed in Singlish into putting up a “false display intended to cheat” or as an adjective to mean “showy or fake”.
