In Reply to: Who gives a rats.................. posted by indome on Saturday, 8. April 2006 at 09:40 Bali Time:
avoid in discussions about describing properly the national language of the Republic of Indonesia. LOL. I am not Indonesian and probably most of the contributors to this forum are not Indonesian. Many of us are Australians and New Zealanders and we pride ourselves on not being too serious about many things. While we pride ourselves on getting a 'life' and not giving a rat's 'a..e' about many things, I am constantly reminded that many Indonesians are very poor and have nothing except their own dignity and pride, including pride about their language (of which up to 30 million can not communicate in it)
Indome, I take your point that some people use "bahasa" on its own but I would like to add that I don't think I have ever heard this said by a native speaker to another native speaker but is rather used only by fairly westernized Indonesians towards non native speakers who think they are doing the non native speakers a favour by shortening the longer form. All the Indonesian grammar books say that that is wrong. People like to hear their name said correctly, even the name of their language.
People have hinted that I should get a life. Unfortunately it could be said that this BTF is my life, now going off to take a chill pill!!
Yours in good humour.
Thomas