Adil Najam
Back in November 2006 we had done a ‘Picture of the Day’ post about a banner over a Lahore road that had some interesting spelling typos (heading: ‘I Love Miss Spelling‘). This current picture from Islamabad, taken by reader Saad, reminded me of that post.
I spend a lot of my professional life watching diplomats haggle over meanings of words in agreements being negotiated, so I find the wordplay here interesting, even if it is unintended. What does that extra ‘D’ at the end of ‘APOLOGIZE’ do to the meaning. Are they saying that inconveniences caused in the past have already been apologized for? Or that future inconveniences are covered by past apologies? Or that past inconveniences are being apologized for now?
But let me hasten to say that this is Not Pinglish. ‘Pinglish’ is not about bad spelling or faulty grammar; Pinglish is about formulations that may not be widely used or considered ‘proper’ in formal English but which are so widely accepted in Pakistan to be considered very much part of accepted usage by Paksitanis. Maybe I should add by repeating what I wrote in an earlier post about spelling lapses like this:
But please, let no one think I am being a snob in laughing at these mistakes. I really am not. Really. Its our language too and as a free people we will use it whatever way we want. What better revenge can we have on our erstwhile colonists.
Zahid, that was the first thing that came to my mind also. We, Pakistanis will frequently get the big word or the difficult spelling right and then drop the ball with a very common word or the grammer. But that’s just us and it’s ok.
Adil, don’t know if it is the wrong spelling of misunderstanding that your subject “Miss Under Standing” alludes to the obvious, but “Miss Under Standing” has a funnier side to it in that in the 70s, thanks to Athar Shah Khan’s Jaidee series on PTV, his character, a nutty professor of sorts, impressed everyone with his pinglish like “Miss Under Standing” being his translation of “Larkee neechay kharee hai”
Another one I vaguely remember is one character in this TV show, Apa Gul Badan whom Jaidee referred to as Auntie Flaavar Baady (Auntie Flower Body)
Hope you have a good dose of Aunties in Isloo during your trip, Flower Body et al :)
See they apologized already so don’t expect again………lol
The link got eaten up above, so here it is: CLICK HERE
The picture to the left is my favourite - sums up Pakistan very well.
very funny :)
I says you good doing with posting this photo (thats my pinglish for you). lol
I thought pakistan followed the british english which makes “Apologise” the right spelling. So it should have been “Apologised”.
Aren’t you ecstatic that “Inconvenience” is spelled right?
If “WE” is replaced by “THEY,” this sign will become more philosophical finger pointing towards previous governments/administrations. With optimism it will then imply “lets move on.”