A Singaporean who’d been educated in a Chinese stream school once wrote in her letter, “Friendly speaking, I don’t…”
This sort of approximation is very common, and not just among the Chinese either. I’ve heard “Kings Cross” (the station in London) consistently being expressed as “King Cross” — mostly by Spanish speakers from South America, but also by Eastern Europeans.
When I was a child, people would say, when directing a driver to reverse, “Go stun go stun!” I later realised it was meant to be “go astern”. When you wowed people with, say, a new hairdo, they’d make an utterance that I used to think was Chinese because it was used in a conversation conducted in dialect. I later found out that it was “I say man”*.
So, lots of borrowings from British colonial days that are not quite there. Just a rough reproduction of what they heard without completely understanding the original words.
(Singapore, 1950s–1970s)
PS: Another one is my second sister (the rebellious featured in How to dent male chauvinistic behaviour), who consistently writes “Covic”.
From googling:
*An expression of disappointment, indignation, or disbelief. This is a hangover from British colonial times, when the British gentleman masters would exclaim “I say, man!” when the wrong wine was served with their meals, or other such crises
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