Lydia TEH ... Do You Wear Suspenders?

DO YOU WEAR SUSPENDERS?
The Wordy Tales of Eh Poh Nim
Lydia Teh

This is a collection of anecdotes about the everyday life of Eh Poh Nim, a loquacious woman who launches into explanations of words and phrases at the drop of a hat.

Anyone with even a passing interest in the English language will find this book appealing and amusing. Phrases like “bake a tit,” “Mrs. Malaprop’s nipples,” “pie in the sky,” “bananas and fruitcakes” and “satay mushrooms” may sound deliciously naughty or vulgar, but none of them are what they seem.

Eh Poh Nim, a punctilious wordsmith, enlightens readers on idioms, hyperboles, metaphors and other figures of speech with delightful humour and an insight into Malaysian life and its complexities and peculiarities.

Lydia Teh, the best-selling author of Honk! If You’re Malaysian and Life’s Like That, has no Masters in English, but she is a master at spinning yarns to make learning English fun.

Praise for DO YOU WEAR SUSPENDERS?
“My! How Eh Poh Nim has grown since she made her début in Mind Our English a few years ago. For a fun and easy way of learning the meanings of words, phrases and idioms, make your acquaintance with Eh Poh Nim in this book!” Kee Thuan Chye

“Learners of English cannot be said to have a mastery of the language until they are able to use colloquial expressions with ease and familiarity and have a wide vocabulary. Lydia Teh’s very clever Word’s Up, Eh Poh Nim? column in the Mind Our English pages of The Star not only helps learners build up their stock of language, but does it in a fun, humorous way and with a decidedly local flavour through the accounts of the adventures and misadventures of the eponymous protagonist.” Sharon Bakar

“In these stories, Lydia Teh introduces readers to the origins and meanings of some interesting English words and expressions, through the conversations of her main character, Eh Poh Nim (a pun on ‘eponym’), a compulsively showy wordsmith. Eh Poh Nim meets various characters in various situations in the course of these stories, thus allowing the words and expressions to come up naturally, in context, and her explanations to spill out, in character. Students of English from secondary school-level onwards will find this an enjoyable alternative to a book of idioms or proverbs, and a complement to their dictionaries.” Fadzilah Amin