Lingo Bingo

Lingo plays a bigger part in our lives than you think. If you think back, you’ve probably had words or phrases that were such commonplace during that particular period of your life. I personally know and recall vividly some of them during my younger days. Let’s see if I could recall them.

0 - 7 years
[This period draws a blank to me]

8 -9 years
The Beginnings of Swearing and Cussing
This was when I started learning all the swear words like “fuck”, “shit”, “bastard”, “asshole” and “motherfucker” hence I used those quite a lot. Another would be “ka ni na bei chao chee bye”

10 - 12 years
Red Alert & Ping Pong
The Command & Conquer: Red Alert craze coined words like “unit lost” and “ion cannon ready”. Yes, we actually used those in everyday speak. It was amazing. Then with my new found interest in table tennis, we had terms like “psycho spin” – a very difficult serve to receive.

13 - 14 years
Korean Influence
My first years at Shanghai American School – it was a blend of different cultures and languages. There was a strong Korean influence so words like “gay-a”, “keisiki”, “shibai asikei” and “shibai seki” were very common. During that period, I was equally as influenced by the break dancing scene and there was a Korean rap that went something like “freestyle reckio, chikeide reckio…”

14 years
French Phase
The term “lucky bastard” also came up in reference to my competition with my best mate Antoine in many things. I even began swearing in French with words like “putain” and/or “merde” the popular choice. This was the year my interest in French was on the increase.

15 years
Asian American Era
Arriving in high school this was when “ghetto” or “AzN” was popular. People were fond of giving themselves nicknames like “ghetto_AzN_raver” which also brings me to the topic of raving. This was officially the year I got into raving. “Glowsticking”, “photons”, “raver rings”, “e”, and “trance head” were the new in-thing. This I would refer to as my Asian American Era taking into account all the AzN Pride things and the raving.

16 years
The Cartoon Era
This has to be the period when we were influenced most by cartoons. The Simpsons got us to cuss like Homer i.e. saying “Doh!” all the time. Cartoon Network’s I R Baboon made us speak like I R very happy! Also a prominent bloke by the name of Kerpal led to the philosophical question of “why you kick my dog”. Memorization of the entire clip was the norm.

17 years
Homophobia and Basketball
Ok we really weren’t homophobic but we had some homophobic lingo such as “gay”, “fag”, “faggot” or “gay fag” being commonly used words. It wasn’t used to insult gays but rather just to poke fun at each other. This period was also the period when basketball was very popular. Understandably words and phrases like “swish”, “fade away”, “nothing but net”, “rejection” and “turn around jumper” were popular. Thrash talking complemented our playing with provocations like “luck”, “skills yo!”, “smelly shot”, “burn”, “oooooooh yeah” or “in your face” popping up ever so frequently.

18 years
The Highs of Volleyball
This year was quite dominated by volleyball since it was arguably our best year. So it was our cheers that really made us seem like cheerleaders rather than volleyball players. “Do I hear a boo ya? BOO YA!”/“Pay what? Pay cut!” (in reference to our somewhat incompetent Sports Director) /“What time is it? Game time! Yeah!”/“Got moxie?”/“Out! Way out! Close? Not even!” There were really too many including our cheering actions. In terms of normal speak, it was really a mixture of the previous 2 years with the inclusion of our comparisons of the most “manly” person. Being “buff” was an important factor and you’d always hear the two words come together.

19 years
Army Recruit
Entering the service was a culture shock as I was put into a batch of soldiers who were infamous for being in gangs and having low education levels. Somehow I mixed around with the Malays a lot and ended up learning a few Malay phrases like “relac lah” and “botoh!” I actually did my BMT twice (long story) and the second one was with scholarly people. Nevertheless, half our instructors were Malay and the inevitability of more Malay words. “Kotek plastic” and “garung” were famously used by my Platoon Sergeant.

19 - 20 years
Impersonations
Officer Cadet school didn’t really produce many notable lingo. The only thing we were quite obsessed with was impersonating our instructors. Frankly, we did a hell of a job that even the instructors were impressed.

20 years
Command
Being in command, I was basically the one setting the lingo since my men started using my words quite frequently. I honestly can’t recall them but you can always check with the men.

Now
At the moment there aren’t any that really stand out.