The “Ghandi” Syndrome
For the nth time today I came across this misspelling of GANDHI, ofcourse misspelt as gHandi.
The line “English is a very funny language” immortalized by Amitabh Bachchan in Namak Halal never rang a louder bell before. You see, the premise of Americans misspelling this last name lies in their phonetics. Us desis pronounce the “dhi” part as “dhee” but firangis say “Dee” but they know there’s an “h” somewhere in there so poor “h” gets thrown before the “g”. I am sure we could blame it all in bits and parts on phonetics.
I thought only a few phonetically and google challenged people committed the mistake. But I came across this whole page about Mahatma Gandhi on 43 people and SO many searches on google . Ofcourse google is smart and it defaults quite a few pages.
The other day I taught a friend how to sing “taal se taal mila” . She just couldn’t say “ta” in “taal”. Ofcourse if she sang it (”ta” as in tamatar”) in front of Mahatma Gandhi and my dad the way she did, would they be banging their heads together? Literally?
Maybe we could ask Mr. George Bhus to spell it for us someday?
Bhus…ha ha ha..hey btw this post goes well will the YouTube Video you sent today….nice stuff Ms Ghandi.
And what to say for everyone who spells my surname as the more popular ‘Jaiswal’ …sigh! India mein bhi yehi hota hai…so y blame the phirangs, who in any case are quite mentally challenged
!
Err…umm…doesnt ‘ghandi’ sound a bit…umm…vulgar
LOL MEhak it sure does go with the video..btw wasnt that video fundooo!! I saw it while eating dinner last night when my cousins mentioned it…I couldnt eat after that coz I was laughing so much!!
Deepak yea ye aI know the story about your last name too..sab uska bhi murder karte hai..atleast your first name doesnt become dHeepak
and isssh! you and your dirty mind! stop!
arre, yeh toh aksar hota hai… ppl pronounce my name with a ta (as in tamatar) and not ta (as in taal)and the choti “ee” ki matra becomes badi “ee” ki matra….
uff! am tired of correcting ppl…. how do u deal with it?
ya this is so true..it makes me irritated too that people can’t take the time to spell it properly..but Americans are lazy…whatever is the easiest way out they will use that..
anks how do I deal with it? depends yaar…sometimes when I am just plain bored, i dont bother to correct someone and sometimes when I feel like it….I keep correcting them until they say it right! and only then proceed to say whatever else I had to say…
Poonam you are right….lazy..whatever is convenient…when I am going to do this becomes i am gonna do this
goodness.. i’ve never experienced any firang play around with my name.. but i don think it’d be that easy for em to mess with..
let em try.. i’ll get a new swahilian name for myself, then..
:-) omething similar happens with my name too.. It becomes… Navjyot… especially with South Indians …
Kaush!!!!
Finally found u today……… Che……. i had been wondering where u disappeared… Saw this link on DJ’s page and came here…..
Wow!!! I got some cool stuff to read now…….. but i wonder why i had missed this site of urs… :-s
Hey Kaush…nice place u have here! Its been a long time…was getting bored so thought of visiting old friends. How have u been?
Me you know theyll mess your name up for sure! lol @ swahilian name
Navjot haha…so the name story is the same everywhere..someone or the other screws it up huh?
Sum haha YES I am right here sumji…arre I had not publicized this site at all..I am just not that regular anymore..but I am trying to be
Colors Good to see you here…been good
what about you ? good?
Nice observation. Ghandi sounds better considering the mess he left India in…
Ricky yea well..they can mess with his last name…but NOT with mine