Skip to main content

Name is the game

What is common between Don Quixote, Euler and Fermat.

Apart from the fact that they are quite an unique set of names, another intriguing aspect would be their pronunciation. Till now i'vent heard 2 similar ways of pronouncing Mr. Quixote. Wonder what made Miguel de Cervantes choose that name. I used to read it as "quick zot". When i came across the story again in my college i was told it is "Kee oh tay".  I dont remember the story much except for his charge at the windmills. But the name i would never forget in a hurry. Same goes for Euler. Is it "you ler" or "Oi ler" is something i'vent figured out yet. Ditto for Fermat. All through the college i kept hearing it as "fer maa's theorem" and used to search for that spelling.

This name thing is not limited to people alone. When Keladi Kanmani was released they had the posters all over the town and the name was printed in tamil's equivalent font for comic san serif. I read it as "Kaudi Kanmani" and for long thought it was some kannada movie. When Bale Paandiya (not the sivaji one..the one starring pia bajpai and vishnu) got released had a really tough time to make out the name amidst the weird arrangement of letters. Padam pera padikavay ivlo kashtama irukkay..padam semma mokkai polanay neria per would've given it a skip.

Another movie name that stumped me was Aegan. With an almost Greek sounding spelling luckily they had the good sense to publish it in tamil as well. Aana anga thaan vambaadichi. The poster had picture of Ajith with a thiruvalluvar like thaadi pointing a gun. Underneath it was written "Aegan" in tamil, which actually had a space between the "Ae" part and the "gan" since the font was huge. Looking at the pose and the title i thought the movie name was "a gun" and immediately mind started guessing what could be the story behind the name "a gun". Needless to say majorly disappointed when the movie was released and  when i got to know the real name. Curiously the USP of the movie was not Ajith's Thaadi but Nayanthaara's body.

Naama thaan ipdi bulbu vaangara case paatha...my kannadiga friend, who very much likes to show off his tamil language skills, read "alai paayuthay" -as  "ezhai paayuthay" and wondered out aloud why they've kept the movie name as "poor people falling". Usually people pronounce anything with "zha" as "la". Nammaal konjam over enthula did the ulta. It was fun though :)



Comments

Asha said…
oh is that how Quixote is pronounced?

konjam french, spanish, tamizh ellam anglicize aagara podhu vara kozhuppam....

Reminds me of an incident. In my college we had students from all over the country. one girl was from rural tamilnadu...she spelt her name as Packiam...my english teacher used to call in the attendance as PACK...e...am.......avloda peru enna theriyuma?
gils said…
lol :)) pack i am :)) soooberu
Aarti said…
Last saturday when heading to the bloggers meet something funny yapppened... I was walking towards Zha cafe, when an auto passed by and a guy from within waved his hands asking me to stop.. he then asked me where this is za[sa] cafe.. I stared at him and then asked if he meant zha [pazham kinda zha] cafe, and he stared blank.. appuram idatha kamichapuuram thaan payyan smiled.. kadavule!
gils said…
lol :)) za cafeku badila la cafe nu ketrybtha u cud;ve shwn hm sme french ones :))
Ramesh said…
Easy to pronounce Gils :):)

Who , or what, is pia Bajpai ?? :) Ditto, Nayantara ??

By the way, is there actually a Zha café ??? Whatever motivated the owner to call it that ??

I vote that we call Quixote kwiksottu :)
gils said…
@thala:

nayanthaara teriaathaa!!! omg :D:D its a cafe based on tamil culture as theme...athaan name kooda "zha" nu vachirukanga

Popular posts from this blog

Deadly cross by James Patterson book review

I try to read one book per month minimum. Most of 2022 was spent on Alex cross series by James Patterson as I wanted to finish the series. Having completed about a dozen or so of that 2 dozen and odd series, had hardly posted a review for the reason, none of them were that impressive. James Patterson thrives on psycho villains and serial killers who are very meticulous and almost always have Alex cross as the one who crosses their path. In fact, till the last reveal, it would be very difficult to guess the “whodunnit”. But rather than that being the plus the reveal often make you realize, just for the sake of a grand twist, such characterizations serve no purpose. The fellow person who would’ve travelled throughout the story as a close associate of Cross would often be the serial psycho killer. It became a standard template across all those stories and had given up reading that series altogether. This one was long pending on the list of unread and had started reading just to close the ...

Enna koduma saaar ithu!!!!

We are a group of 5 who share our apartment. Usually me and one more guy are the last to the leave the house everyday morning. Yesterday, the one who used to leave first for office, didnt come home till 11. I went to sleep after the usual book reading session at around 11.30. When i woke up i saw it was only me who was still lying on the mat while even the guy who leaves for office along with me, had already started folding his bed!! I was feeling very tired and sleepy and was in two minds whether i should take off or go late. Still managed to crawl..brushed teeth half sleeping and swtiched on the geyser. I turned back to see, suddenly it was pitch dark outside the bathroom!! Since the light was On inside, it wasnt power cut and i came out to see what was wrong. The guy who folded his bed, had moved to the hall and was again asleep!! Then only i noticed, it was dark outside the balcony too!!! I checked the time. It was 3AM!!! BOOOOHOOOOOOO!!! SOB SOB SOB!!! That useless guy afterwards ...

Ghajini gils

Crowded bus. I was searching for the khaki clad guy amidst the sea of humanity. Suddenly one voice... "Hi gils" I turned in the direction of the voice and found one middle aged man smiling at me. I thought he must've called someone else with similar name and almost turned back when he said "Give me your bag..you go get your ticket and come" Now..it was sort of established that this guy knows me. But i couldn't recollect who he was. Since the crowd was too much i shamelessly gave my bag to him and went to get my ticket..wondering all the way who it could be. Since this guy knows my full name, and SPOKE to me, he definitely cant be my relative. So that angle was ruled out. Definitely not from my college as he spoke to me in hindi. Could he be from work? Is he wearing his ID tag? I was too proud to ask him who he was and it was too embarrassing basically. I decided to play along and praying that his stopping should come before mine. "So..whats up" i a...