There's a 50 per cent chance that our new Babe Of the Year crown will go to a gal who's made an art of butchering the English language. Juliana June Rasul, Tan Kee Yun and Kwok Kar Peng single out the Ah Lians and inspirational women jostling for our attention.

1. Ris Low

LOVE her or hate her, you've got to hand it to Ris Low. The 20-year-old dethroned beauty queen and founder of urban slang "boomz" and "leopard preens" could easily have faded into oblivion after her credit card fraud conviction last year.

But like a bad rash that won't go away, Low has stuck around tenaciously, hogging the limelight in the past year for all sorts of reasons, from endorsing condoms to putting on the pounds and losing them again, to making lad mag FHM Singapore's list of 100 Sexiest Women In The World (she came in at No. 56, ahead of - gasp - Hollywood hotties Eva Longoria and Milla Jovovich).

Low showed Singaporeans she's officially sexy and finally worthy of babedom.

She told The New Paper: "I'm pretty surprised and honoured to be nominated. Never did I think I'd be labelled a babe.

"Each of (my fellow nominees) has different strengths and we're nominated for very different reasons."

Her rivals for the title include slimmed-down entertainer Norleena Salim, Jack Neo's wife Irene Kng, and The Noose's resident bimbo Barbarella Posh-Beckham.

Low added: "Some people might like courage (referring to Kng), some might like determination (referring to Salim)... There's no clear favourite."

However, she laughingly said her chances could be higher because she's the sexiest among the lot.

"Ultimately, human beings do judge things with their eyes!"

2. Norleena Salim

SHE shed so many kilos, she became unrecognisable - even to her mum.

The formerly rotund Norleena Salim, she of the makcik dressing and loud laughs from local sitcom Under One Roof, is now a svelte 65kg, having lost almost half her body weight in the last four years.

When she came back to Singapore from Brisbane earlier this year at her lightest - 55kg - her own mother walked past her without realising that it was her daughter standing in front of her.

"I was, like, 'Mak!'" she recalled, laughing. Norleena's weight loss has become such an inspiration to women that she regularly gets messages from strangers on Facebook asking how she did it.

For Norleena, who is in her 30s, a change of lifestyle was what did it for her.

She packed her bags and set off for Brisbane four years ago, then travelled to exotic places like Alaska and the Mediterranean as a jazz singer on a cruise ship, all the while eating healthier and being more active.

Asked if she thinks she's babe-worthy now, she shook her head and gave a puzzled look.

"Babe is, like, for young people," she said.

She thinks she would never have made such big changes had she not moved out of Singapore.

Does she cringe when she looks at old photos of herself?

"No, I don't," she said, smiling.

"I'm still me. I would never be ashamed of that."

3. Irene Kng

WHEN her film-maker husband Jack Neo confessed to the media in March about his two-year affair with a model half his age, 46-year-old Irene Kng was criticised by strangers for her seemingly easy acceptance of his betrayal.

Let's not look at what she did, but what she didn't do.

Kng did not scream or slap her errant spouse during the public confrontation at Changi Airport's Crowne Plaza hotel, which any woman might easily have done.

Neither did she turn her four children against their father or bad mouth him as a form of revenge.

Instead, she stood - at least in public - a silent and supportive wife, choosing to release her grief and grievances behind closed doors.

In an exclusive interview with The New Paper in March, she said: "Naturally, I felt hurt. Anyone would.

"But for the family that Jack and I have built up, I chose to forgive him."

Since the saga, Kng and Neo have been spotted holding hands on holidays and at public events like the recent Getai Star Awards Presentation 2010 in October.

They also went on a two-week family trip to Egypt this month.

For being the personification of selflessness and keeping her grace while under fire, and for her inner beauty, she's one unconventional yet deserving-in-her-own-right choice for Babe Of The Year.

You have to admit the woman looks pretty good for her age too. And in our book, definitely way too good for Neo.

Not that we'd know whether Kng will take this nomination as a compliment - she didn't respond to our attempts at contacting her.

4. Barbarella Posh-Beckham

IF ANYONE can outdo Ris Low in the wannabe- sexy, mangled-English department, it's definitely Barbarella Posh-Beckham. Or is it Barbarella Chantel-Thomas?

In any case, the unabashed SPG from the satirical Channel 5 series The Noose - played by Michelle Chong - has become one of the best-known faces on local TV.

She even has a Facebook fan page and was in a campaign to urge people to quit smoking.

And despite - or perhaps because of - all her twisted r's and l's, she's even hosted the National Day Parade and appeared on the cover of Reader's Digest (an "ang moh magazine", she reminded us).

The "always in her 20s" babe told The New Paper via e-mail that she has the award in the bag.

"Personarly, I think my chances of winning are very high, because number one, I can speaks propel English, the very slang ang moh type, and number two, I have never been fat before," she wrote, referring to Low and Norleena respectively.

Asked if she's done anything to deserve the moniker of babe, she replied: "I wore a red bigini and just jeans and strut down orchard road...what do you means it's been done before??"

Meow!

One wonders if she was taking a jab at the other Babe contenders, but Ms Posh-Beckham is clearly too self-absorbed to think about others.

"If I win Babe Of The Year, I plan to close down our SPGs headquarters at Orchard Towers and move to Resorts World Sentosa, where the High Net Worth Ang Mohs are. Also, it'll be more convenient for us to indulge in our favourite pastime: Bitch Volleyball."

And if she doesn't win?

"I am still waiting for my own show on Channer 5."

Her parting words?

"Please vote for me tanks everybirdy tanks."

This article was first published in The New Paper.