Two small snippets today.
Our neighbours have a son who must be around 7–8 years old, the age when kids begin to facepalm over the many idiosyncrancies of the English spelling system. I found this stuck on their front door. What was funny was that this actually looks more like an IPA transcription. Of course, the [n] would actually be the velar nasal [ŋ], the [g] is usually there in Indian pronunciation but not in many other dialects and the second vowel would be [ɪ]. [gritɪŋ] would be more like it. As Mark Liberman said, “The English writing system is a complex pattern of overlapping historical layers with sporadic intrusions of reform, for which the appropriate mode of analysis is more geological than logical.”
The second picture was taken at the State Bank of India branch next to Eternity Mall in Nagpur. Sorry for the terrible quality—mobile camera + bad lighting + bad angle. The text is unreadable due to the glare, but it said _Virtual Back Office_ and वास्तविक बैक ऑफिस. I was a bit surprised at the Hindi translation. Somehow, saying वास्तविक for _virtual_ here seems to me just the opposite of what was intended. However, I am not too sure what the function of a virtual back office is. Probably, it does make sense to call it वास्तविक. If anyone’s familiar with banking terminology, please add your comments below!
