Mind your language!

In 12th grade I used to attend Physics tuition and the professor there used to often say that we don’t speak correct English but speak Hinglish (Hindi + English) or Manglish (Marathi + English). Well, his own language was a bit more Manglish with proper gaavran words interspersed in every sentence so it was quite a bold confession. Or should I say that a few proper English words in the whole Marathi sentence :D. Looking back I can’t remember when I spoke English with anybody in school. Even though I attended an English medium school we hardly interacted in English with the teachers as well. I remembered all this after a series of events which took place over a long period. The first incident was a shop board which dealt in ladies garments. No, I had not gone there to buy anything but it was in the area where we friends had gone to see dahi-handi and the board read ‘Dreamgirl Hole-sale Ladies Shoppe’. Just a single ‘w’ dropped and the hole.. err whole meaning changes ;). Those days I did not have cell with cam so couldn’t capture it. Later when Vaibhav had come over to Pune and we were roaming in the city he spotted one board of a detective/investigation agency. It read ‘XYZ Agency. We invetigate all kinds of criminal offences: Blackmailing, Dowry, Negotiations, Kidnapping, Marriage, Threats, Strike-handling..’. All unmarried people should consider themselves lucky not to be an offender :D

Last week our company group was to go out for dinner but I was not able to join them as I had some work back at home. In the late evening I got a text message from one of the girls in the group ‘Y r u not cumming with us tonite?’ Come on.. I wasn’t aware that it would be an orgy there :P .. kidding. Then there was this colleague with whom I was discussing something on messages and he wanted to tell me ‘Let’s do it’ and instead he messaged ‘Fine! Let’s make out’. Neither did I go for the ‘orgy’ and nor made out with the guy… eewww.. gross!! Some people literally kill the language. I can’t help but remember Amitabh’s dialog from one of his movies “I talk in English, I walk in English because English is a very funny language”. I was searching for the exact words of the phrase A bird in hand is worth two in the bush on wikipedia and accidentally I keyed in incorrect words and reached this link *ahem*. I agree with Amitabh :D. We already have heard/read about incidents involving professors blurting out incorrect sentences. “Ssshh!! The principal has just passed away” when the principal walked by the class is my favourite. I am attending weekend classes for an entrance exam and the lady who conducts the English sessions speaks good English but this Saturday she said “Who didn’t thought of it?” I hate it when people use past-tense with did and especially that coming from her was something I did not expected.. err expect :P. I remembered something else from this mentioning of the class.. maybe in the next post.

Anyways, we all make mistakes and that’s what makes languages funny.. so keep making mistakes :)

Some of you might have already visited this site (visit only if you know Marathi). Meanwhile I spotted this on an auto-rickshaw near our company :D