you had me at teruja* 

One of my bad habits is reading the subtitles of every single movie that I watch. When I watch DVDs, I always make sure the subtitles mode is turned on. It’s almost perfunctory. Almost, because the subtitles serve a small purpose for someone with impaired hearing like me. Yes, you read it correctly. Test results confirmed that my hearing ability is actually below average – due to daily blasting music on the eardrums during my teen years. And no thanks to Sony Walkman.
Anyway, as I was saying…So when I don’t hear well, at least I can read the subtitles to comprehend what has been said. That helps tremendously when one’s watching those England English movies or those with super thick accents like Irish, Scottish or Australian. While those accents sound super sexy [think: Colin Firth, Daniel Day-Lewis and Hugh Jackman!], you just have no idea what have been muttered.

Besides that subtitles also provide value-added entertainment when the Malay translations get all twisted. Or when the DVDs provide wrong English subtitles that doubles as black comedy. Even all the Astro movies provide them subtitles in Malay. This brings us to the subject of this post.

While “blog” was the word for 2004, the most famous Malay word used in 2005 has to be teruja. Whoever that created this word, whether intentionally or accidentally, should have patented it. It means excited. Euphoric. Ecstatic. Elated. It’s been used in every single sentence you can think of. More so in Akademi Fantasia 3, this makes you begin to wonder if it was an endorsement of sorts.

Usage includes:

o Oh I sungguh teruja memenangi anugerah ini. - Translation: Oh I feel excited winning this award.

o Mawi teruja sangat makan Mamee.

o Peminat-peminat Mawi teruja dengan frasa ‘Mawi World’.

o Nyanyian dan persembahan Mawi untuk lagu ‘Aduh Saliha’ amat teruja sekali.

o Ella nyanyi lagu Teruja dengan teruja sekali.

o Anjali teruja extrem dengan janggut abang M. Nasir, oh pahlawan Semerah Padi.

It’s teruja this. Teruja that. Teruja here. Teruja there. Teruja everywhere. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you peel your ears this week and count how many times you come across this word. Then you will believe me.

So on this auspicious day, I want to be original and tell you - my fellow gorgeous bloggers, readers and friends - I TERUJA U. Sounds really nice, isn’t it?

Happy Valentine’s Day! Have a teruja day!
February 14, 2006 // anjali* pranced on tip-toes all over the keyboard at 2:25 pm
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