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Ayisha R Nov 2020
"Cik" to "Puan"
"Encik" to "Tuan"

"Cik" to unwedded,
seemingly chaste,
selectively-sweet
glorified
young
women.

Those who appear otherwise
or have passed
a certain age
and possessed
confident demeanour
—to be married..
consequently,
"Puan"?

Men as "Encik"
regardless of their marriage,
status or demeanour—
but only those
with higher,
superior
authority
as, "Tuan"?

"Bahasa jiwa bangsa,
kenapa kau nak terasa?"

These are some
of the patriarchy
in a white-collar vocabulary
that it is not so much
of the vocabulary
but the society

that I shall
probably
never
understand.

Jadi aku unbottle
them all out in this rant.
_________

Cik [ch'k] (n) = Miss
Puan [puoan] (n) = Madam

Encik [en.ci/] (n) = Mr
Tuan [tuoan] (n) = Sir

("Language is the soul of the nation,
why are you offended?")

Jadi [ja.di] (v, can also be used as conjunction) = So
Aku [a.koo] (pronoun) = I

_________

© Ayisha Rahman, 2020

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