Thursday, September 18, 2008

Southisms

After much debating with my friends, I have come to the conclusion that in the South of India (and I'm mainly referring to Tamilnadu) there is a completely different way of speaking English than anywhere else. I'm not referring to the occassional slipping in of English into everyday language. I'm talking serious change of meaning and pronounciation.

  1. Pamilee/Famlee: You've all heard this at some point (if you've been in the South.) Any person comes visiting with his family to some office and the hosts lackey usually informs the boss that the man has come with "Pamilee/Famlee". It doesn't matter if he has come with just his wife or just his kid or his entire extended family, even one accompanying person is referred to as Pamilee/Famlee. Thanks to someone I don't want to explicitly give credit to for this gem.
  2. Oife: In some parts of America and several parts of England, this word is pronounced Wife. The meaning is the same.
  3. Ladees/Ladeej: Women in any group or gathering of any sort.  Even if there's only one it's still Ladees/Ladeej.
  4. Words beginning with P: Just hearing a RJ on the radio talk about the flanets and about Fluto is an exercise in laughter by itself. Also manifests in above-mentioned Pamilee.
  5. Onway: Germany has the autobahn, America has the freeway, Britain has the highway, we have the onway. A road (not really) where legally traffic flows in one direction only, but actually flows in up to four different directions.
  6. Andred: What comes after 99.
  7. Gowlf: A sport played by using a crooked stick to know a ball in to a hole on a large green field. Alternate Spelling: Golf.
  8. Prolem: A dilemma without the di. Sometimes spelled Problem in some cultures.
  9. Dafanit: Definite as Daffy Duck would say it, I suppose.
  10. Mrs: Refers to a wife. As in, "Mrs. is not there?." Not to be confused with the grammatically correct Missus as in, "Is the missus in?"
BTW, on a side note, have you noticed that whenever someone has a South Indian Lackey, the lackey is always bent at a painful angle (like they have piles), the arms are crossed and the shoulders are hunched together. Why this overly painful gesture?????? Aren't you doing enough cleaning the boss's kid's poop, washing the Pamilee dog and driving the Ladees around? Sometimes they go further and cover their mouth with the upper portion of the fingers of their right hand in a semi-curved position.

Just painful.

8 comments:

Si_Lee said...

hmmm...... ladees ... glad you targeted only south else we would be seeing war and hostel there as well .. ;)
tht was humorous

RukmaniRam said...

what about people who have relatives in michicken and chickaagow?

Kaos said...

@ rukmani:
Of course, if I tried to chronicle every little mistake the Southies make, it'll run into pages and pages of text. :) I think I'll make a post for Northies soon!

RukmaniRam said...

and call it bhat? naathisams?

eff bhay eye, uve been blahrolled.

Kaos said...

man, i promise you this: it took me the better part of a day to understand what you had typed here. Wow. That was tough. I also just wiki'ed blogrolling. I now know what it means. I will BR you too soon. Once I figure out how to modify my templates. :)

RukmaniRam said...

@ kaos: too late to br too soon.

Goddess of Nonsense said...

hahah hilarious :P
Here in Bbay I once say 'Ledis' written outside a ladies washroom

Kaos said...

@Lavender: Looks like it's spreading. We could soon have an outbreak on our hands. Maybe they'll talk about it in ladeej parliament.