definition of limpeh

Interesting topic, here's my say:

Being Hokkien myself, I've actually grown up using that word without really delving into its meaning. It's a crude expression which is commonly used to refer to oneself (in place of the more proper and polite "wa").

Example #1:
"Eh Ray, why didn't you come last night?"
"Haiya, limpeh sibeh tired leh" (trans. I was very tired)

In our local context, "limpeh" literally means "my father", although The Coxford Singlish Dictionary, the only other reference I found on the web says otherwise.

Now a gwai lo might ask, "Good heavens! Why does one refer to one's father when one is speaking about himself?" Ah it's because we Hokkiens, and the rest of the Chinese race for that matter, are a very family oriented bunch of people; we make it a habit to always include family members like mothers (most popular), sisters, grandfathers etc. in our conversations. But that's a subject for another topic.

Example #2:
"Mai siao, limpeh really tired last night." (trans. Don't joke, I was really tired last night)

It is similar in pronunciation for both Northern and Southern variants of Hokkien found in Malaysia, and is commonly overheard amongst groups of old Chinese men at coffeeshops or taxi stands.

One thing to note though is that it's usually used in the company of other males to exhibit one's masculinity but rarely, if never, used in the presence of the opposite sex.

Example #3:
"Ma eh chee bai! Ah Chai hor lang phak? Lu tan wa, limpeh tong kim lai." (trans. Mother's pussy! Ah Chai got beaten up? You wait for me, I'm coming now)
[calls girlfriend]
"Er hello, lahling ar, tonite we cannot go Thai Club, wa eh fren got problem, wa lang ki settle." (trans. Darling, we can't go out to Thai Club tonight, my friend has got a problem, we are going to settle it)

For more interesting Hokkien words, checkout TV Smith's The Hokkiens

when limpeh was in Penang..........

Everytime limpeh is in Penang, limpeh sipek kwai. Limpeh don’t smoke when limpeh eh Mammie and Daddie are around. Limpeh seldom go out. Limpeh like to spend quality time at home. Limpeh love to sleep. Limpeh eat too much. Limpeh practice abstinence. Limpeh don’t drink. Limpeh don’t do drugs. Limpeh fucking sober! Limpeh would try to play limpeh eh piano. Limpeh sipek kwai. Very unlike limpeh. Kanineh!

‘Limpeh’ is a foul Hokkien word which means me, myself and I, intoduced to me by pronaz recently. He was baffled that limpeh, being a Penangite, have never used the word before. (As you see, when limpeh was in Penang, limpeh sipek kwai ma... Limpeh don't swear wan...) So, to be a true Penangite, limpeh is over-using it right now.

*how many limpehs word-count in this blog…???*

Hello World!

The heavens and the earth were finished, and all their vast array. On the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work which he had created and made. And thus, Jennesis was born.

"Howdy!!!"

WnW welcomes a new member

Jennesis 2:18; 2:23 ;)

making a return

Seeing as so many of my friends and acquaintances are now blogging (it wasn’t like this 3 years ago when this blog was started), I decided it was about time to dust off the old horn and make some belated contributions to the blogosphere.

First, there was the lil matter of housekeeping and re-learning the interface in order to make the customisations that I wanted. Rusty with HTML, it took a few bleary eyed hours messing with the codes in the templates before I finally got all my tinkering done and was satisfied (well, all I that could manage for now anyway).

Next up was updating the link list. In my hiatus some of the blogs on the list have undergone some name changes, no doubt as a result of some 'paradigm shift' -- pink, paisley & bubbly lifeisfabulous.com is now looking for answers while being so Zen and transcendentallishly blue (cool!), and the unremitting Apocalypse is now 1fracturedpsyche (shocking!). TV Smith is, thank God, still at his satirical best. New on the list is Jenn, a "single, jaded and nocturnal" chick person who's got a right bowling arm that is incidentally worth a million dollars. Is she any good at bowling then? I don't know.
The latest addition to the list brings us back to the topic. Hammerstone, one of my "longkang friends", has got a blog! It's called "Life that's what is it about...". Er let's just call it "Hammerstone's blog". In fact it's not just only a blog but one of those newfangled community sites a la MySpace that lets you host blogs, photos and stuff. (Too bad MySpace wasn't around when I was growing up, there was a teacher I'd love to have had on it, heh)

"longkang friends" -- a term introduced to me by another friend of mine whom I'll just refer to as 'Sorhai' -- def: friend from childhood, known since we were kids, and since we were kids, there's the very likelihood of us having played together in and around the huge and dangerous storm drains in the neighbourhood that our mothers worried we would drown in

Now I'm on a quest to find out if any more of my childhood friends are blogging. Yeah it's so popular and widespread now that even our country's recently retired former prime minister has started one. It's called, what else, The Tun Blogs.So wot's coming next? Well, first, I'm gonna start updating myself. I'm gonna have to buy a webcam, yeah. So's I can start posting those fuzzy poorly lit webcam angled kinda pics of myself that I see everywhere on the net. Yeah, maybe we'll even do a WnW Numa Numa vid.

my brain the junkie

And why have I been MIA? Doc's orders you see. I've been diagnosed with glaucoma, which is a condition of abnormally high pressure in the eyeballs but sadly though, there isn't any cool mutantlike x-ray vision that comes with it. He wants me to stay away from TVs and PCs. Tall order hahaha! And no reading too, nothing but rest for the eyes.

I just tried doing that for a week and nearly went insane just trying. Why? Try this for as long as you can ... don't look at or read any form of text around you, and I mean don't allow your eyes to focus and make out any words, ditto for television and of course, the PC stays switched off. Well, if you've made the effort you'd find out that it's not the sheer boredom that gets to you. It's the temptation to read and comprehend every single word within range of sight, and to snatch glances at every flickering image on a CRT display in the immediate surroundings. I was virtually craving for visual stimuli!

I guess it's another one of those things we take for granted every day. Our brains and conscious minds are so accustomed to trying to see, read, observe and understand everything around us. To take plain sight and turn it into our sense of reality. Maybe my mind was so conditioned to all our modern day visual input that it simply suffered from withdrawal when put off it. I'm a information junkie.

transmission resumes

Oh crap, I'm being such a lousy host. Many thanks to MissHani for keeping it going while I was away. And thanks so much for the lovely moving-in poem. It's really sweet. :D

Pronaz will be coming to reformat the computer. Again.