Eye kant dishugree mor with Ms. Wocker. As in, y do we rite? We rite b-coz we wish two kumnicate are idias. Eye dont rite b-coz I wont les read lions undir mye weirds in MS Weird. I toetally hugree with Dr. Smith wen he ascs, what is "f" duing in "twelfth". I wood ask that abowt everee leter in the French langwage, butt it's ok two be French and weird (or that hapins automatcally?). In Inglish, ther r tonnes (well, sins ton is suposd two be the rite speling) of weirds wich hav leters b-coz sum dicshunry riter me-spelt them wen he was putting them all down, like "poignant" or "ennui" or eevin "annihilation" ("nihilism" seems two b the rite speling). In the north of India, Inglish is pronownsed in everee pausible way. Hens, Alaarum shud b aloud two (and loud two). Or jomentry (for wat I laytr lernd two b "geometry") in the sothearn states. One Bihari culd teese a UP bhaiyya for pronownsing is-cool as sakool (wile sum "pedantic" teechar insiss that it shud b pronownsed "school"). Inglish is not suposd two b a karectlee spelt langwage. It is suposd two b a langwage for men like cotn wul (olso riten as, "cotton wool") is two the shop flor: for aneething butt mayking beeutifulee simmetrik lions of threds ovar a loom, murj intwo a nise Kancheevaram sorry. It is probablee like paynt used two mayk owl kinds of images and sines and ok-sionalee, art. Inglish kannot b stuk up like "Sanskrit" or "Latin" or Tintin in there infinight rooles and stipyoolashuns. Inglish was ment two spred like a disees "amongst" the I-dill speekar hoo wanted two say sumthing and if asked two rite, wud do so with the sam rispekt with wich they spoke - nun (olso riten as "none")!
Wich udder langwage has boroed so much frum niyarly everee udder langwage on arth? French, Italian, Sanskrit, Tamil, Hindi, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Persian... neigh-m it. Everee udder langwage creeated an iden-titty of its on (mostlee). Most Indiun langwages had won pay-runt (Sanskrit) and slolee morfed intwo a langwage of there on. Inglish has been the promise-coo-ass product of sevral nites in sevral fawrin beds. Y then, asc 4 karect speling wen evereething in its or-gin has been unchased (olso spelt as, "unchaste")? It is like asking a ladee-of-un-men-shunnable-trades to where her lay-pels properlee! Reallee, and that is the most importunt thing nau!? Inglish has olwais focusd on b-ing "utile"; Y sudnly focus on serimonees? If speling is not a serimoney then what is it? Gramur is a serimoney two, butt I will wayt 4 sum-1 two rite abowt the need 4 karect gramur b-4 I go there (aneething two rite a post!). If Inglish reallee cares abowt "propriety", then they shud have stuk two at leest "Old English" and staid that way. Life wud have been so much more fun! Think of softwear yooser manwuls in OE!
The point is, we need chased langwages and at leest one langwage that is pyorlee 4 a qwik dispensing of thots and idias. Like we need "pilates" and "yoga" 4 maintining are bodees butt a burp two feel liter this veree minit. Everee-1 thot Inglish was that in the kittee of langwages, butt nau Ms. Wocker says "No". That's plaing a spoil-sport!! Cum on, Ms. Wocker, let us ol mis-spell. Plees!
Fine! No more misspellings!
I was pondering about the consequences of passing a law allowing misspellings:
1. Toilet and To-Let boards will no longer raise a snigger
2. "Meet The Fockers" loses its punch
3. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a happier man
4. Citibank will no longer ask a million questions about my mother's maiden name spelling or about my street name
5. Speaking of my mother, she will be happy too (which doesn't mean you link point 3 and 5 together and consider me to be the son of Arnold!)
6. When someone writes about Tanjore brassware, that article can be deemed pornographic by the VHP because Tanjore's culture never had bras in the the first place and it is un-Indian to talk about brassware.
7. Everyone wins the Spelling-Bee contest
9. Bangalore shops where they fix a puncher will be "But obvious"
10. SMS would be considered high-brow grandiose
11. GRE and GMAT exams would lose half their question bank
12. Proof-readers would lose their jobs or rather re-invent themselves to check for the correct misspelling!
13. Half the Gujaratis will hate their surname and will ask Modi to insist on the right spelling of Bhatt. Mahesh Butt will object and claim that a being at the butt end (or having a butt at the end) is not necessarily a bad thing.
14. Modern poets will claim a new style of poetry where one word is written in all possible spellings and clueless "kanna-seers" (also written as, connoisseurs) will hail it as the most imaginative piece of writing that has descended on mankind.
15. Nearly all mail would be spam. Especially Yatra.com's mail about the tour package which takes you to Delhi and then Mathura Viagra.
16. Google will be out of business or will have maximum employees with the least hair on their head.
17. And when you ask a tailor: "What do you do?" he wouldn't reply with "Sow" (bestiality is still punishable) but "Syoo" or the safer but boring "Stich".
Do you know that I started this mail typing out the way I intended it to be and then simply couldn't. So I wrote it the way I normally do (with near zero spelling mistakes) and then powdered this little baby with some pizzaz. Gosh! Misspelling is so tough!!
Now this is obligatory!!
ReplyDeleteA Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling
by Mark Twain
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped
to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer
be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained
would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2
might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the
same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with
"i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear
with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12
or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants.
Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi
ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud
hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.
Hahaha!
ReplyDeleteMade my day - the alt of the image is hilarious, the readable 17 points even more so, especially this that and the other points, not to forget Mark Twain's signature humour+intelligence in the comment.
Write more funnybone tickling posts; they have an astringent effect that is even more potent than that of your zen koans or sonnets!
MS Weird? Truer words were never spoken!
ReplyDeleteDear R,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing that. I recall reading it a long time ago and even now I find it hilarious!!
Dear P,
Glad it made your day! :-) Zen koans are zen koans. If they turned out to be humourous then... well, they would be humourous! :-)
Dear L,
Welcome to this blog. When I visited your blog to find the latest post to be about pasta, I decided I like your blog!! :-D I had some post about pasta (not upma-pasta ;-) a while ago...
Dear All,
After ages I decided to check my page stats and here is what I found leading someone in Canada to my blog:
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=meditation%20and%20serimoney%20stuff&meta=
So I may be on the right track!! ;-)
Sign on a shop in Ahmedabad :
ReplyDeleteCARPENTER AND DENTIST".
While you admire his "wide" talents, you see a number of cars and hear a lot of banging. That's when you realise that he paints cars and removes dents.
Dear TRR,
ReplyDeleteThat was hilarious!! Never seen that. The ones I usually have seen are the "Puncher" shops. Recently I saw a sign on the gate of an enclosure "This Praperty blanks to ....".
That bit about "Delhi and then Mathura Viagra" cracked me up! :D
ReplyDelete