Don't tell me

MOH says I’m anal-retentive. My friend and cooleague [sure I know how to spell colleague, but this is what we call each other] Laura says I show traces of being obsessive-compulsive. BTW, she diagnosed that from the fact that I have a tracker attached to my blog that tells me how many people have accessed it, when they accessed it , from where they accessed it…u get the point.

Both MOH and Laura are right about their deductions. I do have a list of pet peeves and anyone who commits the crime of “peeving” [if I may coin a word like that] is in immediate danger of being blacklisted by yours truly.

Today’s rant is about one such pet peeve – the chronic mis-pronunciation/misuse of certain words.

Now I don’t have an issue with Indians who do not know [and do not claim to know] English very well mispronouncing these words. However, it’s really irritating when so-called educated Indians who allegedly know how to speak “good” English refuse to learn how to pronounce cabin and patio correctly. They’ll call it a cay-bin and a pay-tio respectively. I mean, come on, how hard is it? If you can say the a in apple correctly, you should be able to say the a in cabin and patio the right way.

Another problem word with many Indians is opportunity. People, please, it is pronounced op-per-too-ni-tee, not awpor-tu-ni-tee.

Before you begin accusing me of being racist, I do have a problem with my American friends as well. I can’t stand it when they refer to people they know as “that.” “My mother that lives in California, blah blah,” they’ll say. Ok, guys, here is the rule…your shoe can be a that, but your mom sure can’t. She is a who – My mother, who lives in California…

You may use that to indicate a person only if you can’t identify that person – a nameless, faceless person. E.g. the soldier that falls into enemy hands may be in big trouble.

I do accept that English is “a funny language,” as Amitabh Bachchan once put it in one of his movies, but these rules are really not that difficult to master, are they? So, the next time you use any of these words, watch out…the pronunciation patrol may be just round the corner!