Long Time No See!

[thaifkrlim]

Long time no see - ungrammatical colloquial expression used for decades or century and has become a common expression by native speaker, sounds chinese effectively shortened.

didnt see you for some time, it's been a long time i didnt see you , all same same

indian /chinese words and expressions like ketchup, gung ho , kowtow , roti .........anymore? have been included in oxford and cambridge?

when will we see some thai words included in the english dictionary as a common expression?

you look suay i chop you

[StreetCowboy]

Some more examples if Indian / Chinese in common usage as English words:

Amah

mullagatawny

tiffin

mandarin

I'm not sure where the word "chop" meaning (rubber) stamp comes from...

I'm not sure if the names of food dishes should be included

I don't think that breaking into pidgin-foreign means that the words have been co-opted into the English language. Normally, I think its just a pretention on the part of the speaker. Some times people break out with their most common recent swear word or term for an action (calling someone over, getting the bill, thanks, please etc) - that doesn't mean they are co-opting that word into the English language, it means that they have become so accustomed to speaking (pidgin) Foreign that they do it automatically, regardless of the language of the listener.

Excluding food words, I think 'sanuk' is the most likely candidate for the first word to be co-opted, after 'katoey'. WHich I suppose would make it second.

SC

[Richard W]

"Bong" and "ya ba" seem to be the commonest Thai loans, though I'm not sure how well is established outside a Thai context. Likewise, "wai" seems to be restricted to Thai contexts.

[SoftWater]

Given the proliferation of Thai restaurants in Britain and other countries (a policy of Thaksin's as I understand), I'd imagine the first (if any, ever...) words that English speakers who have never been to Thailand might come across would be food related, maybe แกง, ข้าว(ผัด), or ส้มตำ but I can't see any reason why they would borrow them into English instead of using the equivalents of curry, rice and 'spicy papaya salad'.

One word that most backpackers would know that doesn't have a good English equivalent is สองแถว (passenger carying pickup with two rows of seats in the back' just doesn't sound as nifty...)

Of course, there is one Thai word all English footie fans know, especially the Everton ones, though they might not know what it means, and that is ช้าง (I guess the Man City fans all know the words "Thaksin Shinawatr" too... ).

[RickBradford]

One word that most backpackers would know that doesn't have a good English equivalent is สองแถว (passenger carying pickup with two rows of seats in the back' just doesn't sound as nifty...)

Aren't these usually known in English as 'baht buses'?

[SoftWater]

Aren't these usually known in English as 'baht buses'?

Really?

I've never heard that expression before, but the truth is I haven't been around backpackers for about 15 years so you could well be right. When I was 'island hopping' and visiting Thailand most winters in the 90s, we all called them "songtaews", though we had no idea of the derivation of the word.

Edited September 28, 2010 by SoftWater

[kikenyoy]

Muay Thai is in the dictionary (at least in dictionary.com).

Following softwater's lead, I looked up "satay" and it is in there, but it is a Malay word.

In Pattaya foreigners (including the foreign media) call them baht buses. Thais usually call them สองแถว.

[bifftastic]

(I guess the Man City fans all know the words "Thaksin Shinawatr" too... ).

They called him 'Frank'

They couldn't get their mouths around Shinawatr so it became Sinatra, and because they liked him they called him 'Frank'

These were the same fans who called Georgios Samaras 'Sam Harris' (they dropped the 'H' too )

[Richard W]

They couldn't get their mouths around Shinawatr so it became Sinatra, and because they liked him they called him 'Frank'

Are you sure that's a mark of affection - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationships_of_Frank_Sinatra#Alleged_organized_crime_links ?

[bifftastic]

They couldn't get their mouths around Shinawatr so it became Sinatra, and because they liked him they called him 'Frank'

Are you sure that's a mark of affection - http://en.wikipedia....zed_crime_links ?

good point! Yeah I think they did like him, possibly the fact that he had been exiled and was a 'bad lad' added to it.

Typically of football fans, they were happy someone put money into their club and didn't really care where he got it from.

Just like our lot welcomed the Icelandic biscuit baron!