My understanding of Hindi is getting better after living in the country for a little over a year and a half............I am finding that in more and more business meetings that I can pick up words and phrases much more than I could when I first arrived.......but other than a few of the phrases that I have memorized, I cannot speak Hindi at all.
I have shared some "unique" signs that I have seen throughout the country, and here are a few more for you to enjoy.......along with a fitting poem that illustrates that English can sometimes be a difficult language to learn........for several reasons.
OUR STRANGE LINGO
When the English tongue we speak.
Why is break not rhymed with freak?
Will you tell me why it's true
We say sew but likewise few?
And the maker of the verse,
Cannot rhyme his horse with worse?
Beard is not the same as heard
Cord is different from word.
Cow is cow but low is low
Shoe is never rhymed with foe.
Think of hose, dose,and lose
And think of goose and yet with choose
Think of comb, tomb and bomb,
Doll and roll or home and some.
Since pay is rhymed with say
Why not paid with said I pray?
Think of blood, food and good.
Mould is not pronounced like could.
Wherefore done, but gone and lone -
Is there any reason known?
To sum up all, it seems to me
Sound and letters don't agree.
This was written by Lord Cromer, published in the Spectator of August 9th, 1902
and extracts were quoted in an SSS pamphlet in 1930.
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