Category: Language

During our High School days, we had a visiting Brother. He told a story and asked us to repeat the tongue twister.

“A city, which was plagued with pickpockets, asked someone to tackle the problem. The problem went away. How and Why?

When he saw a pickpocket
pick the pocket of a man
he picked the pocket of the pickpocket
and put the pickings
in the pocket of the man
whose pocket the pickpocket had picked. “

Uzin Aung Chaw (Victor, C69) added :

When he saw the pickpocket picked the pocket, he picked the pocket of the pickpocket and repocket the pickings into the pocket whose pocket was picked by the pickpocket.

Ashin Pannagavesaka wrote :

The very first one I ever learnt was: She sells seashells on the seashore!
Another one from our primary school days was: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. So, if Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled 🌶 peppers, where is the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked?

Type of games

• Athletic games (Badminton, Football, Hockey)
• Board games (Checkers, Chess, Scrabble)
• Card games (Bridge, Solitaire)
• Word games (Lexicon, Scrabble)

Obsolete games

With the advent of the Internet and sophisticated games, the following games are obsolete.

• Gin (Top)
• Doe (Gon Nyin)
• Htoke Si
• Tug o war
• Kite flying
• Phunn Khone Dann
• Hide and Seek
• Treasure Hunt
• Fizz Buzz
• Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?
• Simple Simon Says
• Musical Chairs
• River Jordan
• Rope Skipping
• Limbo
• London Bridge is falling down
• Blind Man’s Buff
• Hokey Pokey
• Whispering
• Charade

Old Games

• Thone Pone Phair
• Ket
• Mah Jong
• Follow the leader
• Fizz Buzz
• Marbles
• Sit Tu Yin (Burmese Chess)
• Chinese Checkers
• Chinese Chess
• Pontoon
• Foosball

Dr. Nyunt Wai commented that Message should be more important than Messenger (e.g. media, format).

Keynote speakers also emphasize on the importance of Message. What is the key take away from the Keynote Speech? Videos, slides, humor … are entertaining, but without a memorable idea to act upon, a speech is usually not memorable.

Story Telling is powerful, informative, aspiring, educational, entertaining …

Books, movies, music, arts, history, archaeology, … leverage the art of Story Telling.

Thanks to my Thin Sayas, Myin Sayas and Kyar Sayas for helping me learn and develop the art of Story Telling.

• Action
  End a presentation with “Call for Action”
• Audience
  Know your audience
  Fine tune your presentation to match the audience
• Audio Quality
  Check the speaker system
  Appropriate volume
• Constructive criticism
  Use applicable suggestions from past presentations
• Coverage
  Breadth
  Depth
• Dress
  Formal
  Semi-formal
  Informal
• Message
• Persuasion
• Presentation
  Use appropriate technique
• Props
  if relevant (and allowed)
• Strengths
• Video Quality
  Check the video system
• Weaknesses
  for improvement

by Hla Min

Updated : May 2025

Authors and Poets

In our younger days, there were some aspiring Mixed Language Authors and Poets.

Sample

If you want the Du Wun Kye
I ta kei bin sutt pay mei
Love hmar lar kwe A chit ye

Loose rendition in English

If you want the Northern Star
I really will pluck it [from the sky for you]
Will you love me My dearest

Most quoted verse

U Zaw Min Nawaday (EP70) wrote : I remember reading the “probably most quoted” Mixed Language verse in an old Burmese magazine.

When I see a pyo ka-nya.
I will go to hto ney yar.
when I give her yee zar sar,
she will give me khon ba nat sar.

Probably someone’s real life episode.

Jataka Tale

It started with

One day Lay Gyi Moe Gyi Kya
Maha Za Net Ka
Thinn Baw Paw ka Khone Cha.

Seven, seven days later
Mei Kha Lar come and save

To the Kyauk Phyar
…

Loose rendition

One day [there was turbulence in the high sea]
Forceful winds & Heavy rain
Maha Janaka
from [the upper deck of the troubled ship]
dived into the ocean

A week later [seeing Janaka raging against the rough weather]
Ma Ni Mei Kha Lar [a guardian deity]
came [and offered] to save him

[Janaka later found himself]
on a stone “bed”
…

• We are familiar with Conventional Wisdom.
• Sometimes, it pays to try something unconventional.

Euclid

• Euclid proposed five Postulates, which form the foundation of Euclidean Geometry.
• Some mathematicians questioned whether the Fifth Postulate (aka Parallel Postulate) was needed. It gave birth to Non-Euclidean Geometry (used in Navigation).

Newton

• Sir Isaac Newton formulated the Laws of Motion.
• High school texts describe three Laws of Motion.
• Some questioned if two laws are sufficient.
  The following is their reasoning:
  Force = Mass x Acceleration
  If there is no Force, there can be no Acceleration.
  It implies that the Velocity remains constant.
  If the initial state is stationary, the object continues to be in that state. If the object is in motion, the object continues to move with that velocity.
• One law can be deduced (using First Principles) by another law.

Physics

• The size and the speed of the object effect the “Laws of Motion”.
• Classical Physics, which was Conventional Wisdom for its time, gave way to Modern Physics (including Quantum Mechanics).

Grace Murray Hopper

• Rear Admiral (One Star General) Grace Murray Hopper is a Pioneer & Prime Mover in Computers and Computing.
• She won the prestigious ACM Turing Award.
• ACM also have the Grace Murray Hopper Award for outstanding young computer scientists who had a significant contribution before the age of 30.
• She is credited with coining the term “Bug” for a computer (hardware or software) failure.
• She does not like the word, “It’s always been done that way.”
  She has a clock which runs in the reverse direction of conventional clocks.

Technical Obsoloscence

You are an oldie if you have used the following:

• Blackboard
• Carbon paper
• Chalk
• Eraser
• Exercise Book
• Ferrite Core Memory
• Floppy Disk
• Gestener
• Punched Card
• Punched Paper Tape
• Rotary Phone
• Slate
• Slide rule
• Telephone Kiosk
• Typewriter
• Vinyl Record

Some are on display in museums and at vintage fairs.

Bookshops

During our school days, SPHS has its own book shop.

Later, we bought books from Ava House and the RIT Book shop. The official exchange rate was five kyats to a US Dollar. For books, the price was converted using six kyats to a Dollar.

Exercise Books

The exercise books are available in different sizes. They range from 40 pages to 200 pages.

An exercise book with 80 pages costs around 50 pyas.

The exercise book brought over to the US by Ko Benny Tan (M70) shows

• the badges of the Universities and Institutes under the then New Education System
• the badge of Trade Corporation (9) Rangoon
• Ko Benny’s other names
• subject name.

Inside the book is the calligraphy of Angelina Tan (his personal copier and sweet heart),

The exercise book was put on display at SPZP-2000.

Ko Benny was a Golden Sponsor, designer of mementos and co-Chair of the Working Committee for SPZP-2000.

Homonym

A cricket ball is THROWN to the AIR.
The Prince of Wales is HEIR to the THRONE.

Tongue Twister

(How a detective thwarted a pick pocket)

When he saw the pickpocket pick the pocket of a man
he picked the pocket of the pickpocket
and put the pickings
in the pocket of the man
whose pocket the pickpocket had picked.

Word Construction

Make a sentence with “ANALYZE” and “ANATOMY”.

(Sing to the tune “My Bonnie lies over the ocean”)
My ANNA LIES over the ocean
My ANNA LIES over the sea
My ANNA LIES over the ocean
And bring back my ANNA TO ME.

Dictionary

A dictionary minimally provides the meaning of a word or a phrase. Some also provide examples of usage, synonyms and antonyms.

• Advanced Learners’ Dictionary
• Bilingual Dictionary (aid for translation)
• Chambers Dictionary
• Funk and Wagnal’s Dictionary
• Judson’s Burmese – English & English – Burmese Dictionaries
• Jones Dictionary for Pronounciation
• Merriam Webster Dictionary
• Oxford English Dictionary
• Specialized Dictionaries (e.g Pali, Rhyming Dictionary, Technical Dictionary)
• Word Processing Systems (with built in dictionary)
• Visual Dictionary

There are now Online Dictionaries.

Thesauraus

The word means a “Treasure” or “Treasury”.

Dr. Peter Mark Roget compiled a Thesaurus of English words based on his system of classification.

A Thesaurus complements a Dictionary.

• One looks up a Dictionary when one knows a word and wants to find out the meaning and/or usage. One looks up a Thesaurus when one has an idea or a concept, and wants to find out the right word.
• Over the years, both have evolved and even converged.
• One Thesaurus is arranged in Dictionary form for ease of look up.
• There are Editors and Word Processors with built-in dictionary and thesaurus.
• There is a “Visual Thesaurus” where one can start with a word and follow the links.

Language Usage

• Antonym
• Homonym
• Idiom
• Metaphor
• Parsing
• Proverb
• Quote
• Simile
• Synonym