Language Treat

Owing to long hours spent travelling, usually I sleep off in the cab. For a change, I was looking out from the window of my cab and observing things the other day. I was just observing sign boards and advertising slogans and wondering how funny language usage can be at times. :-)

We provide sand, cement, jelly, wood, iron bars, paints, stones, bricks, tiles, etc and also house construction materials... Said one board. So what are sand, cement bricks, etc? Are they not construction materials? :-)

"We oppose metro train coming on MKK road" read one sign. How can a train come on road? It needs tracks right? What they meant was obvious but I could not help smiling :-)

"Madyapaana Maadi"
"Vaahana Chalisa Bedi"

This is the bangalore traffic cops' kannada style of asking us not to drink and drive. But the literal translation is quite funny. The first sentence means - go ahead and have intoxicating drinks. The second asks you not to drive. Isnt it funny they ask people to drink as much as they can and enjoy? No wonder bangalore is India's liquor capital. Whats life without a royal challenge? Right Mr. Mallya? :-)

"Karnataka Super Garage"

Punkchar done here

Dont mind the bad english, but dont we have enough obstacles on the roads that puncture our vehicle tires? Do we need a separate shop for that? :-)

"Fabrication, bending and sizing of home GIRLS" said a board- good heavens! What did they mean by that? I looked at this far-off board carefully. It was home grills and not girls. Maybe my pun hunting mind was working extra time to get such things that it immediately read grills as girls :-)

The best of them all was in front of a furniture shop. It read:

Sheela' s interiors and home furnitures

No comments on this! Maybe its the word 'interiors' that was misplaced :-)

After all these sign reading. I went to a restaurant the other day and was scanning their menu. The chinese section had vegetable fried rice, paneer fried rice, baby corn fried rice, chicken fried rice and finally a beijing fried rice- if veg fried rice is made from vegetables, and chicken fried rice is prepared using chicken, what is beijing fried rice prepared from? :-)

While i was thinking of putting all these thoughts into a post, i got a nice forward from one of my friends. I thought i will post it here. How is it?

So i guess i have mentioned all the wierd signs and boards that i have come across these days. I remembered a phrase we were using during our school days- when one of our friends had his birthday, he used to say , "It is my happy birthday today!" We all used to wait eagerly for sweets then. It is after going to high school that we realised the mistake in sayin that phrase. Anyway the phrase is still considered cute and I dont mind using it even now. Even today I could use, "Today is my happy birthday" and it still would not be a mistake. Right? :-)