[samsiahk]

I do agree with infosaturated that English has become internationalised. And yes, there are of course differences in "formal" English and "slang" -in fact the spoken and written version are different from each other, what more formal and slang! The beauty of English is that it is dynamic...for non-native, we borrow first and then we adapt the language to suit our situation/ environment. When used in this situation, the question then is what variety do we use? If we are to be internationally intelligible, we have to keep to the standard syntax, and so on. In the Malaysian case, the Malaysian English is used for maintaining solidarity (this has been proved in several studies done...this is due to many reasons, one being that English is the language of our then-coloniser, British). tdol is coming to KL in a couple weeks' time, so welcome...don't forget to visit the Petaling Street -am sure tdol will experience first hand what I mean by the language being adapted to suit the Malaysian purpose!