Thursday, November 29, 2007

Minding my (bad) language...

Time and again I have people commenting at my blog (albeit ‘anonymously’), about my atrocious English, horrendous spellings and mortifying punctuating skills. Well I have never claimed that I was good in English have I? In fact this blog is a celebration of ‘English Language Underdogginess’!!! It is an affirmation that we, the poorly skilled in English, can also have our badly spelled and punctuated word heard.

Did I tell you that I barely passed English in school and college? I guess not. Well I did pass, but it had nothing to do with my knowledge of the language. I am sure I passed due to God smiling kindly at me (specially during English exams), pleased with my gentle, caring, loving, adorable, endearing, truthful, thoughtful, humble etc etc etc nature. ( My mother begs to disagree about this though.) Don't believe me? See for yourself!

11th Standard: The evaluator was an extremely kind lady. She actually cried when she read my essay in which I wrote about my unemployed Dad and my maid servant mom, who washes dishes in 31 houses to put me through college and English tuitions.

12th Standard: The evaluator was sick. She felt worse when she saw my paper. She gave me passing marks so that she didn't have to go through the horror of reading the entire paper.

First year BA: The evaluator was crossing the road and was hit by a scooterist. She was hospitalized and they had to rush in the Hindi evaluator to do the corrections. I got 99% this year. In the remarks column she wrote: Vary gud. Ek dum pass!!

Second year BA: The evaluator slept off and I copied from my Punju buddy Natasha. Natasha failed. I passed. She had submitted my paper by mistake. She never sat next to me again.

Third year BA: The evaluator had an enormous inferiority complex. When he saw my paper he felt so good that he passed me. He was also cured of his inferiority complex forever.


And thus peoples, pliss to forgive me poor English and give encouraging words like “You are the greatest blogger Silverine” etc so that I keep writing and do not get discouraged and develop really low self esteem and other conditions I cannot spell.

39 comments:

Unknown said...

"You are the greatest blogger Silverine!" :-P

Honestly speaking, this reminded me of the great malayalam writer Vaikom Mohammed Basheer. He was often advised to pick up school level grammar books before writing! If he did that, most probably we would have to cut off a huge part of malayalam literary heritage...

Jim said...

... put me through college and English tuition's.
Augh!!! Apostrophe abuse!!!

Nah, just kidding, you're alright. In fact, “You are the greatest blogger Silverine” :)

mathew said...

your englis is vary bad..no grammar and laced with horrible speling throughout.atleast you could make sure that you put proper exclamations wherever necessary!!!is quite tuf for shakspearean fans like us who are vary particular about colloquial english..gotcha dudette!!!;-P

Praveen said...

i hadnt noticed that your english is very bad :), i mean its all relative i guess.. but now i shall observe your blog more closely than ever :)

Anonymous said...

ahem.. plijj to join Iyer Educations's english speaking courses... for you, we offer lucrative discounts...

and dont you worry about the teacher's... we offer plenty of backups... with good cardiac backgrounds... so you will definitely improve!!!

Asterix said...

Well I never claimed that I was good in English have I?

That would be:
Well I've never claimed that I was good in English, have I?

Just saying.

Hammy said...

“You are the greatest blogger Silverine”

I hope this is good enough to keep you blogging. I can't really spare too many praises, you know... I need most of them for myself. It seems to be in short supply.

Now the real question is....

...does that make me selfish, greedy or arrogant?


Hey!!! Not fair. That question was rhetorical!

Anonymous said...

Too good Silverine .... keep it up ... u r the gr8est blogger ever!

-Sandeep [usandeep.com]

ദീപു : sandeep said...

"You are the greatest blogger Silverine!!!" :| (You can copyleft this smiley ;))

In DCH, Aamir says "Perfection ko improve karna mushkil hai". [did I hear anyone offering treats???]



You are the only blogger other than Alexis who made me re-read a post.

My comment about bought/brought was in a friendly tone :).

Adorable Pancreas said...

Heh. We mallus have avar own engleesh. We will write howyever we wond. The rest of yoo kan go do hell.

Zahid said...

"yuu aar dhe geratest bollogger Seelveereenee " ---- From my heart!!!

Poor dear evaluators....my sympathies more with them than with you !!!!
loved the post!!!!

Chk me up silverine!!!

Wanderlust said...

Who are those anonymous commenters Silverine ??? Tell tell..we go and make life further anonymous for them..
You are the greatest...

Dhanya said...

Ofcourse “You are the greatest blogger Silverine” U better keep writing your poor english blogs.. n too bad u gave out the secret of passing english exams only now.. I wish I were in your class ;)

Daszzle said...

Haha, that's great. Hey, it's your blog at the end of the day --- write as you wish. Hell, I work in the writing field for a living and my blog's atrocious. You know why? Because I don't feel like working while at home too doing something I enjoy ;).

Amey said...

Ooh, unemployed dad... Lucky you didn't throw in a blind mom and elder sis while you were at it (Lucky for the evaluator I mean)

And people say that Bollywood has no connections with real life ;)

silverine said...

Rockus: Hey I have heard a lot about this writer!! Well what I was trying to say is that people should realise that none of us here are aspiring to get the Nobel in Literature :)

jim: heh you sound like my English teacher. Thanks for the words of support :)

mathew: lol! Shakespeare had a tough tenure in the grave when I was learning English :p

praveen: You are a little late to the party :p But join in all the same. Hope you dont mind the massive crowd lol!!!

Iyer education: Teachers with cardiac background? I am enrolling post haste!!! Pliss to reserve the last bench for me.

asterix: *whew* you missed out the rest :p

hammy: I am so touched at your generous gesture of sharing your meager resources of compliment with me *sniff* :p Thanks buddy! :)

sandeep unnimadhavan: :)

Sandeep: Well...I was talking about the bravehearts who comment here...anonymously :)

adorable pancreas: lol!! Your comments are really funny!! :)

zahid: Thank you buddy! And for those really nice words I shall definitely visit your blog. :p

wanderlust: Some very very brave people :))

dhanya: Thanks buddy. Some day I will write about how I passed in the other subjects lol!!

daszzle: "I don't feel like working while at home too doing something I enjoy"
Bingo! Thank you for dropping by :)

Amey: I did! There was a lame dog dog too in the picture. In fact the essay could have been made into a superhit tear jerker bollywood movie!! :))

Kusum Rohra said...

I feel so lucky compared to you, I had vary gud enlish teacher hence my gramaar, speelings, puntuachun? eatcetera are fooly currect.

* walks away with a huge superior complex feelings *

Unknown said...

Hilariously incorrigible in true Silverine style!

PK said...

You are the greatest blogger Silverine

Unknown said...

o puurr darrling donth vary at all you are ekdum loveeely with youR english

Amey said...

Send it to Suraj Barjatya, he will give full justice (and then some) to your story. Or if you want international audience, Karan Johar.

meenakshi said...

You really are the greatest blogger Silverine!!

pliss forgib me if mistek i make in. comenting you no my english bad:-(:P

Arun Jose Francis said...

Vary gud... vary gud...:-)
keep it going, Silverine!

Anonymous said...

ayoo kutty..not to be vuree-ing ovar sum s-holes cum-men-terry. ewe rokk garl!
-pri

silverine said...

kusum: lol, so many English vidwaans commenting here. I am honored :p

looney: Thank you :)

pk: :)

anowc: Thank you darrrling :)

amey: Good choice of directors! :)

fundoome: It is better than mine lol!!

arun jose: Thank you buddy!

Anon: Thank you dear :)

Alameen said...

You really are the greatest blogger Silverine!!

Keep smiling

hope and love said...

u r the very best sweetheart..!! the princess of the blogworld..
tell them to go and hang themselves.. if they r unable to understand what u are..

Somya said...

Hilarious post silverine..."The evaluator had an enormous inferiority complex. When he saw my paper he felt so good that he passed me. He was also cured of his inferiority complex forever."..ROFL...just reminded me of our(me n my bro) tuition teacher in school who tolerated us for good one month just to enjoy the fact that there r ppl even worse than her...lol...

Amey said...

@Silverine: Would have recommended Chopra clan, but I am not sure you would want Uday Chopra playing your english teacher, or kidney-donating elder brother.

@Kusum: feelings of Superiority complex or complex feelings?

Sirpy said...

LOL..! Ha.. If English was always perfect it will anyway be monotonous na...? There wont be any 'kick' in there, right...?

incaRed said...

You sure are a pretty good blogger - the subjects, the narration and the hits on your blog are proof of that.

And if the language was without the (mostly) minor errors in spelling, punctuation etc., you would be a great blogger.

I have previously commented on one of your posts about the language errors in your post (but not anonymously, as you said).

However, it was not because I expect all the blogs I read to be in perfect English. It was only because I was surprised that someone who majored in English Literature should have a blog with such language errors. Seemed odd.

But then, its your blog and you could have it the way you want it.

silverine said...

alameen: Thank you :)

HnL: *hugs* doc :)

somya: lol!!

amey: Uday Chopra? I love him and I agree he would suit the part ;)

sirpy: Absolutely!!! :p

incared: I too read blogs. But I frankly dont care about the language or anything else like if the blogger is an English major or minor. All I care about is what the blogger is trying to say. I think that is all that matters.

CarbonMonoxide said...

Too bawd silverine , Your englis is buy far teh worset i have sean. Butt it makes enjoiable reading. and that makes you "teh greatest blogger !!".

silverine said...

CarbonMonoxide: lol!!! That comment gives me a huge superiority complex :p

Amey said...

Which part? "Dear Sir" or "Mere Bhaiyya"?

Who is going to be casted in your role? Amrita Rao is new Madhuri Dixit, I have heard ;)

King Vishy said...

A friend calls ur blog one of the funniest he has ever read.

Now I know why :)

Anonymous said...

gud 'un

Anonymous said...

You are the greatest blogger Silverine :)

Smilie! said...

yas yas! you the great, you the great!