Thursday, August 21, 2014

Kar Kia

An angmo customer recently asked me what's the Singlish term for female subordinate, which I told him it should be "Kar Kia / Kha Kia". I think it literally means the son of the leg?? He asked me for the spelling which I have no idea, as I've never seen the term in writing. Singlish is still a very young language so there's no standardized spelling. Then his female colleague started to complain that she's not a Kar Kia, it's a guy term...probably need to add a "Siu" infront for Siu Ze (cantonese for lady). Haha, which I don't think cantonese will mix with hokkien, but well singlish is a very versatile language...she could had said swee kar kia (beautiful sidekick)...

Anyway we tried to google for the word which I then realised there's no entry for Kar Kia in the Coxford Singlish dictionary...there's pai kia for bad boy, so I guess the hokkien spelling for boy is kia...

Let me try to explain
Kar Kia
(Car kee-ah)
Hokkien phrase for subordinate staff, underling or sidekick.
"Why you do this yourself? Get your kar kia to do lar."

Am I right, my kar kia??

No comments:

Post a Comment