rsaeon
Guide
To be fair, that's about as phonetic as a name can get.
Widespread misspelling of the name of my city
- Thread starter Pimpom
- Start date
To be fair, that's about as phonetic as a name can get.
I used to ship dozens of parcels with Speed Post daily. They got every third name wrong. Either way it has no significance.
India Post is technically a bank. Post, parcel are merely some side hustles for the India Post. Go to any Post office, only one window is given to the post business like parcel, register, speed post, money order etc. Rest of the 9 windows are given to the banking business. Only new interns are given the job of accepting parcels because nobody else wants it. This is why you get mistakes. Again, it has no significance. I wouldn't read too much into it.
India Post is technically a bank. Post, parcel are merely some side hustles for the India Post. Go to any Post office, only one window is given to the post business like parcel, register, speed post, money order etc. Rest of the 9 windows are given to the banking business. Only new interns are given the job of accepting parcels because nobody else wants it. This is why you get mistakes. Again, it has no significance. I wouldn't read too much into it.
superczar
Juggernaut
Fair enough - you are right in that this was indeed an assumption on my part.
The latent inertia to move away from an initial concept though is an innate human trait and not particular to India/ Indians alone.
Have often seen this trait exhibited more strongly by the average person of certain other nationalities vs say an average Indian - probably because we have also changed quite a bit as a country economically and culturally in the last 25 odd years so in some ways we have become more open to adapt to change.
Very subjective statement though so can understand if others dont agree
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blr_p
Northstar
Imagine if he lived in the west. They would do the same thing as well. Let alone spelling they wouldn't be able to pronounce Indian names even.
I still stick to the British names of cities here since they were the ones that made them what they are. All tier 1 cities.
superczar
Juggernaut
Look, i am sorry if i didn’t understand the crux of your message/ rationale behind thread.
Since i have been following this thread for a while, let me state how I interpreted it.
it appeared to me that you are trying to draw a connection between mis-spelt proper nouns as an indicator of lack of respect/ general apathy towards the North Eastern region (or at least your state in particular)
While I will be the last person to deny that there are several people in the North/ central (or western/southern) regions of the country who are terribly ill informed about the NE regions - and worse, some of them can get discriminatory towards denizens of said region.
However I also believe that the majority does not fall under this category.
My only problem with this connect is that within this pool of individuals, there will be several who will continue to mis-spell / mispronounce proper nouns. And they will do so not because they are bigoted but simply because they do not know better. Also, they will do this without regard for the region. They will mis-spell say Spanish proper nouns with the same level of alacrity as they would for a Mizo or Sikkimese noun.
Sweeping them under the same bigot umbrella as the former group is a disservice/ inappropriate - That’s all!
Peace out.
All right, I'll try once more.
The crux of the matter is that I - and my people - cannot understand why most Indians cannot spell short simple names correctly. We would understand completely if the mistakes were rare occasional ones made by a few careless or uneducated people. We all make mistakes now and then.
What we cannot understand is how the vast majority of Indians see an unfamiliar name - even a short simple one - and immediately assume that it should be spelled and pronounced in an entirely different way.
Why do you persist with this line of reasoning? I've stated more than once that it's not about discrimination, real or imagined.
The crux of the matter is that I - and my people - cannot understand why most Indians cannot spell short simple names correctly. We would understand completely if the mistakes were rare occasional ones made by a few careless or uneducated people. We all make mistakes now and then.
What we cannot understand is how the vast majority of Indians see an unfamiliar name - even a short simple one - and immediately assume that it should be spelled and pronounced in an entirely different way.
Someone also mentioned that Westerners are much worse than Indians in this respect. He's wrong, at least about the reasonably educated ones. I have lived, worked and corresponded with Americans, British, Germans and other races, starting from long before the internet age. Never have I ever known any of them get my name or that of my city wrong.
To be an Indian is to be hesty.
Indian system doesn't reward someone who takes time to do things accurately. The ones who prefer quality over quantity are always going to be punished. No one wants to wait at the traffic lights. Everyone is jumping the queues. Gotta get kids into the school before they could walk, "I'm in 2nd standard, is it too late to prepare for IIT entrance?".
Avrej Indian cnt evn ryt englis corect. Hre, v odd men dwell on sum spalings. Avrej Indian don ker. Dis isu iz 2 poultry.
Indian system doesn't reward someone who takes time to do things accurately. The ones who prefer quality over quantity are always going to be punished. No one wants to wait at the traffic lights. Everyone is jumping the queues. Gotta get kids into the school before they could walk, "I'm in 2nd standard, is it too late to prepare for IIT entrance?".
Avrej Indian cnt evn ryt englis corect. Hre, v odd men dwell on sum spalings. Avrej Indian don ker. Dis isu iz 2 poultry.
I have heard multiple people from Tamil Nadu claim this, but it is not true at all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_lateral_flap is a well known feature of multiple Indian languages, it very likely existed in earlier forms of Sanskrit and Prakrit.
I also conducted an experiment : a listener who knew only Hindi and English was made to listen to the retroflex l of Marathi (or Kannada in another version of the experiment); as well as the Tamil one. The listener could not figure out the difference.
dexterz
Guide
Good to know. If its in other languages, then its just ignorance, lack of familiarity or no discernible benefit to them that's making them mangle my state and language name. Tamizh is pronounced with retroflex R and its not tamil with an il ending. Can't change people just have to ignore and move on
As a young man, I worked at the Christian Medical Hospital in Vellore, TN in 1971-72. I couldn't even learn to pronounce the name Vellore as the natives did. It sounded something like 'bhel-loor' to my ears. The ll seemed to be enunciated by pressing the tongue to the roof of the mouth for a moment and then releasing it suddenly.
My language is different in that every word is pronounced exactly as written. There are no alternative spellings or pronunciations, no silent letter or modified pronunciation.
My language is different in that every word is pronounced exactly as written. There are no alternative spellings or pronunciations, no silent letter or modified pronunciation.
dexterz
Guide
Approximation is a thing. Can't do much about it. While spelled as Vellore, it is pronounced as Wayloor.
I'm happy as long as the packages get delivered properly. Let them spell it as per their comfort
superczar
Juggernaut
The only explanation i can offer is the modicum of familiarity.
When Encountering a completely new name/term, we automatically become extra cautious.
When we see something that seems familiar/ seen before, we take a shortcut
For example , When i encounter an unfamiliar say Tanzanian or Nordic name , i take extra care to make sure I get the spelling right. Sometimes going to the extent of double checking the name on outlook directory or similar.
OTOH, when someone hears Zotin Khuma as the name of an Indian, it’s possible they may end up assuming it to be a Zotin Kumar or worse, Jatin Kumar (the fallacy of limited familarity) - (no offense meant)
Its the same reason why a lot of Indians will mispronounce a Latin José as Joe-say instead of Hoe-jay as expected - because they have met or know perhaps a Jose from Kerala
On a lighter note, If you were in the outsourcing industry, it’s quite possible that a westerner or East Asian may also end up referring to you as Kumar because of the same reason (and the prevalence of said last name )
dexterz
Guide
I literally faced this situation when I worked in a call center and got a call from Jésus Fernandez. I called him Jesus not Haysoos. He shared the correct pronunciation and I corrected myself for the reminder of the call.Its the same reason why a lot of Indians will mispronounce a Latin José as Joe-say instead of Hoe-jay as expected - because they have met or know perhaps a Jose from Kerala
On a lighter note, If you were in the outsourcing industry, it’s quite possible that a westerner or East Asian may also end up referring to you as Kumar because of the same reason (and the prevalence of said last name )
Majority of the Indians are not even aware of diacritic characters. For indians ja is jha where as westerners pronounce it as ya. For a long while before wikipedia I wondered why the film was named Red Sonjha when the character was called Sonya
Don't think people does this intentionally, huge majority may not be caring at all and doing it unaware.
Few years back, in a post office within city of Mumbai, officer was not even ready to write the name of place I'm from correctly (that too just 5 letters in English). Even after giving correct Pin code, camly explaining the difference between what she is writing and correct name of the place. After minutes long brash comments from her in Marathi, I had to stop and go to another post office to get work done. That was not ignorance, rather everyday casual racism within India.
Few years back, in a post office within city of Mumbai, officer was not even ready to write the name of place I'm from correctly (that too just 5 letters in English). Even after giving correct Pin code, camly explaining the difference between what she is writing and correct name of the place. After minutes long brash comments from her in Marathi, I had to stop and go to another post office to get work done. That was not ignorance, rather everyday casual racism within India.