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By FADZILAH AMIN
Should you call it movie or film? Well, it depends
whether youre talking about an Oscar (Hollywoods
Academy Award) or a BAFTA (British Academy Film
Award). Confused? Read on...
THE ideas in this article have long been playing around in my
mind, because I am aware that Malaysians are exposed to the
two main varieties of English: British English and the English
used in the United States, which I shall refer to here as
American English.
Some of the older ones among us were taught British English
during the colonial days, and passed it on to the generations
after us with varying degrees of success. American English, on
the other hand, is the variety we are more exposed to now
through cinema, TV, the Internet, popular songs, and so on.
Although, due to the circumstances of my education, I feel
more at home using British English. I dont think that one
variety is necessarily better than the other. I was stunned,
therefore, to come across this paragraph in a letter from a
reader of Sunday Star on Feb 12: For decades, Malaysians
have been proud of using British English without the American
corruption of the language. (emphasis mine)
Surely this is a harsh and inaccurate way of describing
American English, the language used by John Steinbeck,
Arthur Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Frost, Mark Twain, and
a whole lot of other excellent writers, some of whom have won
the Nobel Prize in Literature!