KUALA LUMPUR: Multi-talented Adibah Noor has advised radio announcers of English stations to not to put on fake "Mat Salleh" slangs when pronouncing Malay words such as ringgit.
In an Instagram video yesterday, the 52-year-old artiste said that she recently heard one announcer mispronounce ringgit as "ring it" which sounded like how "Mat Sallehs" (Europeans) frequently mispronounced the name of Malaysia's currency.
"Don't 'mengada-ngada', you grew up in Malaysia and you are familiar with the correct pronunciation as you learnt it during your schooldays," said Adibah in her gentle reminder to all radio announcers.
"At times I don't understand what all of you are saying. If you know how ringgit is pronounced, please don't fool around with it, we must respect our language, be it English or Malay."
Adibah, who was an English teacher before becoming a recording artiste, actress and television host, has frequently highlighted mistakes made by fellow artistes, radio announcers and television hosts, to make Malaysians speak proper English and Malay.
In February last year, she corrected Women, Family and Community Development Minister Datuk Seri Rina Mohd Harun's pronunciation of the word "doubt".
"It's not for me to become popular or to attract attention, but I want to make my fellow Malaysians speak English and Malay properly," she said back then.
Besides correcting the minister, Adibah has also corrected the English and Malay pronunciations of news readers, and shared with Netizens the correct way to say a few Hollywood movie titles which included Predator, Skyscraper and Tomb Raider.