A few days back I happened to read an article in which the author described the various erroneous signboards and menu cards that he (or was it she) had come across. That reminded me of a roadside cool bar/snack bar I had seen which sold “Omplate” and “thandar coconut” and “battar milk”.
This is just one part of the comedy of errors. Sitting comfortably in a glass house, I cannot throw stones at others. So I might as well confess my inability in interpreting signboards, even correct ones.
I had once received a forwarded email which said that human brain is so advanced and well-equipped that it does not have to read a whole word to perceive it. It only reads the first and last letter of the word and is smart enough to guess the rest. Wow!!!- I thought.
But the brain-owner’s attitude counts a lot here and in some cases this guess work may turn perilous. Once I astounded myself when I read the board on a shop-“Poison Store”. That’s what happens when you read only the first and last letter of “provision”. Maybe my brain is “poisoned” and not well-“provisioned”.
Another misreading incident was when I called a particular tailoring centre in our locality as “Hurry up Tailoring” because that was what the board said. When I was casually mentioning about this centre to a friend (who incidentally is a regular customer there), she burst out laughing and said- “Apt name you have given to the place where you have to constantly go and say-‘hurry up!’ ” My usually incredulous friend, though half-heartedly, had to take my words and believe that there is a board at the shop saying its name is “Hurry Up Tailoring”.
Next day she found me out at work and told me that the board actually reads: “Hurry Up: Tailoring Classes Start Soon”. I had obviously missed the last 3 words on the vertically placed board owing to a stray dog which was constantly sleeping in front of the board.
She added that there is another real board with the real name on it (she had said the name, but I can’t recall what it is). After passing by the shop at least 5 times a week, I have, to date, never seen this actual board. Anyway, between the two of us the centre is now called-Hurry Up.
If reading is this bad, can typing be any better? I always knew I am a poor typist. But of course there are some friends of mine who help in keeping my morale high, being worse typists themselves.
My typing speed is anyway low, even a snail will get impatient. But I don’t even regard that as a handicap, when there are more severe inadequacies. I recently realized that I have been affected by what may be termed “acute typing dyslexia”. There have always been minor typing mishaps like ‘teh’ for ‘the’, ‘nad’ for ‘and’ and so on. I should have regarded them as initial symptoms of this malady and not neglected them-for cure is easier at the onset of any disease.
The last straw was when I was chatting on g-talk with one of my uncles. Here is an excerpt from the typed conversation:
me: okk... then let me get back to wrk.... say hi to aunty for me... do tell her abt my cahnge of job and location
and ….. read taht as "change"
uncle: ok..bye....
me: anf read that taht as "that"
uncle: okkkkkkkkk bye..take care.
me: and read that "anf" as "and"
i think i am suffering from typing dyslexia today...
bey...
uncle: whlie on caht u dotn hav to be so acurte. realx, bye
me: thank god tehre is somenoe worse than me....!!!!
uncle: H AHA, that is the way u console and motivate people!!!
Well, his motivation helped and still helps. How else would I ever dream of taking up this adventurous task of typing such a long article!!
