Grammar Matters: Merbahaya or Berbahaya?

There are more than one mistakes in this picture.
But for now, let's just look at 'merbahaya'.

We are all born with one particular organ in our body that is naturally lazy. But that laziness understandably, may be culminated from tens of thousands of years of effort to create phonetically correct sound to naming things, describing acts, categorizing things/acts and so on. I am talking about our tongue, the only inside-body organ that you can see moving without any visual aid. (As a digression, try looking at it in the mirror and move it about, imagine it as a creature from some scary alien movie stuck in your mouth. Gross?)

What I’m trying to say or what I suspect is ‘merbahaya’ has been the result of our lazy tongue. It may have to do with the dialect of certain group of the population but generally it has spread and become common in all of Malaysia because everybody thought it was the correct one. Unfortunately it was not. ‘Berbahaya’ is the correct word. Unlike for example, in the state of Perak, where they pronounce durian as ‘deghoyan’ (‘gh’ is very Frenchy sounding ‘r’ as in Rue de Savoy) but so far it remains and stays a Perak dialect.

‘Berbahaya’ is a derived adjective (kata sifat terbitan) that comes from the root word ‘bahaya’, a noun that means danger, prefixed with ‘ber’ which in this case means ‘to have’ or ‘to contain’. Further corroborates this explanation is the fact that there has never been the prefix ‘mer’ in Malay. There isn’t really. ‘Ber’ becomes ‘mer’ here simply because it’s easier to pronounce it although the difference is only subtle. To prove it, do this yourself: Repeatedly, utter those two words one after another. You’ll notice ‘merbahaya’ is the easier one. So, it looks like all the hard work of our ancestors to have certain rules in naming things just goes down the gutter because of our laziness. These days it gets worse. Vowels have gradually become useless. This is completely embraced by the new generation, thanks to technology.

Fortunately: Many Bahasa Melayu teachers now realize that and begin to emphasize its importance through the many blogs they now operate. I am one who visits them regularly for updates and references.

Unfortunately: ‘Merbahaya’ is still in Kamus Dewan, although it is actually a lazy version of ‘marabahaya’ and not ‘berbahaya’. Take note and don’t get confused.

In the end, our tongue suffers from our lack of attention to take care and use it the right way. If only man takes care of it the way they take care of another particular prized organ of theirs, and the way they splash portions of their monthly income the moment they realize its function and performance weren’t as explosive as when they were young, things wouldn’t be as complicated.

I am not talking about organs with black and white keyboard.