I am a bunkabab – and proud of it

Here I stand, an ambassador of the many desis who have been forced to learn your burger ways. As you laugh at our faltering copy-cat English, we look up what falter means.

Saad Khalid September 08, 2010
Yes, I pronounce ‘Cowasjee’ as ‘Cowaaaaasjee.’

Sometimes I say  ‘angrezi’ instead of English and call the letter H - ‘ech.’

Most of the time I find it difficult to understand the meanings of words that most of  my other colleagues understand easily (eg: avid, disheveled, allure etc.)

I am often unsure of when to use  'a,' 'an' and 'the' in a sentence.

When making antonyms I misuse the prefixes  ‘im’ and ‘un.’

I don’t understand the appropriate place to 'lol' and when I am allowed to 'lmao'.

Yes, I could very easily lose a spelling bee competition.

Yes, I am impressed, like most of the Pakistanis are, by a person who has a great English accent.

And yes I know that too many yes-es are redundant.

So, if you happen to be reading this article and are looking for some hard, tricky words - then I am sorry. This piece is about errors and slip-ups and cannot entertain you.

So, why I am writing this?

Firstly to represent those 'X' per cent of Pakistanis who are lucky enough to pass their matriculation and intermediate exams by cramming pages and pages of English text books but cant rewrite a definition in their own words. English might be a play thing for O-level and A-level ‘burgers’ but we too have a right to express ourselves in this global village.

When you people write, do you even think about someone like me? I could read your pieces a thousand times and not understand what you are talking about!

Secondly,  no matter how impressed we are by your style but we desis still consider it a sin to write TV or television as 'telly' and whatever as ‘wateva’.

We regard texting lingo like 'ttyl', 'tc',  'brb', 'lmao' as disrespectful to the angrezi language. So listen up you 'Y' per cent of Pakistanis - you burgers, who start one sentence in Pakistan and end it in the United States or Europe:  it might be fashionable for you to use complex and tricky sentences.  It may be fun for you to deem us as copy cats when our English falters - but do recognise that it makes our lives hell.

Sometimes I wonder if you are agents of the Oxford or Cambridge press making it mandatory for us to buy their dictionaries!

So, here I stand the guardian of the many desi's, learning your ways.
WRITTEN BY:
Saad Khalid An engineering student with a profound love for food, Khalid hopes to pursue writing after he graduates from NUST.
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (58)

Junaid Alam | 12 years ago | Reply English is a language of utility.. we should learn it because it is the most spoken language of the world and because a huge resource of knowledge exists in English.. but to make it a metric of education and intellect is as absurd as thinking of someone wearing expensive clothes to be learned.. but yes, we should be ashamed when we can't understand or speak Urdu.
Ali | 12 years ago | Reply hahaha nice one! and i belong to that X or Y percent category.... but trust me, that category has further sub categories!
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