Henfoon

What do you call this communication device?

If you’re Singaporean or Malaysian, it’s most probably a handphone to you. If you’re British, either a mobile phone or mobile; if American, a cellular phone, cell phone, or simply cell. (And if you’re Russell Crowe or Naomi Campbell, it’s something you hurl at people you don’t like.)

Many ‘posh’ Singaporeans, however, avoid using the term handphone on the grounds that it is i. non-standard (hmm ... whose standard are we talking about, when even the Brits and Americans can’t agree?), or ii. illogical (‘Of course, you hold any phone receiver in your hand!’). So it might be news to them that even the precision-minded Germans call it a Handy (no prizes for guessing the donor language), eschewing the formal, clumsy Mobiltelefon or Handtelefon.

Speaking of which, handphone is commonly pronounced in Singapore as henfoon. I became aware of this only after reading a cartoon by Colin Goh (who, despite spending most of the year in New York City, has an amazing ear for Singlish). Incidentally, I’ve also begun noticing people pronouncing don’t as doon and won’t as woon.

But back to terminology. Whereas we say ‘Henry SMS-ed me last night’ and ‘Jenny will send you an SMS’, the British use text in both instances (verb and noun): ‘Henry texted me last night’, ‘Jenny will send you a text’. This has the advantage of brevity — it’s one syllable, not three. Since we’re so obsessed with making our utterances as compact and efficient as possible, it’s a wonder we haven’t adopted this usage yet.