... mamakai tali pinggang keselamatan, tidak memandu sambil bertelefon dan mengurangkan had kelajuan.The first two of these are straightforward: wear a seatbelt; and don't drive while using a telephone. But the third is a bit surprising, as it literally means "reduce the speed limit". Now, one might try and get one's friends to reduce their speed, but reduce the speed limit?
What is even more surprising about this is that I have shown it to some local people and asked them what is strange about it, and they do not notice anything. It seems that mengurangkan had kelajuan has become a fixed phrase which has come to mean "reduce one's speed". In fact, my colleague Adrian Clynes tells me there is a sign along the coastal highway that says: "Kurangkan Had Kelajuan".
Perhaps this is just one more example of the oddity of language, which so often just does not make any sense. In British English we say "I couldn't care less", but Americans say "I could care less", and these two utterances mean exactly the same thing even though they are direct opposites! So maybe one should not try to analyse the logical meaning of words too closely. And it seems that mengurangkan had kelajuan really has come to mean "reduce your speed" even if that is not what it literally says.
