You want to beg ?!!
Some things never end, and some things we never stop talking about.
Accent, arguably, is one of them ! It almost always has one in splits when someone mimicks an accent, or when a word is pronounced so wrong that it gives the sentence a completely different and silly meaning...
I live in this place, where the strength of the indian community is, shall i say, pretty accent-uated. The other day i was at the groceries store to buy some kulfi. After placing it on the counter, the lady started entering the details on the system, when she looked up at me and asked:
Lady : "you wanto beg ?"
i was sure i heard what i heard .....ok, i know i get paid less, but an offer to beg ?? Wow !, and i thought begging was a self-inspired profession all the while !
Me: i am sorry! i'd like to pay!
Lady: "yes, but do you wanto beg ?"
stumped by her insistence, i almost gave it a thought, before i shouted out
"No, i don't want to !"
Lady: "ok!", she said, peacefully removing the kulfi out of the carry bag she had put it in, and handing the kulfi to me!
"here you are, no baeg !"...striking me at that time that she meant "you want a bag ?" !!!
I've always believed that teachers are probably the most important reason students develop an accent in the first place. Not that the teachers do it intentionally, but well, they have been taught that way !
At school, often, we were introduced to the gay and the 1-dimensional world simultaneously, by our math teacher, who wouldnt as much as flinch when she used to direct us saying "please all the gerls and boys, draw a straight lion !", while some cheeky blokes would hiss at the back "wonder how a gay lion would look like"!
Lecturers and profs in college usually used to be the butt of the jokes when it came to accent. more often than not, the bad ones used to have a bad accent to go with, which would not only make them look dumb, but atrociously funny to discuss!
Sometimes they twisted and rolled the words so badly, it's got innocent people in a tight situation on many occasions. We had this lecturer in college, who spoke in thick malayalam accent, and looked like an adult midget. Roll call was the worst, since she pronounced numbers like she was frying something round in her mouth before uttering the words. My cousin, had 412 as his roll number, and unfortunately for him, the teacher always pronounced it as "for toll" !. well, it did take a toll on him, if you think about it, since he took ages to comprehend what she had said, answer out of turn, and get kicked out for giving proxy ! that's the unluckiest one can get - Roll number for toll!
...and there were some who pronounced a specific letter differently.
Our lecturer in college couldn't say the letter 'P', and would instead say "Fee". Unfortunately for him, his 'P' vocab was better than his 'F' !
One gloomy day he caught my classmate Premnath sleeping in class, and launched himself on him,
"Hey you Fathetic Frame-nath !! are you sleefing in class ?" ...to bring us all back from sleep...
Before foor frame-nath could get back to his lenses and senses, a tight blow landed on his head, with another blooper on it's way...
"You are feeling so sleefy, someone else has to wake uf for you ?".
...i'd like a job where someone else could wake up for me, while i slept!!
Another prof of mine had an issue with the 'T's, often coming out as 'thi' or 'tha', and the evil mind that we were, we had named the prof "thomatho-pothatho". she'd go "you guys are therrible, whaths the need to thalk in the labrathory ?" during the microprocessor lab sessions...well after this, we couldnt talk, more so because we tried hard not to howl in laughter!
...but the one that takes the cake was this lecturer who couldn't say 'sa', and would say 'sha'. Imagine the look on this new girl in the second year, when he asked her almost smilingly to "please shit down where the girls are shitting" !, directing her towards them!
much as i would note layke to be kyencerned about these, shumtimes it becomes fainfully unbearable !
Accent proves to be a little hard to digest when you are in a serious situation though. You can't really laugh at times, more like just be green faced trying to control it, but it's funny nonetheless !
There's this colleague of mine, another fellow indian, who pronounces "Brian" like its "Brain". ok, it's not very funny, and could be a compliment in many cases, you'd like to think! Well we had this serious client meeting one day, and Bob wanted the status for a given task, when my colleague spoke, in a slightly surprised tone : "I sent a message about this to brain an hour ago , but haven't got any response yet !". I can swear Red faced Bob pinched himself once to check if he wasn't sleeping since he was hearing things, while i was knocked off my chair trying to control my laugh! That's one cheeky brain which not only knows it is slow, but brave enough to tell it out !.
well all said, these are but innocent mistakes people probably can't do much to change. That's way better than the ones who try to put up an accent, and half way down the line forget to continue it, and start sounding like they've eaten crab legs.....that's a different story to be taken one at a time!...that's when "you'd wanto baeg" to puke into!
Accent, arguably, is one of them ! It almost always has one in splits when someone mimicks an accent, or when a word is pronounced so wrong that it gives the sentence a completely different and silly meaning...
I live in this place, where the strength of the indian community is, shall i say, pretty accent-uated. The other day i was at the groceries store to buy some kulfi. After placing it on the counter, the lady started entering the details on the system, when she looked up at me and asked:
Lady : "you wanto beg ?"
i was sure i heard what i heard .....ok, i know i get paid less, but an offer to beg ?? Wow !, and i thought begging was a self-inspired profession all the while !
Me: i am sorry! i'd like to pay!
Lady: "yes, but do you wanto beg ?"
stumped by her insistence, i almost gave it a thought, before i shouted out
"No, i don't want to !"
Lady: "ok!", she said, peacefully removing the kulfi out of the carry bag she had put it in, and handing the kulfi to me!
"here you are, no baeg !"...striking me at that time that she meant "you want a bag ?" !!!
I've always believed that teachers are probably the most important reason students develop an accent in the first place. Not that the teachers do it intentionally, but well, they have been taught that way !
At school, often, we were introduced to the gay and the 1-dimensional world simultaneously, by our math teacher, who wouldnt as much as flinch when she used to direct us saying "please all the gerls and boys, draw a straight lion !", while some cheeky blokes would hiss at the back "wonder how a gay lion would look like"!
Lecturers and profs in college usually used to be the butt of the jokes when it came to accent. more often than not, the bad ones used to have a bad accent to go with, which would not only make them look dumb, but atrociously funny to discuss!
Sometimes they twisted and rolled the words so badly, it's got innocent people in a tight situation on many occasions. We had this lecturer in college, who spoke in thick malayalam accent, and looked like an adult midget. Roll call was the worst, since she pronounced numbers like she was frying something round in her mouth before uttering the words. My cousin, had 412 as his roll number, and unfortunately for him, the teacher always pronounced it as "for toll" !. well, it did take a toll on him, if you think about it, since he took ages to comprehend what she had said, answer out of turn, and get kicked out for giving proxy ! that's the unluckiest one can get - Roll number for toll!
...and there were some who pronounced a specific letter differently.
Our lecturer in college couldn't say the letter 'P', and would instead say "Fee". Unfortunately for him, his 'P' vocab was better than his 'F' !
One gloomy day he caught my classmate Premnath sleeping in class, and launched himself on him,
"Hey you Fathetic Frame-nath !! are you sleefing in class ?" ...to bring us all back from sleep...
Before foor frame-nath could get back to his lenses and senses, a tight blow landed on his head, with another blooper on it's way...
"You are feeling so sleefy, someone else has to wake uf for you ?".
...i'd like a job where someone else could wake up for me, while i slept!!
Another prof of mine had an issue with the 'T's, often coming out as 'thi' or 'tha', and the evil mind that we were, we had named the prof "thomatho-pothatho". she'd go "you guys are therrible, whaths the need to thalk in the labrathory ?" during the microprocessor lab sessions...well after this, we couldnt talk, more so because we tried hard not to howl in laughter!
...but the one that takes the cake was this lecturer who couldn't say 'sa', and would say 'sha'. Imagine the look on this new girl in the second year, when he asked her almost smilingly to "please shit down where the girls are shitting" !, directing her towards them!
much as i would note layke to be kyencerned about these, shumtimes it becomes fainfully unbearable !
Accent proves to be a little hard to digest when you are in a serious situation though. You can't really laugh at times, more like just be green faced trying to control it, but it's funny nonetheless !
There's this colleague of mine, another fellow indian, who pronounces "Brian" like its "Brain". ok, it's not very funny, and could be a compliment in many cases, you'd like to think! Well we had this serious client meeting one day, and Bob wanted the status for a given task, when my colleague spoke, in a slightly surprised tone : "I sent a message about this to brain an hour ago , but haven't got any response yet !". I can swear Red faced Bob pinched himself once to check if he wasn't sleeping since he was hearing things, while i was knocked off my chair trying to control my laugh! That's one cheeky brain which not only knows it is slow, but brave enough to tell it out !.
well all said, these are but innocent mistakes people probably can't do much to change. That's way better than the ones who try to put up an accent, and half way down the line forget to continue it, and start sounding like they've eaten crab legs.....that's a different story to be taken one at a time!...that's when "you'd wanto baeg" to puke into!
posted by Jagadish at 5:59 PM
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