Spell Bound

‘CHILD BEAR AVAILABLE'

That was the legend written below the name of the restaurant on the board fixed outside the small eatery. It intrigued me and i asked the man at the cash counter near its entrance. He pointed his finger towards the refrigerator with a transparent glass door. I saw beer bottles stored in it and this made things clear to me. It was indeed chilled beer and the restaurant was not selling infant bears as pet!

(By the way, who invented the cute little word ‘fridge’ as a substitute to the long and labour-intensive word 'refrigerator' and to rhyme with ‘bridge’?)

If one goes around reading the writings on the rear side of lorries, one will wonder at the myriad possibilities of using (misusing) spellings of English words. ‘Keep distence’, warned one; ‘nason first, person afterwards’ exhorted another! And still another, after bidding 'O K, TATA', said, 'Work is war ship.'

At another eating place, i saw, ‘Lunch and snakes available here.’ Inside it, there was the warning, ‘No Smo King’. At yet another small eatery, i saw ‘Phamily Cabin’ written outside a small enclosure inside it.

In a small town, i read ‘City Bus Cervice’ painted on a local transport. In the same town, where i had given some clothes to a laundry for cleaning, the Receipt cautioned, “We shall not be irresponsible for any damage to the clothes.” Notice near a swimming pool read, 'Any accident caused during swimming is your responsibility.' I wondered whether it will be the responsibility of the swimmer or that of the person passing by and casually reading the notice.

Near my house there are 3 kiosks named ‘Beetle Shop’, ‘Pawn Shop’ and ‘Pan shop’ selling betel. Next to it is a small sign-board declaring ‘To Let- Shop’s and Offices’. How many places i have seen Name Boards declaring the building as ‘Boy’s Hostel! Is it meant for only one boy? And how many Name Boards i have seen with capital 'I's with dots over them!

I saw a notice near the gate of one Telephone Bhawan, ‘Complaint Book Available with Gaurd on Duty’. However, actually, i saw there no guard on duty. This reminded me of a story about the legendary poet Kalidas. He was in disguise and had joined other bearers to carry a King in a palanquin. The King asked (in Sanskrit), “ Kim skandham badhati?” (Are you experiencing pain in your shoulders?”) Kalidas replied, “Skandham na badhate rajan, taba badhati badhate.” (“There is no pain in the shoulders; the pain is given by your ‘badhati’” ) In Sanskrit, the correct grammatical form of the verb is ‘badhate’ and not ‘badhati’ used by the King. What Kalidas meant was that the real pain was caused by the King’s use of the wrong form of the verb. In this instance, what troubled me, was not the absence of the guard but the spelling mistake!

At one place where the road was being repaired, i saw a notice ‘Caution, Man at Work’. I felt the description was very apt, as out of the 4 labourers, only one man was working; the other 3 were relaxing by the wayside.

Wherever I see some sign in English, spelling mistake, if any, immediately attracts my attention. However, whenever I type something, after typing for sometime, I get a little tired very soon and some typographical errors creep in. Either, a letter goes missing from a word or some words get jumbled but when I go through the draft to find out any mistake, some mistakes escape my attention! Is it because we love to find mistakes of others but our own foibles escape our attention?

When my daughters were in school, i used to help them in studies sometimes. At that time i had told them there is a difference in merely correct English and good English. Correct English includes correct punctuation and spelling and good English includes choosing apt words. It is the proper adjectives that add to the beauty of English. Wordsmiths choose exactly apt words to write enjoyable pieces.

TAIL PIECE:

The Name Board of a small commercial unit had the inscription ‘Juhi Cha Wala’. A peep into the unit showed that it was indeed a tea shop! An enquiry with the proprietor revealed that he had named it after his daughter Juhi!