The strange case of.....

"Can be able" and "cannot be able".

The more I hear the usage of this phrase, the more I am scared that it will become an adage. Whoever gave the idea of "I can be able to do it" or "Can you be able to do it?"

Worse... "I had went".. Gosh. There are a few things that I have a low tolerance to. This is one of them. Mutilating any language. Mispronouncing a language, and horrors, make a grammatical mistake.

Way back in school I was taught that cousin brother and cousin sister are grammatically wrong. Then there is 'No other alternative', 'Overspeeding'... yikes... The more and more I see them, even I start getting used to them and think they are right.

There was once that I said "I cant ascertain what you are saying" and then that's it. I was ragged completely by the Producer. This was during the recording of an ad jingle. The producer said the guy was wondering whether you said something good or bad. Cant help it you know, after so much translation, you tend to use words like that. Now I am in a very diff mode. I use unctuous instead of oily, cognizant instead of aware, and I was surprised when people didn't know what quirk, resplendent, embossing.. and some more, meant. Should I be surprised?

During some recordings, I am asked to change the "spelling of my humming" which means please time your inflections to the rhythm. And the best is "Idhu oru Gallop-aana song". God knows what that meant. Actually most conversations are in Tamil and the people who do speak English are good enough with it. A lot of it is because I guess people have lost out on perfection, and finer qualities. Also a usual tlip of the songue.. sorry, slip of the tongue, sedation and seduction. When I heard that first, I burst out laughing much to consternation of the girl. I apologized immediately though. At this point, let me tell you somethings that not many know about me. Ok I changed my mind. Its becoming too long. I will put another post on that.

Even if you point out to some, that hey change that buddy, gosh they are soo irritated. And the trend that I have seen a lot especially in the south, is when you tell someone, please don't do something, the more they do it, just to irritate you and unfortunately for them (and for us)it becomes a sickening habit that they cant get rid of even if they want to. This is the way I am if it irritates you, I will do it some more so that you can be more irritated. And seeing you angry makes me so happy like I have won an Oscar. And then you correct grammatical errors in English, you are done for. Immediately you are a "Peter" or a "Jane" who is from a high funda school. Sometimes turns out that they would have come from a more up-market school.. but everything else is sooo "heylloo, houe aaaarrr yuuuu dowing?" And anything ending with -ve is immediately -we. Like 'lowe', "positiwe" also the 't' is non existent so 'id eees pohsidiwe". Everytime I hear a "Lowe story" I am almost hopping mad. Its -ve for God's sake. Well what do you expect when people say vaalkai instead of vaazhkai, "aNaithu vagai" instead of "anaithu...." and like "Ippodhu virpaNaiyil" and there are a lot of news readers, some actors in TV serials, who seem to have a confusion between the different 'n' 'l' of Tamil. Now also its hurts mom's ears when she has to hear "SaTTRu" "KuTTram" ... There is no damn 'T' there... The stronger R is devoid of T. Thanks to a lot of people writing in English and reading Tamil. Now who is going to correct that?

Also one of the reasons I was taught not to imitate someone too much, (I am pretty good at that ;))with some words, and they way people talk and move or something, was because when you do it too much, it becomes your habit as well. And how so wonderful would that be, that sometimes you mimic someone cos its, you know quirky, or mad, and then it becomes part of you as well.

Anyway coming back this would not be if we read worthy books. If this is the way it will go, we can put language, pronounciation and grammar, in the list of things long-gone, sooner or later.

And also this was the post that Blogger ate up a few daya back. More or less. I like the older one though