86 the meaning shift also happened in the case of blend in Bahasa Binan in order to
avoid the lay people to understand the speech. Another example of blend word with semantic shift was the word dubes.
In Bahasa Indonesia, the word dubes actually referred to “an ambassador” of a country. However, the speakers of Bahasa Binan shifted the meaning of dubes
into “somebody that loves to have anal sex” because the initial part of the word rhymed with the word dubur, which meant “anal.” This case revealed how
intelligent the speakers of Bahasa Binan were because they were not only able to shift the meaning of the word but also to shift the impression of the words so that
the word that was actually regarded negative or rude by the society could be freely used by shifting the meaning of the words.
f. Generified Word in Cockney and Bahasa Binan
Akmajian, et al. 2001 state that the phenomenon of generified word usually deals with brand names. The writer found several words that were
regarded as the generified words in Cockney and Bahasa Binan since the words dealt closely to the popular brand names. However, it turned out that the speakers
of Cockney did not only employ the popular brands of products but also some popular names of places. This fact allowed the writer to conclude that the case of
generified word in Cockney was more various compared to the case of generified word in English.
Some of the generified words in Cockney are described in Table 4.11. It was seen that the word “Abergavenny” was actually the name of a market in
Wales but then the speakers of Cockney used the word to replace the word
87 “penny” in their conversation. Therefore, instead of saying “I need a penny,” the
speakers of Cockney would say “I need an Abergavenny.”
Table 4.11: Generified Word in Cockney
Word Actual Meaning
Meaning
abergavenny a name of a market town in
Wales penny
big ben a name of tower in London
ten daily mail
a namebrand of a news platform tale
The same case also happened to the word “Big Ben.” The word “Big Ben” actually referred to a name of a popular tower in London. However, the speakers
of Cockney used the word “Big Ben” to replace the word “ten” in English. This effort was done in order to avoid the lay people to understand the speech done by
the speakers of Cockney. As the nature of Cockney as a secret language, the writer concluded that the case of generified word must have been frequently
found. However, the process of generified word in Cockney did not end in using
the common names or brands in the daily speech. It was seen that the speakers of Cockney actually also employed the semantic shift. The words “Abergavenny”
and “Big Ben” in fact did not have any semantic relation to the words “penny” and “ten.” The selection of the words was solely based on the rhyming sounds
among the words as the word “Abergavenny” rhymed with the word “penny” while the word “Big Ben” rhymed with the word “ten” in English.
The case of generified word in Bahasa Binan turned out to be also an interesting case to see. The writer found that the words that were regarded as the
88 generified words in Bahasa Binan were more various than those in Cockney. The
speakers of Bahasa Binan turned out to use any kinds of names to replace the intended words in Bahasa Indonesia. Some of the common names used in Bahasa
Binan as generified words were brands, military terms, food names, and music instruments.
Table 4.12 contains some generified words found in Bahasa Binan. The word Bhayangkara was actually a Sanskrit word, which meant a guard or a fierce
and was used in the field of military in Indonesia. Instead of using the word Bhayangkara to refer to the military, the speakers of Bahasa Binan used the word
to replace a Bahasa Indonesia word bayar, which meant “to pay.” Therefore, the speakers of Bahasa Binan always used the word Bhayangkara to mean bayar in
their conversation in order to distract the lay people to understand the speech. This effort was done simply because the word Bhayangkara rhymed with the word
bayar in Bahasa Indonesia.
Table 4.12: Generified Word in Bahasa Binan
Word Actual Meaning
Meaning
bayangkaraBhayangkara the name of an Indonesian soldier
troop to pay
bodrekbodrex the brand of a local medicine
be stupid capcay
the name of food in Chinese cuisine, literally means 10 veggies
quick ketimpring
the name of a music instrument feminine
polandia the name of a country in Europe
police
The same case also happened to the word Bodrex, which was a brand of a popular local medicine for fever. However, the speakers of Bahasa Binan
89 employed the brand Bodrex to replace the word bodoh, which meant “stupid.”
There were some reasons that lead the speakers of Bahasa Binan to use the word Bodrex to replace the word bodoh. The first reason was because the word Bodrex
rhymed with the word bodoh in Bahasa Indonesia. The similar sounds among the words enabled the speakers of Bahasa Binan to know the meaning of the word
Bodrex based on the context of the conversation. The second reason was because the speakers were so familiar with the word Bodrex so that it eased the speakers to
memorize the word. From the explanation above, it could be concluded that the Cockney and
Bahasa Binan speakers usually used the generified words that did not share any similar impressions with the intended words in the source languages. The only
thing to consider when using the words as generified words in Cockney and Bahasa Binan was the rhyming sounds between the brands and the intended
words in the source languages. Therefore, the actual meaning as well as the impression of the generified words did not become a paramount thing to consider
in Cockney and Bahasa Binan.
g. Proper Noun or Eponym in Cockney and Bahasa Binan
