tamglish

as·sault

–noun

1.	a sudden, violent attack; onslaught: an assault on tradition.

2.	Law. an unlawful physical attack upon another; an attempt or offer to do violence to another, with or without battery, as by holding a stone or club in a threatening manner.

3.	Military. the stage of close combat in an attack.

4.

rape1.

–verb (used with object)

5.	to make an assault upon; attack; assail.

dictionary. com states the above as the meaning of assault...... u must be wondering why this is up here....well, go on read!

assault-a mudichudivean............................................assault-a iruku ma!


how often have u heard this? if u stay in Tamilnadu, more specifically Chennai....and u speak the local lingo, you def must have come across this statement, esp with d urchins and college going crowd. I've often wondered how this English word became so very Tamil! and more than that, what bugs me is how did its meaning change? from its original meaning?? the Tamil version of assault is quite simply put, as follows;

assault = easy


so when someone says "assault-a mudichudivaen" they mean that they'd finish watever it is, quite easily.....in other words it is like a "cakewalk"


so from where did this term stem? and how did its meaning change? i have seen the English adapt Tamil words into their language...catamaran etc etc and we are often proud tat they did so! the buggers couldn't just pronounce and couldn't find another word so they just added it to their vocab! though i fail to understand whats there to be proud about it, i appreciate English as a language, coz it adapts, borrows and evolves with time. Most purists of any language would disapprove of such "borrowing" or adapting.... they'd say it spoils the language and dilutes its form.

I beg to differ! a language is to communicate! to bring people together and make them understand each other, not to fight over its purity! and in tat case no matter what purists stand for, English is by far one of the languages that has managed to adapt and penetrate world over...

Kudos to English...

as for how "assault" came into Tamil and that too with a different meaning........ go figure it yourself! and if you do find any other such words do let me know!

Indians? Achievers?

Stumbling has hooked me............. whoever came up with this idea deserves an applause.
its been quite a few months since i've started stumbling and its pretty addictive. The very idea of discovering new sites in your area of interest in amazing, and you get a chance to visit, ponder, revisit some really amazing sites which you otherwise would probably never stumble into during your lifetime....

since one of my interest areas is in Space & exploration.... i came across sites....and one link after another i reach a page with an article about Ms Kalpana Chawla & Sunita williams and the others alike....with an article hailing them as "Indian Achievers", now that sets tempers soaring!

Frankly, i don't understand the hype create over these characters, the only thing Indian about them is probably their lineage, in any other aspect, i fail to recognize their contribution to India, in any way except than their parents. There are many such characters...business men, scientists (esp this lot) who we hail as "INDIANS".

And soon enough some school textbooks have these characters on the books (i guess kalpana Chawla is already there as a martyr) ...........aaaarghh!!! With due respect to them, how have they contributed in the research and growth of India? I remember Sunita Williams trip to India was so publicized with media interviews and what not...........gimme a break!!

They have not contributed in anyway to India or its growth in science, they work for NASA! Did they DO ANYTHING for ISRO or Indian space research? nah!! we fail to recognize icons in our own country, take the case of M.S. Swaminathan - he contrubuted so much to feed our nation thru the green revolution, any sign of them?? nah?

we like to suck up to U.S and guess will continue to do so with brainless cheap politics in something like research and science. I Hope we realise who "true Indians" are, and show them some respect and gratitude.

Cos we don't want our children working in NASA? or do we? is ISRO so bad?? why should we show these characters as achievers? is it that working in NASA with an Indian lineage is more important than actually working in ISRO for INDIA as an INDIAN??

MAC vs PC

The Mac Vs PC wars are never ending, even after mac brought in a platform that supports windows and other PC based software....

Mac users swear by it and often take a dig at pc users being the lowlife... and to pull d carpet right under all PC manufacturers mac launched Macbook Air. I've come across many such comments/ cartoons.... but here's one which takes the other side.... and it comes as quite a surprise since only yest my BIG BOSS was going gaga over the same anti-virus capabilities and high speed net connectivity of a mac... lol (i hope he reads this blog)