Sunday, July 09, 2006

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!

30 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

nice one :) Too good as always..

I too had this 'beg' experience :). .. luckily for me, the lady asked "beg chahiye?" so, I kind of understood :D


BTW, we had had lecturers who would pronounce certain words as they were spelt!

Eg :
Leo-Pard
Envi-Ron-Ment

:D

Tue Jul 18, 11:47:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Divster said...

I understood when she repeated the phrase after u said yah, will pay in cash! :D

Quite hillarios ain't it..One of the biggest bloopers I always find myself smiling at is when ppl use the word "backside"
Now..for those who don't know this.. U might wanna look it up in the dictionary bcause there is apparently.. only..one..meaning..and tats...butt!

Everytime I hear ppl talkin with perfect english saying..
"..oh u havent seen the backside of the house have u?.."
"..Aye, Show them the backside first.."
"..the dirty pool is in the backside sir..U may go there anytime u want.."

:P I particularly liked the "sh" one in ur examples!:D

Tue Jul 18, 04:09:00 PM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey you! Long time! Hows it going? I haven't clicked on your page for a long time! Great reads as always :)

Wed Jul 19, 02:30:00 AM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This reminded me of our microprocessor professor in college, she would call flip-flops flip-flaaps!!

Wed Jul 19, 11:02:00 AM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

heh, beg indeed. Although I got it mostly from da chinkis.
thomatho-pothatho is to roflmao, dude!
reminds of some of the bloopers our physics tuition guy used to make, with his throaty voice with stuff like "capaa-ci-taance of da ca-paa-citorrr"

Thu Jul 20, 08:41:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Jagadish said...

Arjun: yeah ! i remember the word "environment" being pronouned as it is spelt :P....on the flip side it helped me remember the spelling ;)..

Divster: hahaha, well to tell you the truth, this 'back' and 'backside' thingy is quite confusing :P, if had my share of bloopers with it too :D

Fri Jul 21, 04:33:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Jagadish said...

Deepa: Hey ! long time no c again !...same old boring place and boring work :P
how's it going at your end ?

Anonymous: oh yeah, flip flaps :D....seems like we were in the same college :P..

bangaloreguy: :D :D...you should hear it being said, it's unbearably funny :D...sounds like the prof had something really sticky in her mouth, when she uttered tomato :D....

Fri Jul 21, 04:45:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Akshay said...

hehe I remember the mu-p teacher :D ..
There is one guy here who cannot pronouce Doug (dug) .. he ends up prnouncing Dog :D.. imagine this in a meeting room ..

Fri Jul 21, 07:11:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Manu Gurudatha said...

classic maga... finally you are back with quality stuff (hehe.... not that u were bad... :D)

I remember vijaylakshmi ;) thomato pothato... :D

good one ley... hange baritha iru...

Fri Jul 21, 02:54:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Unknown said...

Ha ha ha.. Atlast you write.. the wait was worth it..
Boy, I have a lecturer who speaks american english.. half of the time we dont understand what she is trying to say either.. yella bari moogalle maathaadi mugisthaare..

Sat Jul 22, 09:42:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Suneel said...

Cool one... This is with indians. How about little Thai, Malaysia and Chinese - English accents. You will die laughing when you listen to their English accent. Chinese are exception, not many people speak english and those of who speaks can possibly ....

Sat Jul 22, 06:24:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Jagadish said...

akku: hahaha, enu helodilva client 'dog' antha karskond melu :D :D...

manu: :D...thanks lo...hmmm, ayyo christ college nalli idrappa specimen galu...olle time pass adu

shubhaprada: oh howdu, sakkath irritating adu when someone puts up an accent...office nalli obba idda, US ge barodikke antha american accent practise maadthidda..intha hutchru irtaare :P

gandhi: chinese accent ole maja irathe...u should know better though :D

Tue Jul 25, 09:25:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Thejas Rajaram said...

she: you want a beg?

you: baig?? is she good looking? :D

great one dude....

you went back to Uncle Sam's land???

where are you this time?

Wed Aug 02, 12:13:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Enigma said...

uit was hillarious
:)
was teh shop lady gujju ?

Mon Aug 14, 01:17:00 PM PDT  
Blogger ancientmariner said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Tue Aug 29, 07:53:00 PM PDT  
Blogger ancientmariner said...

I came across the 'Brain' incident when a colleague of mine mentioned " Our 'Brain is too good ya..'
I said : yea..u mean the indian brain,yup we are sharp...
He : no re our manager Brain..

...thts when I corrected him...

its funny to see indians try to put up an accent but this is probably not something intentional...it gets on you when you speak to the clients...but yea...its hilarious when the behenjis and uncleji's at indian stores try to fake an accent ( with all due respect to them...)...
Behenji : Sir this is your coupon
Amru : pardon me what was tht
Behenji : your discount coupon sir
A helpin Indian (usually a software engineer ) : She is offering you the discount QUPAWNS ....

Tue Aug 29, 07:54:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Harish said...

too good dude....
that was hilarious....

Thu Aug 31, 10:01:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Thejas Rajaram said...

new updates needed budd.... ;-)

Thu Aug 31, 11:38:00 PM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wassup?? silent as ever??

Sun Sep 17, 05:18:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Prashanth(MSP) said...

puhleeze bereak the sailance ... :p

Tue Sep 26, 10:00:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Unknown said...

Write something Juggs. Maybe about ur trip back to India.. YEnaadru.. PLease

Fri Oct 06, 12:40:00 PM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ha ha... I got to read a wonderful article after so many ages! This is one of those things we're so used to that it's difficult to pick them out and laugh anymore! but this was hilarious! :))

Wed Oct 25, 11:45:00 PM PDT  
Blogger Unknown said...

Oye u disappeared after u came to India..Where are u??

Thu Nov 02, 03:20:00 AM PST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey, what's this impossibly long break you've taken! you can't be that busy or can you?:) how've u been doing? regale us. you have a responsibility to keep your faithful readers happy. (haha!)

Fri Nov 03, 10:31:00 AM PST  
Blogger Jagadish said...

hey Teju, Deepa, enigma, ancientmariner, Harish, Shubha, prashant, Lee...thanks all for the comments...i've been totally out of blogging for a while now....some nasty experience in NJ to say....well just happy to be back in Bangalore....and hopefully it'll inspire me to write more often!

Teju: :D..i went and came back again...hopefully this time for good....that place sucks bigtime! awful experience !

Enigma: thanks ...yeah she was a gujurati :P...

ancientmariner : :D :D....there was this guy who couldnt pronounce tsunami, and used to say T-sunami :P...kinda like the Qupawns blunder :D

Lee: thanks! glad u liked it...its true that accent is one the most talked about stuff, but we never tire of it do we :P...

Deepa: :P...hehe, thanks for asking...yeah i have been out really long...been busy with some crappy work....how's it going at your end ?...i finally did have the Haagen Daaz you had suggested earlier :P...

Shubha: not disappeared :P..hibernating...thanks for the suggestions....will try to get a post out soon :P

Mon Nov 13, 10:15:00 AM PST  
Blogger Nasal Crooner said...

hey..
awesome post man..
ha ha...!!!! :)
there was actually a prof in my coll who used to pronounce circuit as "sir-cute"!!
She was a lady prof.. and on de first i was actualy wondering if she found one of her male colleagues to be "cute"!! :D

Thu Dec 14, 01:19:00 AM PST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Really funny!! i wonder what took me so long to read it...i was at a loose end today and thought i can find something in ur blog which i can criticise!! too bad i could'nt..Good one!

And talk abt fake accent i think u should include yourself!!

Jag-Deeeesh dusent sit in this extension any moure, pls call 9 won oh fhy-ve...blah blah!! i had to call twice to find the correct extn number!!! *hmph*

-neeraja

Tue Jan 16, 12:02:00 AM PST  
Blogger Divster said...

Ye madu beku...

Wher r u jaggu da ??? Hiding under some banyan tree... counting ur success money eh???

Cmon now.. come out of hibernation..and give us a good treat.. I have also resumed bloggin...

When will u start writing?? or do u hav another blog?

Sun Oct 12, 03:07:00 AM PDT  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hey jagadish, your post is quite hilarious. I loved esp the 'Brain' part :)

Thanks
Bindu (hope u remeber me!!?)

Fri Jul 17, 08:26:00 PM PDT  
Anonymous Sameer said...

ahsome ! simbly hilarious!! keep it going :D

Mon Jun 28, 04:37:00 AM PDT  

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