Rahul Writes

I was writing a one-line email to my colleague. I wrote:  

“I had done some shorlisting; sending you those:”  

I was doing a spelling mistake, as the correct word should be “shortlisting / short listing”  

When I tried to correct the mistake, MS Word suggested me this:  

“I had done some shoplifting; sending you those:” 

:)

I received a noble request from a friend. Sharing it because I support the cause:  

Dear All, 

I want to bring your attention to the very important thing… 

The census of India has come to the last stage now and at any moment the government officials will come to you to ask information about you and family … 

The form contains some basic information such as your name, no. of family members and the languages you know… 

While filling the details DO NOT forget to write SANSKRIT language against the Languages You Know …. Please.  

Though we rarely use Sanskrit in our day to day activities, it is the oldest language of the human civilization and is the language of the Gods. 

All our ancient scriptures & Vedas are in Sanskrit. Every year many scholars from various countries visit India to study this language. 

Its now been a known fact that many of the words from other languages such as Hindi, English, Latin are borrowed from Sanskrit… 

The sad story is that, this cultured language is taking its last breath. It has been found during the last survey that population aware of this language are only in few thousands. So the government might declare this language as DEAD Language. 

Once declared as DEAD Language, the government will stop the funding and there will be NO further hope. 

The only hope is YOU, the people of this country, can enliven the glories of this language. 

If you think this is right step, do spread this message to your friends… 

Regards,

An interesting conversation in Big Boss caught my interest. Salman Khan asked Manoj Tiwari why he disagreed to inmates eating from each-others’ dishes. He asked if Manoj found something wrong in the practice. I became curious. Indian/Hindu culture is unique in many aspects and Indians/Hindus maintain the highest aspects of ‘personal hygiene’ (as different from public one). And we have this concept of not eating other’s jootha – a word for which there is no English translation available at all! I support this practice – it’s anyone guess that eating someone else’s jootha may result in disease contraction – as jootha would contain traces of saliva; and contamination - we never know if the other person had properly washed hands or not. Salman Khan may not be knowing the background, or maybe he was casual (or tricky?) in his question. Anyways, so what did Manoj reply?  

Manoj Tiwari’s reply was something like this: “I have no problems as such but I think we should not eat from someone’s plate until we know him/her properly.” He went on, “Also, I protested against them tasting the food in kitchen itself before it was served, which I found to be improper (unhygienic).” Interesting answer! It doesn’t offend anyone (which a lecture on culture or hygienic benefits would have done), and yet it is precise at the same time! I think such an art of speech really makes one very popular. And it is not everyone’s cup of tea.  

- Rahul

There won’t be many other used and abused surnames like a ‘Gandhi’. In his own India where he is revered as ‘Father of the nation’, the ‘Gandhi’ surname was hijacked by the daughter and grandchildren of Pandit Nehru. Gandhi was a larger than life brand, and everyone exploited it enough. The places where Gandhi has been used span from advertising, music, corporate communication, political speeches, and where not. (Do you know that a founder member of pro-Islamic and anti-White band Fun-Da-Mental Aki Nawaz uses a stage name of Propa-Gandhi?)
 

The word Gandhi stands for something that no other word epitomizes – power of unadulterated righteousness and a giant strength of character. After decades of his earthly demise, Gandhi and his principles remain intact. In fact Gandhism seems to have grown into a full fledged subject with wide scope of studies. In a curious encounter with the same name, I found a phrase which sounded interesting. It’s called “Gandhi’s Revenge”.

At first glance, the phrase “Gandhi’s Revenge” seemed derogatory for Indians. Plainly put, “Gandhi’s Revenge” is British slang for diarrhea. I thought to find more facts behind this term.

The original phenomenon is called Travelers’ Diarrhea (TD). Due to poor hygiene and drinking untreated water, travelers all across the world suffer from diarrhea. Most such cases are self-limited (it resolves itself in 3-5 days) and are mostly caused by bacterium like E-Coli. Every year, 20-50% of international travelers suffer from TD. It is interesting to note that the local people don’t suffer from these infections even after eating same food or drinking same water. Repeated exposure to pathogens develop immunity in local population (it takes some years to develop immunity; though immunity disappears sometime after becoming non-exposed to the conditions). Travelers all across the world have always suffered because of this phenomenon. The corresponding term for backpackers and outdoor recreationalists is called Wilderness Diarrhea (WD).

Some other very innovative phrases have come out of this phenomenon. One original one is Montezuma’s Revenge. Montezuma’s Revenge is slang for travelers’ diarrhea or other sicknesses contracted by tourists visiting Mexico. (Montezuma II, the emperor of Mexico from 1502 to 1520 is remembered in history as a weak and indecisive emperor during whose regime Spanish conquest of Mexico and the subsequent destruction of the Aztec civilization happened). It is estimated that 40% of foreign travelers visiting Mexico suffer from TD which is called Montezuma’s Revenge.

The revenge element in the phrase comes because the country was once colonized by a stronger country (e.g. Mexico by Spain) and now, in this small way (by making travelers sick with diarrhea), it is getting its own back! In Japan, the phrase is known as Tokyo Trots, in Myanmar it’s the Rangoon Runs, and similarly in India its Gandhi’s Revenge. There is even one particularly for Delhi: Delhi Belly! All these phrases came into being at different points of time; some of them are recent while some are decades old.

If we think then in a way Gandhi has been made to enter inside our lavatories. Relating Gandhi with a thing as naïve as a stomach upset seems funny. The man whose one call sent severs down the spine of the British; would his revenge be anywhere as impotent as upsetting the stomach of a foreign traveler? If we think about the defeated king Montezuma of Mexico, he can still be in place to receive such ridicule. But Gandhi didn’t deserve it for sure… Gandhi was neither a defeated king nor a disgraced individual as Montezuma II was, but still if the British tried to make him immortalized in such a phrase, then it’s we who have to decide whether we need to carry these burdens of the colonial era. I would call this a Colonial Ridicule.

I think the phrases and slang like ‘Gandhi’s Revenge’ which are symbols of British Colonial pride should be avoided by all of us. With India rising, the days are not far when India will overpower and leave behind ‘small nations’ with ‘long noses’ like the GB. When it happens, the term ‘Great’ along with ‘Britain’ would be ridiculing enough for them (I think it is still ridiculing, given the colonial exploitations done to attain Greatness). If time is the best teacher, then the British still have some lessons to learn for their sense of humor.

(Rahul)

Language

Recently I was making frequent spelling mistakes. Now I know why:  

Is cleverness the cause of spelling errors?

Can't spell supersede correctly? If you think you're stupid, you may be wrong. The consensus is that you are too clever, according to a new study.

A team of researchers for the Collins dictionary in Britain has carried out the study and found that people often misspelt a number of 'confusing' words as they are actually too clever.

According to them, the most commonly misspelt English word is supersede ? many come up with 'supercede' because of their knowledge of other words including intercede or precede, the Daily Mail reported.

The same theory applies to other words like consensus, liquefy and sacrilegious, the study found. "The real spelling problems occur when people have learnt the rules or have a bit of knowledge, but make mistakes in how they apply this," Ian Brookes, the Managing Editor of Dictionaries at Collins, was quoted as saying.

In fact, the researchers found the commonly misspelt words after running thousands of documents through a software programme designed to pick up spelling mistakes.

Supersede was by far the most commonly misspelt word, although it was wrong only one time out of ten. Consensus is frequently spelt incorrectly as concensus because the writer wrongly believes that it relates to the word census which comes from the Latin censere, to assess.

When it comes to liquefy, many are tempted to spell it as liquify because they wrongly apply the spelling of liquid. And the same is true to sacrilegious which is often misspelt as sacreligious (as with religious) and inoculate because many know the word innocuous contains a double 'n'.

Source: [Link]