Ice cream zero

Eskalator kosong!

A Malay adjective that you will hear often in Malaysia is kosong meaning zero, empty, nothing. Naturally it's used to describe car parks, fields, buses, and that sort of thing, but it's also used as a modifier to indicate absence. For example teh kosong means black tea, and kopi kosong means black coffee, ais kosong means a glass of ice without water. However the Chinese, ever parsimonious with syllables, had teh-oh and kopi-oh. There is no ais-oh though.

I was reminded of this adjective when I recalled taking a visitor from Singapore around Sydney many years ago. At a Manly ice creamery she liked the smell of the waffle cones but didn't want to have ice cream. She asked the shop if they could sell her just a waffle cone, and they were. I quipped that she was having an ais-krim kosong.