"Listen carefully, Mary died, did she die?"

I played this brain teaser 3.5 yrs ago and I know the answer today.

Despite my best-effort guessing that time, he left me clueless.

It's alright.

Something funny I encountered on the bus ...

I was seated next to a boy on a bus..probably around 16-17 years of age, and he was having a conversation on his mobile.

I wasn't intending to eavesdrop or anything, its just that the first sentence i heard when i sat down was funny.

"Why do singaporeans like to put a 'lah' behind their sentence? I don't understand, I'm also a singaporean but i don't use it.."

I proceeded to take out my book of Tuesday with Morrie and wanted to read it, however his conversation was just too interesting to not listen.

"ok...so how do you say the word 'lah', is the tone of it going up or down?"

"Like is it, lah! or lah.." (trying out the tones of the word..)

"Let me try, ...(proceeds to try using 'lah' in this sentence) ok, I'm going to be late, lah"

*HAHAHAHAHA*

"I'm going to be late lah!"

"I'm going to be late, lah.."

"I'm going to be late lah!"

ok, maybe typing it out doesn't seem that funny. Or maybe i should say that the boy did not speak like an average singaporean with the chee-na slang, he spoke in fluent english with grammatically correct sentences. Somewhat like a foreigner.

When he first said that sentence, I tried hard to control my laughter, as from the way I heard it...the 'lah' was placed forcefully in his sentence and it doesn't sound good in the sentence definitely. It destroyed his sentence ..hehe.

Hehhe...its just the way he spoke that sentence that made me laughed.

I bet 10 bucks that he's speaking to a gal, or some gal he likes..hahaa.

Ok, then he continued to try the sentence. He tried for at least 5-6 times, before it sounds more natural.

And he's really trying hard to learn how to speak in singlish, getting tips on how to speak the sentence from the person at the end of the line.

It got me thinking that people would rather learn how to speak in proper english and not singlish, as to most singaporeans...it would be something that came naturally to them i presume.

So when I heard how keen he is in trying to speak singlish..it kinda feels weird or funny.

He alighted the bus shortly after, less than 10mins when I sat beside him, and still on his mobile...trying to learn the other singlish words...ahahaa..


Sleeping time.