Andhra Pradesh

What’s there in a spelling?

Classic example: A signboard in Adilabad town says it all.

ADILABAD: If one wants to see some rare cases of innocence associated with ‘murder’ of language as in wrongly spelt English words, then Adilabad is the place right place. Common people here follow the rule of spelling a word based on its pronunciation.

The seeming innocence with which some words are spelt is often complimented by humour. For example, if ‘paradise’ is spelt in the same way as it is in the signboard, it will not take much imagination to calculate the fate of the relevant paragraph. Another person who has put up a ‘sale for plot’ board in front of his property near MPDO office obviously did not give it a thought that the whole meaning has changed because of the innocuous interchange of words ‘sale’ and ‘plot’. That he ultimately sold the plot exonerates him of the literary misdemeanour. That Adilabadis are practical in the use of language is evident from examples like a shopping centre here that claims to be a shopping ‘maal’. The painter must have reasoned it out that shops sell ‘maal’ or goods and not mall as the British prefer.

Garages here are christened auto ‘sarvice’ centres, perhaps for being in the service of the respected ‘saar’. In an old master plan sketch from Mavala gram panchayat, Adilabad’s aerodrome is spelt ‘erodrome’. It may not have been a mistake that the first alphabet went missing from the word. Why should the draughtsman care for the spelling when it does not affect landing or take off of the plane.An electrician has become ‘electrition’ on a signboard without of course any change in the nature of work of that skilled person.

The menu board in a hotel says it sells ‘non’ and ‘kafi’ besides ‘chapti’ that sounds apt considering chapatis are very thin to qualify for the word in Hindi.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu