Tuesday, February 09, 2010

Amarikan Inglipish!

Recently I met an old acquaintance and when I went up to her and said, "remember me? we used to meet at our daughters' football practice sessions"? She had a big question mark in her face, "football practice... oh, soccer practice, you mean?" Can I get anymore superbowled!!!

I've always admired people who become Roman as soon as their feet touch Rome! Amongst friends who in just 3 months of landing in foreign shores could talk about cabs & cardigans in ishtyle, here I am, a thirundhadha case, even after a decade, still filling petrol, eating and feeding biscuits instead of cookies/crackers, getting rose/violet colour outfits! Recently, A1 added a new word, comforter, in her vocabulary cos' we still refer to hers as 'blankie'(btw, a diploma course is required to understand bed linens)!

Some words like 'trash', 'elevator', 'bell pepper' didn't seem that hard to get used to. But words like schedule, bath etc. confuses my brain and the outcome will definitely be the Indian way to Americans and vice versa! Same with direct, vitamins etc. And bike, scooter, jeep are quite deeply etched that the substitution is still a WIP. Apartment was easy but when I had to answer which floor, I always wished I lived in the top most as I bungled with all others. Shortened versions are to make life easy. But I kashtapattu, vedhanapattu, thindadi, theruporukki somehow manage to say 'condomonium' in full cos' a couple of times, my mouth(with help from brain or not, I know not) mysteriously adds a 'm' to the end to its short form!!

Recently a desi asked me if & how I pronounced my name Americanized. After reading thro' this post, you might've guessed that like the Doordarshan TV times palmolive shaving advt. dhadiwala(beard) guy, my answer was "who, me?" ;)

5 comments:

ttm said...

if they manage it in < 3 months, they're morons, not romans.

My first visit was a brief one for 3 months and our group used to gather in one of the hotel rooms to cook food and chitchat with the TV on. The seasoned member of the group(who also had the only car) suddenly jumped out of the couch shouting and clapping 'Yay, home run ra'. I checked my impulse to grab the guy's throat and holler 'Havent you ever seen a Tendulkar six all your stupid life?' Later when I poured out my frustoo to another guy about being stuck with such wannabes, the inspired fellow queried, "You could have immediately crouched and started Kabbadi, kabbadi, kabbadi..."

It was Godrej(not palmolive) but anyway it was the Ad of the Century!

Me too said...

ttm, LOL @ morons(btw, isn't moron an amrikan word too? I'll work on getting it in my vocabulary!)& 'kabaddi!!
Oops, Godrej-a?!

Me said...

thats because we talk with our families the way we used to back home...i use petrol/rooba whenever i talk with UNoHu...

my prof used to be confused with mmm...hmmm sound ...what i/we mean by saying mmm..hmmm....american way of saying yes or tamizh way of saying no...i am still trying to avoid saying no with mmmm...hmmm mudiyavey mudiyaadhu sound...

ttm said...

by americanized name, are you referring to the Ken Kuppusamy, Mike Munnusamy, Laura Logeswari types?

Khalin Jones for call rates

Me too said...

me, Like inside voice/outside voice, my inside words/outside words gets all messed up!
Your mmm..., mmm...hmmm reminded me of this.

ttm, I meant VJ for vijai kind. Thanks for the Youtube gem! I recently dug this.