I often see food stalls that sell ‘economic food’ (or economical, economic rice, etc), and I don’t know where they get that translation. This is one of those little everyday things you notice when you live abroad.
Anyway, I was looking around the ST Stomp website, and in their English section they have a post about this issue.
The article is posted below, and is copied from this location.
This picture was taken at a neighbourhood coffee shop. At our food courts and kopitiams I usually see the stalls displaying the signboard which says “economic rice” and “economical rice”.This sounds more like a direct translation from the Chinese phrase “jing1 ji4 fan4″. Is there a better phrase? I am puzzled whenever I see this phrase.Cho Choon
Hello again Cho Choon!You know what, you’ve got us stumped too!
From what we can guess, the dish is called ‘economic’ or ‘economical’ rice because it’s supposedly the most value for money meal you can have. And yes, it most probably is a direct translation from the Chinese name of the dish like you said! Although, looking at the picture, there is another Chinese name for the dish which would roughly translate to ‘Any Dish Rice’.
We think ‘economic rice’ sounds better, don’t you?And oh, we can’t really think of a better name for this dish, Cho Choon. As long as It’s really value for money, we’ll stick with ‘economic rice’!
I, like ST Stomp’s English panel, have no idea why this is translated the way it is. What I do know, however, is that most ‘economic rice’ stalls are good and cheap!
