Hilarious (From MT)

In one election, the imam of our local mosque, Pak Abas, came hurriedly looking for me to report a fight about to break out between a group of voters and a policeman guarding the polling station. We rushed over there and saw a group of angry villagers surrounding the pale and terrified policeman.

“Sabor, sabor (patience),” I told the villagers. “Gapo ni (what’s the problem)?”

The villagers explained that the policeman told them they must first become members of Barisan Nasional if they wanted to vote and this angered the villagers who wanted to ‘teach the policeman a lesson’ (nak ajor dia ni).

I asked the policeman why he did that but he denied doing so. He explained that all he did was ask them to queue up and stop shoving if they wanted to vote.

“Saya suruh dia orang masuk barisan kalau nak undi,” he explained in Bahasa Malaysia.

“No wonder,” I told him. “Next time, don’t say ‘masuk barisan’. They thought you meant join Barisan (Nasional). Instead, say ‘beratur’ (line up or queue up).”

I suppose the correct language for the military and police when they ask you to ‘fall in’ is ‘masuk barisan’ and when they want you to straighten the line it is ‘luruskan barisan’. But ‘masuk barisan’ can also mean ‘join Barisan Nasional’, as the very terrified policeman who was not local enough to understand Terengganu lingo discovered.