When i was in Krabi, Thailand at the start of this year, many of the street signs or things written on the menus caught my eye. Although I do have to admit that when I noticed them I was more often than not laughing at their 'incorrect' spelling or usage of that particular word. However, on hindsight, I can see that those things I deemed mistakes were their own interpretation of the English language and were actually very interesting.
This is one example:
This was part of the menu at a restaurant we loved, called Areebaba! When we saw this dish of "Stir fried young Kate" we could not help laughing and joking about how "kate" could be one of the babies featured on the front page of the menu. In this example we can see how the word "kate" can mean different things in different contexts. In Thailand it is used to describe a type of vegetable (just a guess as it was on the page with all the vegetable dishes!). However to us Singaporeans it was a girl's name, particularly the one with the capitalised "K". I am still clueless as to what type of vegetable it was referring to (as we didn't have the guts to order that) so anyone who might have some idea what vegetable "kate" might sound like or refer to, please share that with me!
More next time!
