Goreng

Masak tauge goreng lada
Lada ditumbuk lada putih,
Tuan menagih pada yang ada
Saya merajuk pada yang kasih...

(pantun dari halaman web DBP)

Dalam mencari maksud pada perkataan 'goreng', saya telah merujuk kepada Kamus Dewan yang saya miliki (edisi keempat tahun 2007). Terdapat dua (2) definisi bagi perkataan tersebut iaitu :

1. Yang dipanggang dalam kuali, yang dimasak dengan minyak.

2. Kecekapan memetik gitar mengikut tempo rancak (bahasa percakapan)

Maksud yang pertama itu adalah jelas dan tidak perlu dihuraikan. Maksud yang kedua pula adalah satu slanga (percakapan tidak rasmi) bagi aksi bermain gitar di mana petikan tali gitar itu dibuat dengan rancak dan nyaring, terutamanya pada bahagian 'gitar solo' dalam sesebuah lagu.

Para peminat muzik sudah tentu faham maksud kedua perkataan ini. Antara pemuzik tanahair yang pandai 'menggoreng' gitar ialah allahyarham M Shariff dan allahyarham A Rahman Hassan. Bagi saya, penggoreng gitar barat yang paling saya minati ialah Mark Knopfler.

Sebenarnya, rujukan yang saya buat ialah untuk mencari satu lagi maksud perkataan 'goreng' yang saya mula dengar ketika zaman persekolahan berpuluh tahun dahulu. 'Goreng' yang dimaksudkan ini juga digunakan dalam percakapan tidak formal. Tidak pasti pula samada istilah ini masih disebut oleh pelajar-pelajar masa kini.

Oleh kerana Kamus Dewan saya edisi lama, saya pun membuat semakan di internet. Manalah tahu, mungkin sudah ada definisi baru. Maaf... tiada definisi baru di laman web DBP.

Jadi, bagaimana ya untuk saya terangkan maksud ketiga perkataan 'goreng' ini (ikut pemahaman saya lah)? Mungkin saya boleh beri contoh pengunaannya.

Contoh 1 : Soalan karangan dalam kertas periksa BM tadi susah betul. Ceritakan satu keadaan yang boleh menerangkan maksud peribahasa 'Lalang ditanam, takkan padi yang tumbuh!'. Saya tak pernah pun dengar perumpamaan itu. Mana ada orang tanam lalang. Saya pun goreng je jawapannya.

Contoh 2 : Aku duk dengar dengan tekun mamat tu bagi ceramah tentang periuk masak yang terhebat di pasaran. Boleh grill, steam, air-fry, bake, smoke dan segala macam metode memasak. Dan bagaimana kalau kita jadi ahli, boleh tingkatkan jualan dengan hanya dapatkan tiga orang `downline' dan terus jana pendapatan beribu-ribu dalam masa beberapa bulan sahaja! Dalam bab menggoreng ni, tiada yang lebih hebat dari promoter MLM.

Kecekapan menggoreng cara ini kadangkala ada munafaatnya. Tetapi haruslah berhati-hati... terlebih goreng boleh jadi hangus.

Lima ratus negara tu memang sah-sah lah menggoreng. Tersalah sebut, katanya. Yang dimaksudkan ialah 500 peserta dari seluruh dunia. Ok lah... saya pun tidak pasti sebesar mana sesi 'video conferencing' yang dianjurkan oleh Pertubuhan Kesihatan Sedunia. Mungkin talian sambungan mereka tersangatlah lancar dan jelas. Kami kumpulan rakan sekolah lama, buat panggilan video guna Google Duo, seramai tujuh atau lapan orang pun tersekat-sekat.

Panjang juga celoteh saya pada hari ini. Terima kasih kerana sudi membaca.

Gambar sekadar hiasan. Tempe dan tahu goreng. Enak di makan dalam waktu pergerakan terhad PKP.

Tempe dan tahu goreng dari Segamat Station Kopitiam

An old name for Great Britain

In the English Premier League football competition, I support Liverpool Football Club. I first became an LFC fan when I studied in the UK in the 1980s. Last Saturday, they played against Manchester City and got the worst drubbing that I can ever remember watching. After the exhilarating game against Arsenal the previous fortnight where the Gunners were trounced 4 to nothing, last weekend saw Liverpool on the receiving end of a City goal-scoring spree.

Damn it hurts... but I guess if you are able to dish it out, then you should be able to take it too.

The only other team in EPL that I would consider myself a supporter of is West Bromwich Albion, although I cannot call myself a die-hard fan. I became a supporter of WBA much earlier that LFC, when I was still in secondary school. The main reason for my attraction to Albion was a certain player named Bryan Robson. A stylish and hardworking midfielder, Robson later transferred to Manchester United where he enjoyed a successful career. He also became captain of the England team.

After watching the horrible Liverpool team display on Saturday, I then switched to watch the later game of West Bromwich Albion versus recently-promoted Brighton & Hove Albion. As it turned out, the new boys BHA defeated WBA by 3 - 1. A rotten Saturday of EPL football for me.

Anyway, the item that caught my interest was that two teams with `Albion' in their names are playing against each other, the first time I've come across it. This caused me to look up what `albion' means.

According to Wikipedia, Albion is the oldest known name for the island of Great Britain. The name is ancient Greek in origin (as opposed to Britain, which has Latin roots).

Okay then... enough of rolling in sorrow and looking forward to next week's game.

An exclave in Peninsula Malaysia

exclave (noun) : a portion of a country geographically separated from the main part by surrounding alien territory

It is quite common for us to come across the word `enclave', a country or region that is completely surrounded or enclosed by the territory of another country. Examples of enclaves are :

1. Lesotho (enclaved by South Africa)
2. Vatican City (enclaved by Italy)

Before the re-unification of Germany in 1990, the city of West Berlin was also considered an enclave because it was surrounded by the former East Germany.

A logical extension of this concept is the 'exclave', where only part of a country or region is geographically separated from the main part by another territory. I have only recently found out what this word means and that there is an example in Peninsula Malaysia itself.

I was browsing Google Maps not long ago to look for interesting places to visit in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan. I noticed that the cape of Tanjung Tuan (also known by its Portuguese name of Cape Rachado) has a state boundary crossing it. I have been to this place before and loved the shallow beach known as Blue Lagoon (see post here -> Port Dickson) but I never realised that Tanjung Tuan is not in Negeri Sembilan. It is actually part of the state of Melaka.

When I was in Port Dickson last week, I made a stop at Tanjung Tuan to take some photographs confirming this fact.

So there you have it. The small protrusion of hilly land extending its head to the sea known as Tanjung Tuan, which is mostly forest reserve and site of Cape Rachado Lighthouse is an exclave belonging to Melaka.

It has taken more than a half-century of my life to discover this. We learn something new every day...

The signboard on Federal Route 5, giving first indication that
part of Melaka is isolated by Negeri Sembilan

As we approach the cape, the state boundary signboard (right background) becomes evident

The road on the left leads to the lighthouse (Melaka) while the one on the right
leads to Pantai Tg Biru (Negeri  Sembilan)

The Google Map showing state lines cutting across the neck of the cape

Oscitant...

I have installed on my mobile phone, an app which I regularly use to check the meaning of words and their spelling. Unsurprisingly it is called Dictionary.com. This app has a `Word of the Day' feature, where it sends daily notifications of a selected word, its meaning, pronunciation and example of use.

Most of the time, it sends me words that I very seldom use or have not heard of (which I guess, is exactly the reason why they have such a feature). In such cases, I would often ignore the notification by swiping it away, without even opening the page to read the definition. However, the particular word chosen for last Friday had an eerie sense of coincidence. Or perhaps, synchronicity.

I was in Melaka two days ago. I decided to perform Friday prayers at the Masjid Selat Melaka, a relatively new mosque built partly on reclaimed land and partly with its main structure sitting on piles above the sea, thereby giving it the `floating' appearance. It is my first visit to the place and I like the beautiful view of the mosque with the blue sky and green sea as its background.

It was a hot and sunny day. The interior prayer hall is kept cool by three huge industrial-sized ceiling fans. In addition, the large open doors at either side of the hall allow the refreshing sea-breeze to flow through. It was as comfortable as can be. To the extent of making me sleepy. I was trying hard to remain awake during the khutbah (sermon). The tasty lunch of asam pedas ikan jenahak I had before coming to the mosque did not help either.

To help me snap out of the drowsiness, I took out my mobile from my pocket (which I should not be actually doing) and noted that I have not checked on the day's `Word of the Day'. I opened the page. Lo and behold... the selected word exactly described the situation I was in a few moments before.

oscitant (adjective) :

1. drowsy or inattentive
2. yawning, as with drowsiness; gaping
3. dull, lazy, or negligent

And that killed my drowsiness immediately...

Masjid Selat Melaka

If you have nothing better to do...

I have just discovered this amusing little website that allows you to create word clouds out of any passage of text that you have penned down yourself or copied from somewhere. It is called Wordle.

The output from the word jumble can be formatted to a number of preset layouts, fonts and colours. Enough variations to fit whatever is your mood or fancy.

The following is the result of a wordle run using the text from one of my earlier blog postings. Now, is that cool or what... or perhaps something utterly unproductive. Don't blame me if your boss catches you wasting time on this thing...

Update 28.08.12

Can't resist doing another one. Here's the result from my Pantun 4 Kerat post...

Colours of the rainbow

I really must have nothing better to do to be writing a post on this subject...

ALL men see in only 16 colours, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a colour. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

The above statement is one of twenty-three from a list of observations called `Men's Rules' some smart guy wrote as a relationship guide for his female partner. I posted this list previously under the heading of `No hints please. Just say it!'.

I'm not talking about the rules again this time but about colours... specifically about the various unfamiliar names given to the hundreds of shades of colours. I remember back in secondary school, my science teacher asking the class, "How many colours are there in the rainbow?" Of course, the standard answer that came back from us students was seven. Well, that's what the textbooks tell you, my teacher said. "If you are to go and ask a shopkeeper selling paint," he continued, "he will say that there are hundreds of colours."

Indeed there are... a few hundreds from what I can see in Wikipedia's article on this topic. Unless we are working in an industry that depends on colours (for example : fashion design, paint, lipstick, electronic display screens), most of these names would escape us, let alone identify which shade of primary colour it is.

I just found out that there are two sets of primary colours : the Red/Green/Blue grouping is called the additive combination (as in overlapping projected light or CRT display) while the Red/Yellow/Blue grouping is called the subtractive combination (as applied to pigments and dyes). All the other colours can be obtained by mixing of the primary colours, in varying proportions or degree. And since there can be an infinite combination of such mixes, there is therefore an endless shade of colours. New names are coined to go with the new shades, which sometimes add to the confusion.

Apart from the primary colours, the established secondary colours are well-known and readily identifiable. Colours like brown, pink, purple, grey and orange are easily understood. It is when we come to the derivatives that we get stumped. Maroon is reddish-brown, or is it brownish-red? Beige is a popular colour but is it more pale-brown or pale-yellow? Cyan is another well-known modern day colour that's found on our computer display screen (although the origin of the name is quite ancient). It is a blue-green combination... but how much blue and how much green?

The names of many of the colour shades come from nature, especially plants and flowers. Names such as peach, lavender, periwinkle, lilac and asparagus (yes, there is a special shade of green that takes its name from the vegetable). Some natural sounding names are easy to identify (charcoal, ivory, maize) while some takes a bit of describing (fallow, teal, russet). I am quite hopeless at identifying colours. That is why I guess, I like to stick to grey (or sometimes spelled gray) as my favourite colour... there's just light grey, dark grey, ash grey, smoky grey and maybe one or two more. Pretty drab and unexciting, huh?

So what's the colour of this orchid flower?

My previous post on a similar subject -> Colourful words.
Interesting source for origin of some colour names -> The colour of words.

Early withdrawal will lose interest

I think I'll write about an interest subject today... yes, that's right, an `interest' rather than `interesting' subject. Although I do hope the post may turn out interesting for readers in the end.

But first, I have to go back in time a little bit. It was the winter of 1983 and I was in the final year of my engineering degree. One of the toughest subjects in that degree course is Structural Mechanics, not one of my stronger suits. The professor who taught us that subject is Dr. Neil Taylor, a brilliant and aggressive man who's quite unlike any of the other lecturers in our faculty.

Dr. Taylor is slim and tall, sports long hair to his shoulders and keeps a beard and moustache. He normally wears a white shirt with a narrow tie but with collar unbuttoned. Over this he dons a black leather jacket. In fact, he looks more like a rock star than a university professor. His classes are never boring. He speaks in a loud, clear voice and at great speed. You'll never fall asleep during his lecture... or perhaps you dare not fall asleep. He'll pick a bored face among his students in a second and start shooting questions about the subject at hand, just to make sure we all understand what he's talking about. I was always afraid to be caught by him because, as I said, I'm not terribly good at Structures.

He would start his lecture by first talking at length about a particular topic. After that, he would scribble out his notes, longhand, on the blackboard. His notes are copious and he writes like he speaks... at great speed. When he runs out of writing space on the blackboard, he returns back to the earlier section and starts rubbing them out. Sometimes, those of us slow writers would need to hold out our hand and shout, `Whoa! Sir..', and he pauses for a while to give us time to catch up.

It is during such pauses that Dr. Taylor would usually tell a story or share bits of trivia that has got nothing to do with engineering. It can be something about music, movies, sports or current affairs... practically anything. And such interesting stories too... which sort of put the slow-writing students in a dilemma. Do you stop writing to listen to the stories and risk not copying down the complete notes... or do you continue to scribble furiously before he starts cleaning the blackboard and you miss the story being told?

I liked listening to his stories so I trained myself to be speed-writer.

One day, after filling the blackboard with his sprawling handwriting, he paused for a while to allow us some time to finish copying... and then starts to share another trivia.

`Do you know why most of the big time bankers are Jews?' he asks. None of us answer... so he begins telling the story about Christians being forbidden to be involved in usury and that the Jews may not charge usury among their own kind but can do so to others. He said that money-lending first started out as one of the least respected professions and strangely enough today, it is the money-lenders who control most of the world's economy.

`I bet you didn't know that, did you?' he mocks us. `Heck, does anybody even know what usury means?!'

`Yeah,' I immediately quipped. `Interest...'

`Who said that?' Dr Taylor looks around at his students, his eyes wide in disbelief. I sheepishly put up my hand halfway.

`Right, you are!' he said. And with that, he turned around, erased the blackboard and resumed writing his notes.

When the class was over, Dr. Taylor heads out of the room but when he reaches the door, he turns back and walks to where I was sitting. He bends down to my eye level and nodded to me to say, `Usury... that's good.'

From then on, I could no longer remain low-profile in Dr. Taylor's class. But the good thing was that my grades in Structures improved...

You never knew it had a name

"Sometimes it is," she said.
I nodded. Watched the rapid blinking of her eyes, shiny with unspilled tears. Watched the moisture that had pooled in the little valley above her top lip. What was that indentation called? I always forgot. But God, didn't it feel nice the way her fingertips were grazing the veins on the back of my hand?

The above passage comes from a novel that I just finished reading last night. It is the latest book written by Wally Lamb and is titled `The Hour I First Believed'. I bought the book at Popular Book Store's fair a few months back and it has taken me this long to finish reading it. At two and a half inches thick, it is one of the thickest novels I have held in my hands. And it has a great story. Pure human drama that spans a few generations from the 1800's to the modern day. But this post is not a book review... I may do that a bit later, if I do manage to digest and summarize the multiple-layered stories into a few lines.

A very good read but only for those with patience

Let's go back to the passage above, specifically to the part about the groove in the middle of our upper lip right below the nose. I am sure the author knows what it is called but he wrote it as a question, perhaps to prod his readers to actually find out for themselves.

The moment I read the sentence, I became agitated with myself... because just a few weeks before, I had read an amusing website link shared by a friend that shows a list of `25 everyday things you never knew had names', and that groove on the upper lip was one of the 25... but I could not remember. Feeling a bit peeved at my poor memory, I put down the book, fired up my laptop and went online to search for the link.

Philtrum... that's what it is called. So now you know...

Popular negatives

In the English language, the opposite meaning of many words are created by the addition of prefixes. For example :

• de : form / deform
• dis : able / disable
• il : legible / illegible
• im : potent / impotent
• in : direct / indirect
• un : true / untrue

If you observe carefully, the application of such prefixes are onto words that are generally in the positive sense. Adding the prefix makes them negative - happy to unhappy, pleased to displeased, practical to impractical and so on. There are not many inherently negative words that become antonyms by simply adding a prefix. Let's try out some :

Would un-ugly mean pretty?
Does dis-cheat mean we are being honest?
Or would im-messy clothes mean we are smartly-dressed?

There are however, a few words that break this convention. I was reading a news article the other day and realised that the reporter had used such a word. The word is - impeccable. Apparently, there is such a word as `peccable', which means `liable to sin or error'. Adding the prefix im- makes the word carry a positive meaning. Another example that comes to mind is `indefatigable', which in itself, is quite unique because it has double prefixes.

`Impeccable' and `indefatigable' also fall into another category which I'd like to call as `popular negatives'. These are words where the prefixed form are in more common use than the root form. Here are some examples, plus a sample sentence I've written using the base form of the word, and you tell me if I don't sound awkward  :

1. illicit : I passed through airport customs without any problems because I only carried licit goods in my baggage.

2. unscrupulous : I employed that young lady to handle the company accounts because of her scrupulous behaviour.

3. dismantle : I've lost the original instruction guide so now I don't know how to mantle all these parts back together.

4. incontinent : Of course these diapers are not for me, I'm continent!

I am sure there are other examples. Perhaps you know of some more. Enjoy the long weekend, my friends...

Common and self-admiration

As a young boy in primary school, my interest in reading was sustained by poring over Enid Blyton's books, particularly the Famous Five and Secret Seven series. Whenever I come across a new word, I would borrow my father's pocket-sized Collins English-Malay dictionary. That tiny book became my reference companion for a few years until my father, either on seeing my keen reading habit or wanting his own dictionary back, bought me a thick full-fledged dictionary published by Larousse. I was in awe when I received it as a present. It must have cost my father a bomb to buy it and I treasured it very much.

From reading Blyton, I went on to read more classical authors like Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. Reading Dickens was tough. He used so many words I didn't understand that I had to refer to the dictionary too often. This took out the fun in reading so I went back to reading mystery and adventure stories. The Three Investigators and The Hardy Boys were among my favourites. As I entered late teens, my reading scope expanded to include horror by Stephen King and spy thrillers by Frederick Forsyth and Robert Ludlum. Most of the thrillers that I read are fast-paced and I can become so engrossed as to miss dinners and postpone sleep. Unputdownable, if there is such a word.

If I come across new words while reading such thrillers, I never stop to check their meaning in the dictionary. It spoils the momentum. Usually I just try to guess what they mean from the context of the sentence. Only after finishing the book would I flip the dictionary to check if my guess was right... but I'll do that only if I remember or if the word interests me. Sometimes I wouldn't bother... especially if I think the word is too complicated and that I'd never use it myself, either in speech or in writing. Sounds like I'm limiting my vocabulary, but hey... there are millions of words out there, so it's okay if we don't know a few.

I was listening to a classic song recently when I heard a particular word that I didn't know the meaning of. I googled the lyrics and part of it I reproduce here :

You drove me, nearly drove me, out of my head
While you never shed a tear
Remember, I remember, all that you said
You told me love was too plebeian
Told me you were through with me and...

The word that stumped me is plebeian. According to my dictionary, the word means something relating to ordinary people or the common folk. If used as a noun, it is a degrading word for someone of low social class. Now how's that for an insult.

Click on this link to have a listen to the Susan Boyle version of the song -> Cry Me A River

Ok then, for good measure, I'll give you another word that is in my `hard to understand' category - narcissistic. I'm having trouble even pronouncing it. I first came across this word in a novel but I can't remember the novel's title. It means having an obsession with one's own image and ego.

So there you have it - plebeian and narcissistic. Two words I doubt I'll ever use...

Soporific...

A few days ago, I was about to go out on some errands when I was distracted by something being shown on TV. The television was on the HBO channel and was playing a movie called `Wit'. The scene was a hospital examination room and the patient, played by Emma Thompson, was narrating something in a lovely English accent. I ended up watching the movie right to the end and forgot all about my errands.

Vivian Bearing is a professor of English literature who has just been diagnosed of ovarian cancer. She is about to undergo an experimental aggresive chemotherapy treatment and the movie shows her struggles throughout the process. A large part of the film shows Bearing in monologue... and it clearly demonstrates the strength and acting skill of Thompson in handling the character.

Towards the middle of the movie, there is this scene in flashback where Bearing recalls the exact moment when she knew that words would be her life's work. She was reading a Beatrix Potter book titled `The Tale of The Flopsy Bunnies' when she comes across a new word that she does not know the meaning of. Say it in bits, says her father. So-por-i-fic.

It means something that tends or has the the effect to cause sleep. Like certain drugs and medication... or boring conversation... or a heavy meal on a warm afternoon.

The movie is almost pure dialogue with no action scene whatsoever... and I loved it. Indeed, it would ironically have the same soporific effect on viewers who prefer the action-flick movie genre.

Soporific... what a wonderful new word I learned this week. It brings to memory of a time that really fits the description of this word. The year was 1979... and I was in Form 5 of boarding school. The Science subjects are all taught in the laboratory classroom where three long workbenches face the front blackboard. There were 25 students in our class consisting of 9 girls and 16 boys. By tradition, the girls would sit at the frontmost workbench while the boys take up the remaining two rows.

When it came to Physics class, the boys would make it a point to come early because everyone wants to sit in the back row, even if it means squeezing for space. At times, there would be up to 12 guys seated at the back... meaning that only 4 would sit in the middle row. Glaringly obvious and disproportionate. The reason for this is that Physics class is real boring and it is quite a challenge to remain awake. Presumably, sitting as far away from the teacher as possible would make it less likely for him to spot us dozing off during his lecture.

I could not be bothered to rush for a back row seat so most of the time I am one of the minority who sits in the middle row. To stop myself from falling asleep, I began to sharpen my skill in doodling. My Form 5 Physics notebook probably has more creative drawings than formulas or calculations. It still puzzles me sometimes how I ended up doing engineering.

Soporific... lovely word.

A new taste to savour

Sometimes we think we know everything... or at least we think we know enough just so as not to look stupid. Suddenly we read about something and find out that there still things that we do not know. At times like these, the most apt cliche that comes to mind is : we learn something new everyday.

I was reading the latest book by Malcolm Gladwell last night. It is a bestseller titled `What The Dog Saw, and other adventures'. It is a collection of articles and stories that Gladwell wrote for The New Yorker, an American magazine where he is a staff writer since 1996. It is a work of non-fiction and so far I have just finished reading the 5th story out of 19. Very interesting stories on a diverse range of subjects and I would have continued reading had I not considered the fact that I needed some sleep. The five stories I have read touched on salesmanship, the tomato ketchup, the financial options market, hair dye and the birth-control pill. How do you create interesting pieces out of seemingly mundane topics? This is the particular skill that Gladwell possesses that has made him an award-winning author. He has written three books prior to this and all are bestsellers. I have the first two : The Tipping Point and Blink.

So what was the new thing that I learned last night? Many things actually... but the one that I pick is this : umami.

Apparently, there are five known fundamental tastes in the human palate : sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami. I know the first four, of course, as I'm sure all of you do... but umami? Gladwell explains that umami is the proteiny, full-bodied taste of chicken soup, or cured meat, or fish stock, or aged cheese, or mother's milk, or soy sauce, or mushrooms, or seaweed, or cooked tomato. The word is not in my Longman's Dictionary that I keep on the shelf by my desk so I had to look it up online. The online dictionary further explains that the word is of Japanese origin and describes the meaty taste that is produced by amino acids and nucleotides. Perhaps the best example given is that of monosodium glutamate or more famously known as MSG.

Wow... I certainly know that taste. It is something that I have tried avoiding (or at least minimising) for many years. Only that I'm not sure if I can use the word in everyday speech as yet.

Next time someone asks me how does the chicken soup taste, dare I reply... umami?

Colourful words

When I was at my parent's home two weeks back, I came across an old Reader's Digest book belonging to my father. It's called How To Increase Your Word Power. Since the book was just gathering dust, I decided to take it home with me.

The book is a wonderful guide on how to improve our English by teaching us proper pronunciation and spelling, giving us aids to grammar and punctuation, and showing us how to master and build up a better vocabulary. It also contains some useful word games and quick quizzes.

Here's the second interlude for this month, a simple quiz taken from the book. The book actually uses American spelling but I've converted it to our more familiar British style :

Colours

How good is your colour vocabulary? Can you match the colour in the first paragraph with its description in the second? Answers to follow.

1. cerulean
2. indigo
3. ochre
4. azure
5. cerise
6. ecru
7. chartreuse
8. fuchsia
9. sorrel
10. mauve

(a) pale yellowish green
(b) light yellowish brown
(c) vivid blue
(d) purplish rose
(e) dark yellow
(f) deep violet blue
(g) cherry red
(h) reddish or yellowish brown
(i) bright bluish red
(j) clear sky blue

--------------

ANSWERS (posted on 22.09.08) :

1. cerulean - (c) vivid blue
2. indigo - (f) deep violet blue
3. ochre - (e) dark yellow
4. azure - (j) clear sky blue
5. cerise - (g) cherry red
6. ecru - (b) light yellowish brown
7. chartreuse - (a) pale yellowish green
8. fuchsia - (i) bright bluish red
9. sorrel - (h) reddish or yellowish brown
10. mauve - (d) purplish rose