A road by any other name...? And what a 'groan' man said about old people...

Heard on the radio this morning: "There's an accident at Jalan Langgar Bedok..."

Langgar in Malay means "collision", so Jalan Langgar Bedok means "Collision-prone road in Bedok"? (Note: Bedok South Secondary School is located there).

When I told my friend KA about it, he recalled that there was once a very straight road called Lorong Bengkok off Circuit Road (bengkok means "crooked" in Malay).

And what about Kallang Pudding Road? I've always wondered what's a Kallang pudding. But that mystery was resolved when I Googled. There is this book on local toponyms which gave this explanation: "puding (a Malay word?)... [refers] to the garden croton, a shrub with variegated leaves". So I guess Kallang Pudding Road likely referred to "the road in the Kallang area where the puding shrub grows". Only that someone -- probably a goondu colonial-era angmoh -- decided to change the spelling to Pudding.

I hope I can someday figure out Pending Road, in the Bukit Panjang area. Otherwise, people might ask: "How long before a name is chosen?"

There are at least two roads that fail to live up to their names (I am sure there are more). One of them is One Tree Hill. Hah! Go there (in the Leonie area), and you'll see many more trees. The other is this one:

Okay, granted, it once had a beachfront, but no longer. So we should call it "Old Beach Road" and reserve "Beach Road" for the appropriate one (as in the case of Old Thomson/Thomson roads).

And I wonder how many of the younger folks know that Sentosa used to be known as Pulau Blakang Mati? In Malay, that would be "the island behind where people go to die". Not a nice name for what is now a swanky resort island, and with a casino too!

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Fnally, the media has been running stories on Housing Board residents in several locations resisting proposals to put up nursing homes for the elderly near their apartment blocks. The latest group of unhappy people are in the Bishan area. But I think one particular resident is now regretting these words that came out of his lips:

That's a very in-your-face expression of the NIMBY (not in my backyard) syndrome!