Friday, February 13, 2009

Bizarre colloquy

You know this thing about weird mannerisms that you develop while speaking? A random phrase or word, finds its place in the most grammatically wrong places. And it becomes such a habit that the words just escape your mouth as you speak. The funniest thing though is that every so frequently, the 'gap words' as I'd like to call them, keep changing.

While in high school, it used to be like. You know, like, school used to be fun, like because of the gang we had. Although the subjects were like real boring, somehow, the way we used to like spend time with our friends like made life so much more fun.

Then, while I was in college, I was basically a victim of the basic usage of basically. Almost all my sentences would basically begin with basically, and perhaps even end in basically the same way. This basic habit of mine was made the basic butt of all basic jokes. Including one where I was asked why I basically used basically, instead of acidically!

One of my friends had the extraordinary habit of using 'Mhanje' - the Marathi word that means umm, well, MEANS!!! When we told him that he uses mhanje, he said, " Really? I never noticed, mhanje I can't really pay attention to what I speak, so I don't know. Anyway thanks for telling me, though, mhanje, that's the way I can perhaps change myself you know?"

My current verbal fixation happens to be 'what rubbish'. I know, it's a very weird fixation indeed, and you might wonder how it finds its applicability in my everyday conversations. Well, its like basically using the phrase to express astonishment, mhanje, surprise at a statement in a conversation. Like, when my friend remarked that the world was not in a recession, but that it just appears to be so, since everything in the world is a matter of interpretation! However, my phrase fetish sometimes goes overboard. Like the other day, one of my friends said that she had met her guy and was tying the knot in 6 months. And I said, 'What Rubbish'.... She refused to foot the tab for what was supposed to be a 'breaking the news' treat. No Rubbish

1 comment:

Blesson Varghese said...

am still struggling with it... Now a days i tell these Goras "Manje" and they seem to nod their head....as if they understand.