Tribute to Teachers

Mother’s Day has come and gone but I’m sure we won’t treat it as a one-off thing. Hopefully we will continue to cherish our mothers every single day.

Besides mothers, we shouldn’t forget our teachers as well. Since we are celebrating Teacher’s Day this coming Saturday,  it’s good to talk about them from now till then. Do share with me your experiences with your teachers.

I remember this funny lesson I had under this temporary teacher when I was in Form 2. He told the whole class that we would only understand some of the sacrifices made by our parents when we reached adultery. Being respectful, we didn’t correct him but it made us more determined to study harder so that we wouldn’t be taught the wrong thing.

P/S: Troubling Consonant Clusters

Dear readers,

Have you tried saying grasp, crisp and hasp in quick succession? If you happen to say them as they’re meant to be pronounced, congratulations to you. However, there are cases where these words come out sounding like graps, crips and haps. And if you fall into this latter category, you are not alone provided you’re living in  Malaysia. The reason for the inversion of the two consonant clusters from sp to ps could be due to ease in pronunciation.

Having said that, consonant clusters like st or sk do not follow the inversion rule. I notice that in colloquial Malaysian English, words like blast, fist, bask and dusk follow a different rule namely the dropping of the last consonant. Hence these words sound like blas, fis, bas and dus. Any idea why blats, fits, bats and duks are almost unheard of? If you do, please let me know.

Regards,
Higgins

P/S: Do mind your ps and sp nonetheless.