overtime

Here is a headline from page 2 of Media Permata of 26 July:

Ada majikan tidak bayar 'overtime' pekerja

which might be glossed as:

There are bosses who do not pay overtime to workers

Then, the first paragraph of the article starts with:

Sebilangan majikan didapati tidak membayar kerja lebih masa kepada pekerja mereka

which might be glossed as:

Some bosses are found who do not pay overtime to their workers

It is interesting that the headline uses the English 'overtime' but the article itself uses the Malay equivalent kerja lebih masa.

I quite often see English/Malay doublets, often presenting an English technical term and then its Malay equivalent, but this is the first time I have seen the English in the headline but the Malay equivalent in the text. However, I guess it works well enough.

oxt

I just read a short article in the Guardian Online (here) about the invented word 'oxt'. Apparently, if today is Friday, then 'this weekend' would be tomorrow and the next day, while 'oxt weekend' would be the following week. (I'm not sure if anyone is actually proposing this new word, or if it is just a joke.)

What is interesting is this: we know what 'this weekend' means; and now 'oxt weekend' has been defined. So what does 'next weekend' mean?

And If today is Monday and I say "Let's meet next Wednesday", when are we meeting? Is it the day after tomorrow? Or is it the Wednesday of next week, i.e. in nine days' time? Nobody seems to know, which seems totally bizarre. Perhaps we really do need a new word such as 'oxt' to help sort things out.

Long Sentences

I recently saw this sentence on page 6 of the Media Permata of 3 July. It is 76 words long.

Sepanjang bulan Ramadan ini, Jabatan Bomba dan Penyelamat mengambil kesempatan ini untuk menasihatkan dan mengingatkan kepada orang ramai untuk berhati-hati terutama sekali dari segi aspek pencegahan kebakaran khususnya suri-suri rumah tangga apabila berada di dapur untuk memastikan tidak meninggalkan sebarang masakan terbiar dan apabila meninggalkan rumah untuk memastikan membuat senarai semak iaitu untuk memastikan semua peralatan elektrik yang tidak digunakan hendaklah ditutup termasuk gas memasak di mana dikhuatiri berlaku kebocoran yang boleh membawa kepada berlakunya kejadian yang tidak diingini.

It might be translated (rather badly) as:

Throughout this month of Ramadan, the Fire and Safety Office is taking the opportunity to advise and remind the public to be careful especially with respect to avoiding fires particularly housewives when they are in the kitchen to ensure they do not leave their cooking unattended and when they leave the house they should ensure they complete a checklist namely to ensure all electrical tools which are not being used are switched off including the cooking gas whereby there are worries there might be a leak which could bring about an undesirable event.

In this rather literal translation, I have maintained the use of 'whereby' as a translation di mana, as lots of my students use 'whereby' in their English.

As far as I know, the Malay is fine; but English does not encourage such long sentences. It would be better to break it up, maybe something like:

Throughout this month of Ramadan, the Fire and Safety Office is taking the opportunity to remind the public to be careful especially with respect to avoiding fires. In particular, housewives in the kitchen should ensure they do not leave their cooking unattended. In addition, when they leave the house, they should complete a checklist to make sure all electrical tools which are not being used are switched off. Furthermore, they should be careful about the cooking gas, as there are worries there might be a leak which could bring about an undesirable event.

In addition to breaking it up into four sentences, I have avoided the use of 'advise and remind', which seems a bit redundant, even though menasihatkan dan mingingatkan is fine in Malay. I have also eliminated the repetition of 'ensure', even though memastikan occurs three times in the Malay.

Shortening of sentences and avoiding lexical repetition are issues that need to be considered when translating from Malay into English.