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A few days ago there was a discussion among a few of my friends in FB over the proper meaning of the word melukut in the Malay peribahasa seperti melukut di tepi gantang. I found this discussion thread to be very interesting as it made me realize how much I had accepted everything "bulat-bulat" from the teacher at school when learning about these Malay idioms and sayings without ever really pondering on the lexical definition of certain key words. Like for example, while reading through the thread only then did I learn the true meaning of the word melukut and how it played such an insignificant role in the rice milling process. I had foolishly assumed before this that the melukut was a type of weed that would stick to the gunny sack as you drag it around (I thought the gantang was a gunny sack...well is it or is it not? I have absolutely no idea).

Bearing this 40 year confusion in mind, I would like to now ask a few questions along the same lines about some of the other Malay idioms that we have learnt in school:

• Enggang sama enggang, pipit sama pipit.

(please provide the Wikipedia Melayu link and Google images to present the ornithological data concerning these two bird species)

• Ikan di laut, asam di darat, dalam belanga bertemu jua.

(please provide the exact coordinates as to the location of the ikan di laut and the asam di darat as to minimise cost of logistics and maximise time efficiency)

• Genggam bara api biar sampai jadi arang.

(what PPE should be worn when handling the bara api?)