What's in a Name?

Apparently, a good name is everything. It helps open doors and when used often becomes a prayer.

However, certain names are interesting by themselves. Obama is the toast of America at present while delete "b" and replace it with "s", the person becomes the most wanted man in America. In Kuala Lumpur, there is a cardiologist by the name of Dr Quek, whose certainly not a quack. A friend by the name of Quah had a company producing soups and gravies, and gravy in Malay is kuah.

Wrong spellings of Arabic names for non-Arab Muslims has led to demeaning names. For example a wrong spelling can lead to a woman's name to mean being a prostitute and not beautiful as originally intended. A man's name which means handsome if wrongly pronounced may sound like a camel instead.

Sometimes, a name in one language mean something else in another language.For a plural society in Malaysia, this can be both funny and confusing. Bala in Malay is something not good but to an Indian it is a good name. Another example is pusing. In Malaysian Malay, it means to turn around or to go in circles but to an Indonesian, it means he has a headache. Sometimes, dialects or colloquial slang can be confusing too. A patient may tell the doctor his tummy hurts but the doctor may understand that he has a headache so gives a wrong prescription. Ask Ikmal. I know he has misunderstood a few times the Indian slang in his encounters with Indian patients in Bangalore. Even Zay had a few problems as a medical student in Kelantan.

Malaysians are also fond of using brands to denote things.Toothpaste is called Colgate; Breeze or Fab is detergent; Glo for dish washing liquid; Clorox is the name for all bleach; scouring liquid is called Vim and a plastic container is Tupperware. Whichever brands penetrates the market first will enjoy being called by its brand name.

I notice that nowadays, retailers are fond of renaming their products to bring luck to the buyer, especially some Chinese buyers. Now there are the dragon fish (arowana), red dragon fish, (called gelama pisang in Malay), the dragon fruit (pitaya) tiger prawns, tiger worms, and golden pomfret. The tiger worms and tiger prawns are so called as they have stripes. The tiger is a prominent and revered animal in Chinese folklore. They do not call them zebra worms or zebra prawns because the zebra is not an indigenous animal in China or in Malaysia. I wonder why no one has renamed the "Zebra Crossing" to the "Tiger Crossing". Maybe there are not many Zebra Crossings in Malaysia. Moreover, to call a Zebra Crossing a Tiger Crossing may scare some children who use them.

As the golden pomfret, it is also a new name. I don't think it is a pomfret at all.

Another misnomer is calling the boot or trunk of the car, the bonnet. At present I cannot think of other misnomers. I will edit this post if I can recall any of them later.