Tuesday, April 24, 2007

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

7 comments:

Aditi said...

pretty funny!! but what is err the point in the picture.. didnt get it
=/

teacup said...

my gawd!!! you actually remembered the way to your blog? *surprised* and ahem...what are you teaching us innocent kids Sudeep? Mind your posts! :)

AnonymousBlogger said...

Oh my god, it's a Sudeep update. Has hell frozen over?

The English language is tough to master. I've spent 21 years trying to learn it all, and I still find myself having to look up the simplest of words.

So good luck to you with your classes LOL. I can tell just by reading your posts that you already know it better than the majority of people you work with (I laughed at the text messages).

Ujwal said...

hilarious man...lolzz...kuthe gayab hotas re?

Dalicia said...

maybe your professor is an alien :)

Michelle said...

lol..i remember in school we weren allowed to speak anything but english...bt then again my school was known for the snobby girls so listening to few of my friends attempting to talk in hindi or any other language was quite hilarious! college is a diff issue...if only i could comprehend the sentences my professors try to construct.

Astral said...

hey dude! how have you been?