Gags & Gaffes: Just India's Public Signboards Whipping Up 'Wait For It' Moments!

When it comes to mangling spellings, we have few rivals, fully endorsing Mark Twain’s tongue-in-cheek observation

Once I saw a sign in the women’s section in a bus that tellingly read ‘For laddies only.’ Luckily, there were no lads around to seize the invitation! I have come across trucks from time to time with the legendary ‘Public Career’ (read ‘Carrier’) prominently emblazoned across their fronts.

Image: Deeksha Malhotra/The Quint 

We seem to have scant respect for correct spellings— judging by some of our public signboards. Perhaps, it’s an ingrained quirk (or sheer apathy) that sees us misspell even ordinary words with gay abandon. Or maybe, it’s because we implicitly trust the spelling skills (sic) of our sign-painters and give them a free hand—letting them go unguided and unchecked.

Once I saw a sign in the women’s section on a bus that tellingly read ‘For laddies only.’ Luckily, there were no lads around to seize the invitation! I have come across trucks from time to time with the legendary ‘Public Career’ (read ‘Carrier’) prominently emblazoned across their fronts.

Sometimes, the signboards of road transporters also mention that they’re ‘Fright Movers’ or ‘Fright Carriers’. And I do remember a retiring colleague who got a real scare on seeing the ‘fright charges’ quoted for transporting his personal effects to Bangalore!

What Are the Odds?

I have also chanced upon a ‘Hardwear Store’, a ‘Footware Emporium’, a ‘Shopping Moll’ and a ‘Message Parlour’ among many others. And there’s a chapel near my home whose signboard until a few years back, used to read quite irreverently “St. George’s Chappal!” Indeed, I sometimes dread to think of what would happen if an unschooled sign-painter is allowed to paint signboards for a bustard sanctuary!

With the influx of tourists, roadside eateries prefer to display the menu in English. In the process, they sometimes dish up exotic-sounding delicacies like ‘Silly Sikken’ (read ‘Chilli chicken), ‘Pride Fish’ (Fried fish), ‘Grilled Brawns’ (prawns) ’Assorted Snakes’ (snacks), ‘Home-made Card’ (curd) and ‘Foul Curry’ – the last-mentioned being a literal translation of the Tamil term ‘kozhi kari’.

Other exotica I have chanced upon include ‘Mutton Sops’ (chops), ‘Chicken Needles’ (noodles), ‘Diary Products’ (Dairy) and ‘Battled Water’. On one memorable occasion, I even spotted an eye-catching ‘Males Ready’ sign outside a hotel at lunch-time – it was highly suggestive of a gigolo service!

Laddies Finger: No Puns Intended

Our greengrocers too, sometimes go to town with the spelling (or rather misspelling) of their wares. I once scanned the price list prominently displayed by one and found these gems – carbage, carat, battergourd, dramstick, banes, jinger and, of course, laddies finger.

Ironically, the saving grace was that pomegranate, cucumber, cauliflower and other hard-to-spell items were correctly spelt. The fact is that we often tend to spell words phonetically with little regard for the oddities of correct English spelling.

Incidentally, Campion High School, my Alma Mater in Tiruchi, was often (and perhaps, still is) ‘elevated’ to ‘Champion High School’ by uncaring spellers and speakers – an ‘upgrading’ that never failed to amuse us, school boys. That the school sometimes lives up to this moniker, on both the academic as well as sports front, is purely a coincidence.

Misnomers and The 'Oops' Moment

Hilarious typographical errors are in a class of their own. My former British boss, the Visiting Agent for a large group of tea estates, once sent a confidential report that he himself had typed to his Head Office reading, “The manager of ………… estate deserves full credit for the record crap produced this year.” Back came a handwritten note that pointedly queried, “Are we producing quality teas or crap?” The word ‘crop’ had been misspelt by oversight.

On another occasion, in order to prune spiralling labour costs, a signed circular was about to be sent out reading “We should seriously consider seducing unproductive female workers to the extent possible to bring down the overall cost of production.” Luckily, a sharp-eyed official spotted the gaffe in time and had it corrected to ‘reducing’.

Perhaps nothing is more galling than to have one’s name grossly misspelt. Norman Cole, my former British boss, was used to this. But what really riled him (thanks to careless typists) were two letters from local government departments mauling his name to ‘Normal Cold’ and ‘Nariman Coal’. To mollify him, I mentioned that Jim Corbett, the famed slayer of man-eaters, had often had his surname corrupted to ‘Carpet’!

Some other British planters I knew also had surnames that lent themselves to misspelling all too easily. There was a Barbour and a Cooke whose names were often truncated to the obvious, namely ‘Barber’ and ‘Cook’ much to their annoyance.

Indeed, short of threatening to ‘cook the goose’ of anyone who misspelt his name, the hot-tempered Cooke made sure that none of his subordinates ever did! And John Martin, another planter, was never amused to find his surname sometimes animalised to ‘Marten’!

Yet another planter named Alan Wetherall was often at his wit’s end. Having ‘weathered’ the all-too-frequent misspelling of his surname, he stoically resigned himself to seeing it spelt ‘Weatherall’ and even ‘Whetherall’ by inattentive subordinates and others.

There was also a Robert Scott whose surname was sometimes damnably vulgarised to ‘Scat’. Indeed, locals often unwittingly referred to him as ‘Scat Dorai’. Considering our notorious disregard for correct spelling of names, I wouldn’t be surprised if best-selling author Frederick Forsyth’s surname is ‘refined’ to ‘Foresight’ or even ‘Farsight’!

Personally speaking, my own surname hasn’t been spared either. Now and then it’s unflatteringly mutilated to ‘Neta’ (politician) though I’ve never been one. Sometimes, it’s even misspelt (and mispronounced) as ‘Nato’ though I’ve had absolutely nothing to do with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation!

When it comes to mangling spellings, we have few rivals. Indeed we seem to fully endorse Mark Twain’s tongue-in-cheek observation, “I don’t give a damn for a man who can spell a word only one way.”

(The author is a Munnar-based freelance writer whose work has appeared over the years in most of India's major English-language publications, including the Indian Express, the Hindu and the Times of India.)