Thursday, November 4, 2010

About 'langkah bendul' and 'perlintasan'

I like to read the English and Malay dictionaries. In doing so, I get to increase my vocabulary and discover words peculiar to English or Malay.

Today as I looked up all the affixes that link to the Malay word 'lintas', I had a new discovery. There is such a word as 'perlintasan' which is the gift given by the younger sister to her elder sister if she is the one to get married first. Normally the elder sister will get married first and the younger sister. It must happened in the past before, or else there will not be such a word in the dictionary.

The idiom 'langkah bendul' also has to do with this situation. If a younger sister gets married earlier than her elder sister, then she is said to have 'langkah bendul'.

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