I saw a concocted, unnecessary word – “vends”, used only in North India. It probably means “vendors”, which is the word to be used if communicating with educated people outside India.
I still hear Indians saying, “What is your good name, sir?” (Sometimes, it is “sirji”.)
Stop translating from your Indian language, such as Hindi – “aap ka shubh naam kya hain?”
Although you were brought up to be polite in India, you are going to confuse foreigners, who don’t have good or bad names.
If you don’t want to say, “What’s your name?”, just shake hands and say “Hi, my name is Monnanda Appaiah Deviah” and they will respond with their name, or their jaw will drop and say “I beg your pardon?”.
Despite attempts by the Times of India group to change the English language, there is no such word as “upto”. It is two words, “up to”. Don’t believe it? Grab your trusty dictionary (provided that it wasn’t published by the Times of India). Or Google it.
Michael Hill is a well-known jewellery retail brand and has had a website for a while. It has now deployed an interesting form of ecommerce known as “shoppable video”. This piqued my interest, so I took a look. (No, I have no connection with them or Brightcove in any way.) 🙂
Sometime in 2013 Amazon accidentally allowed people outside the US to order Google Chromecast. Without fully grasping what it did, I ordered mine and it arrived within days. Amazon realised its mistake and emailed me asking me to return it at their expense for a full refund, as it would not be supported outside the US. [Update: It is now sold in Australia.] Continue reading
Occasionally, I run the great backlink tool Majestic SEO across websites of major companies purely to see if they are likely to fall victim to one of Google’s Penguin updates. Being a quiet Friday night, I thought I would check out the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), as it is a subsidiary of a former client, not forgetting that it was my first bank when I lived in Godzone.
So I let it rip. One of the first reports I run is the Referring Domains Report, which I sort by Trust Flow in ascending order. This lists the lowest value links first and it’s common to see a few with a value of zero. Continue reading
My uncle, Jayantilal B. Nallawalla was commissioned by Lord Mountbatten to be his private photographer a few months before and during the Indian independence day (“Transfer of Power”) ceremonies. For the first time, his photos are being released online. As a teenager, I was privileged to communicate with Lord Mountbatten for several years and his unsolicited kindness ultimately helped me to emigrate to New Zealand.
These photos were printed in B&W from a colour film roll, so some sharpness has been lost.
Table of Contents
Jawaharlal Nehru played a major role in the Indian independence struggle and became India’s first Prime Minister. Continue reading
Many Indians say the word “mechanism” as मिकानिसम, perhaps as an extension of “mechanic”. However, it is pronounced as मेकअनिसम with the emphasis on Mec.
Armaan Kapur is a 21-yo writer in New Delhi who did something that many middle-class Indians do — try to go to Starbucks India (Link to Facebook page) in Connaught Place, New Delhi. In Australia, you don’t normally admit that you drink that brand of coffee, and most of their outlets were closed down (Link to an ABC article) in 2008. So what went wrong?
The alphabet is a collection of letters, e.g. The English/Roman/Latin alphabet contains 26 letters.
Incorrect: “Marathi uses the Devanagari script and contains 52 alphabets.”
Correct: “The Marathi alphabet uses the Devanagari script and contains 52 letters.”
Here is a typical error, in this case made by one Aditi Phadnis in the Business Standard.
Indians are again the only people who “revert back” when they intend to “reply”. Why, oh why?
To revert means to return to its previous state. Try as I might, I cannot revert back to being a baby, or a 21-year-old. 😀
Correct: I will reply to you next week.
Incorrect: I will revert next week.
Only in India are criminals still absconding; everywhere else, they have absconded or are at large. Confused?
Google this phrase “is absconding” (in quotes). The writers are nearly always from India or in India. Here is a recent article that is guilty of using this phrase.
http://www.moneylife.in/article/stockguruindia-allegedly-dupes-2-lakh-investors-of-over-rs1000-crore/15461.html
The sentence is, “According to these investors, the company’s managing director is absconding.”
They should have written, “According to these investors, the company’s managing director has absconded.”
Or, “According to these investors, the company’s managing director is in hiding.”