Monday, March 31, 2008

Funny Language

In my primitive years,as many others', I was having a genuinely strong vocabulory. Education is the main culprit I suppose to have made so many words obsolete and shrinked my dictionary. Sigh!

Back in those times,


Tamplese : It meant one should not catch you when playing lock and key if you uttered the word.
(Time please it had to be.Hmm...)

Oldein: It meant that the vehicle has to stop for a while.
(Hold on it had to be.)

Ya : It meant a friend like in "No ya, it is not like that ! ".

( For a long while I thought 'Ya' meant a friend, later I realised it is "yaar" which meant friend in Hindi!)

Mys : It meant something that belonged to me.
('Mine' it had to be.)

Stomachcake : Pain in the stomach.
(Stomach ache it had to be.)

Shut : It was used to show displeasure.
(It had to be shit! Shit!)

Macs : It meant a very difficult subjects dealing with numbers.
(Maths,dude, it is!)

exectra: It meant many more to follow.
(Etcetera it had to be)

Ruf note : It meant a book where you could scribble anything.
(Rough note)

A lot others in the list like putted , cutted ,drinked,drived etc. Now they give an absolute laughter, but God knows how confused we would have been if someone had laughed at our diction then!


Day before yesterday, as I was watching a group of kids play football, a kid who was the goal keeper stopped the ball from reaching the goal using his hands for which the kids in the opposition objected to using hands calling it unfair. "Who told? Hands is there!", he said in response. I was sorry, but I couldn't stop laughing!


When I was in primary school , I was asked to get my leave letter signed by my parents.When my dad was just about to sign it, I said 'Papa, my miss has told that it has to be purely signed'. He was in total confusion what purely signing meant until he guessed that it has to be be duly signed'.

English is a funny language. Indeed.

6 comments:

harini said...

well there was/is something spelled as

amaate -- thats wen you play kuntebille.
(suppose to be am i right )

this one is my fav :)

Rashmi Kantharaja said...

@Harini,
Oh my God! I couldn't stop laughing after being reminded about it. Good you added it to the list... So funny, ain't it? :D

Anonymous said...

Tracing the etymology of pidgin english words is great fun. Tamil has it's share too. :D

Nice post. I remember having used tamplese, macs and exetra

Rashmi Kantharaja said...

@Shrinath,
:) It's so amazing to think how kids uniformly follow the usage of tampered words! Kids verywhere,can relate to such incidents!

~SuCh~ said...

My putting I ams 2 paisas :

Ice boys : For I spy perhaps
Old McDonald .. : Old Man johnner..
R(L)abber : For eraser
Waitees : Wait please maybe
Miss :Every teacher in school (married or unmarried)
Payna : For Pen
Orangesaleman : Oranges and lemons

Englis is and will continue to be fa-rin for us Indians.

Good post :)

Rashmi Kantharaja said...

@~such~
Man! I can identify with labber and miss! :D
Thanks :)