Geeeaaaaaaaaaweewaaaaaaa…
Ah! Nothing like getting up after a truck load of work and then stretching and screaming in relief no?
No seriously. I actually do that. The wife hates it. Apparently I never did it before marriage. “You have changed Sidin!” she says while I download photos of Matt Damon and take large printouts.
Anyways it’s been a really tight couple of weeks and I’ve finally managed to salvage the time to bring your attention to an evil which is slowly eating away at the very social and moral fiber of our society. Something that is beginning to rear its evil head more often than it ever has in the past. A vile presence that sits like a benign granuloma on the spinal cord of our society and restricts the blood flow of unity and communal harmony to the population centre that is our brain stem leading to the subacute sclerosing panencephalitis that is mass cultural myopia.
(Many many House MD DVDs. Sorry.)
But before that, I would like to say that henceforth each blog of mine will come with a little banner for GiveIndia embedded in it. GiveIndia is a website that makes it easy peasy to donate money to your charity of choice. They don’t pay me money to do this, of course, and I hope the High Networth Engineers and MBAs amongst you will rise to the occasion by clicking through and doing your bit wherever you see fit. Charity begins at home page no? (Ha!)
So where was I? Ah yes mass cultural myopia.
What’s with this sudden upsurge of national political correctness? Haven’t you noticed it? When suddenly people are afraid to say what is blatantly obvious? Just so that they avoid the possibility, however minor, of offending someone.
Of course political correctness can be convenient in certain harmless situations.
“Of course your baby is lovely! No the moustache is cute.”
“No no. That is a good IIM too!” (Guahaha.)
Yet nothing drives me insane like one of those media reports, especially on TV, where they try to pass off “People from two communities had a go at each other yesterday with sub-machine gun fire. Riot police later controlled the crowd from a distance using only mind power as made famous by the Bapna brothers in Competition Success Review.” instead of just coming clean and admitting that the Buddhists and Bahais are at it again.
First there was that Aaja Nachle thing. And then the Sikhs of Lucknow filed cases against poor Anilbhai. And now the recent discoveries about my cellphone.
What did you say? No idea what happened to my cellphone? None at all?
Sigh. Socially networked society it seems. Citizen journalism will change our world they say. Pshaw!
Texting messages is one of the great modes of communication of this day and age. After a hectic day in the office nothing warms the heart like sending a message of extreme naughtiness to the wife. But then “Darth Vader Woman in HR” is just next to “Darling” in the phone book and often hilarity ensues due to digit-al mishaps.
So imagine my chagrin when I discover that the Brick, as I affectionately call my P990i when I wear hip hugging jeans, has a predictive text input that is so prudish that it makes an Indian parish priest look like an American parish priest.
Let me explain.
My cellphone uses what is known as a T9 dictionary. This is the thing that gives your predictive text input thing work. So you don’t have to go punching forever on your teeny mobile keypad to get simple words out. (Try doing the phrase “I was flabbergasted when I perused the entry for appendicitis in an encyclopedia my dear Parthasaarathy!.”)
Yet I know the smartest people who don’t get the hang of predictive text input. High funda software engineer processes Laplace transforms and does Matrix multiplications in his head over a Hazelnut Cappuccino. But tell him to sms you what he’s sipping and watch the genius sweat over his keyboard.
But all the difficulties of T9 pale in comparison to the indignation I felt when I discovered that the Brick comes factory-installed with a dictionary that has all the good words pruned out of it already. Is this another sign of the moral decrepitude of our times?
I am afraid so.
For instance when I am thoroughly angry with someone I need to send out a message like “NO! YOU are a dial head!” This is because the word I am looking for (rhymes with drick) is not available on my phone. The closest available choice is ‘dial’. I could call it Richard. But that could become an annoying habit.
You’ve been late with a column submission and got beaten black and blue by the newspaper person? The best you can do is “I got batch-slapped by that Hindu person again today!” This is because my phone does not believe in the existence of the female of the canine species at all. “Where do puppies come from?” is not a question my phone ever asks itself.
No reference can be made to the posterior region of the human body with any suitable word except ‘booty’and ‘butt’. Words such as ass / arse / fanny / back-end / doublebubble are simply missing from the T9 dictionary. If this was before marriage I would have asked aloud in agony: “What is wrong with the posterior for god’s sake? I think it’s mighty fine and deserves wide appreciation!” Today I have no interest in such things at all. In fact you should ignore this last point completely.
I cannot call anyone a ‘moron’, ‘nincompoop’, ‘imbecile’, ‘slut’ or even ‘dufus’. All perfectly good words in the English language. But my phone will have none of it. Apparently such words are beneath it.
Instead it cheerfully throws up such conversational gems as ‘incontinence’, ‘Hilcote’, ‘tundra’ and my personal favourite: ‘hernia’d’.
‘hernia’d’
Definition: The situation of having a hernia thrown at oneself at great speed without warning.
Use in a sentence: “Sidin was writing a poem about the Asiad, could not find a rhyming word for some time, before he picked up his phone and observed ‘hernia’d’.”
Important Note: Be EXTREMELY careful when sending T9 composed message to any girl named Rashmi.
Yes my phone has ‘screwdriver’. But no mention at all of plain old simple ‘screw’.
As you can this has shaken my faith in the world at large gravely. Who knew such a vile conspiracy was afoot within the bowels of the mobile phone industry?
Is this happening to your phone as well? Is the phone trying to prevent you from speaking freely? Is it curbing your freedom of expression?
I think we should form an Orkut group and fight this immediately. When I pay for my phone I should get it complete with a full quota of words whether they seem unsavoury to the phone maker or not. Let us put an end to this menace.
Or as my phone would say “I’ve had enough of this asap. Time to kick some cps!”
err…. turn the T9 off?
And just give in like that to the basest capitalistic tendencies? Not without a fight or a substantial financial settlement! Never question my principle again like that Arpz!
Hey sids!
I used to use the T9 function on my mob before, untill I sent daddy dearest an sms in a hurry one day, only to discover it was something no girl should never say to her father. And eversince I succumbed to text messaging without T9 🙂
Ha ha ha ha ha, Nokia phones are no better with their ‘intuitive’ type ahead faciliity. Wonder how these people can presume they can get into my mind and figure out what I am actually going to type in next.
Cheers………Jam
That is why I curse in Hindi or Punjabi!BTW how about starting an online petition to fight the corporate cronies too??
P.S. Loved the copyright notice at the posterior of ur blog 😉
On your phone? You get hindi curses on your phone? Please provide brand and model details.
t9 is a copyrighted technology that is licensed by almost all the cellphone companies. nokia, motorola, sony all have it.loved the bit on rashmi. i actually typed to check what t9 would make of her name 🙂
good post to kill afternoon boredom at werk! good one sidin!
But do you know that some models have umm… better words than others?
great post. :-)) lol!
I think Nokia (i have an N73) works better? they have more words, like screw for instance. but no hernia’d. no ways!
Ok ok ok. You have N73. Ok. Show off!
hahaha :-)nothing’s worth showing off except iPhone now dude 🙂 ok ok…Vertu as well.
Hyaahahaaaaaa. Whatay fun.Fevrit portions:
The politically correct-IIM-Guaaahaahaa bit.
Rashmi…- Like Rahul upsatirs, I typed this in for fun too. A learning experience.
“You have changed, Sidin!”
Haw haw.
hahahaha…awesome one dude!!!
hey,lol..i must admit ..i am great fan of urs..started with reading ur Tuesdays blogs on rediff…nice post….actually i was literally waiting for the Dec 2007 posts…
Ah! In that case welcome, welcome! Most of the people here worked the other way around I think!
Yeah, I have noticed it too. But my phone has a “add to dictionary” option, so now it is equipped with all the latest lingo !
Howlarious as usual Sid bhai ! Like others, I too was mighty prompt in doing the Rashmi thingy :-DI have a friend whose boyfriend’s name is Binoy n everytime she wanted to sms him sweet-nothings, T9 threw “Agony” at her.. 🙂 Needless to say, she switched over to the normal mode in no time.
Ha! And imagine if she had a Binoy Uncle…
Glad to hear she didn’t change the boyfriend to suit the T9.
saar superr post saar..
The T9 has troubled me from the early days of SMSing, i have therefore forcibly trained my fingers to type fast and hence not compromise on the speed of composition. The T9 sometimes feels like the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ google button.
keep em coming…
Hilarious as always Sid…Jst wat the doc ordered for a boring Thursday mornin.
“The discount is offered because we need to get your feedback letter quickly anddecide if we should advertise on TV (and set up distributor/seller network). because we want to quickly learn if we should advertise the mind machine in TV ads and we need to get your feedback letter quickly.”
http://www.mindpowerindia.com/free-articles/ebooks/cat_vocab.pdf
Page 44 of 57
Long live Bapna brother and the Mind Machine!
I’d thought Mr. Bapna had disappeared. This is a welcome revelation Kamal. The site is howlarious reading too no?
how abt the ‘Add Word’ option…I hv most Hinglish words saved in. Of course sometimes, the predictive technology is so good that it gives me choice of words that I hv used in some previous msg but hvn’t stored…Howzzat for technology! ;-)Btw…I did type in Rashmi to chk 😉
Way to kick off a FRIDAY!. Very funny article, the warning should apply for females named Prerna as well. Your T9 dictionary is stored in a file called en.t9 on your cellphone. Maybe there is a way to hack it and add good, wholesome words to it. Sadly, I do not own a P990i, or I would’ve got cracking on it. In the interest of science, of course.
Hilarious post Sid bhai ! I hate these cell dics too 😉 …
pssttt…. Asap is what comes as default for crap in most phones i think. Try the second option n you’ll be in splitttss… especially when you use it in your concluding sentence 😉
Third option on my phone! But yes whatay way to end an official sentence!
“After a hectic day in the office nothing warms the heart like sending a message of extreme naughtiness to the wife. But then “Darth Vader Woman in HR” is just next to “Darling” in the phone book and often hilarity ensues due to digit-al mishaps.”
—
Have done this mistake so many times in life that have just lost count of it… Feels good to know even the best of people end up doing it! But then looking at it in a philosphical(?!?!) manner, it ends up improving the sense of humor of the recepient. Wonder why they refuse to look at things in that light!!
As usual, good piece of work Sidin! Keep ’em coming.
All based on real life only! What you thought I pull out ideas from thin air??
Whatay affrontery that is!
Is your keyboard rebelling against profanity too….???Sidin has been rectified as Admin in quite a few of your comment responses !!!!
Microsoft Outlook is not way behind too and I did not impress a particularly agitated Sardar when the damned spell check thought of changing Manvinder to Lavender in one of the emails !!
the offence about the software engineer sweating over the keypad taken…but what are you doing without adding words to the t9 dictionary? your phone doesnt allow you to add words? hmmm…must be a brick!! 🙂
Pls to be telling us T9-less folks what Rashmi produces.
That condition you are suffering from – it could be lupus, you know. Sorry, I too have been watching a lot of House MD recently.
Lets do a brain biopsy anyways!
Ha Ha!
Maybe you can create your very own ‘Predictive Profanity-Laden DIC*tionary’ input…something like SID9 !!! We all would volunteer to fill-in the words of corz 😛
P.S: Did u know for getting STAR in T9, we’ve to press 7-8-2-7, which is (was?) the SMS Address of the STAR Network. Ditto 6-3-8-8 for NDTV
He he. It will reduce to a list of Chennai tam obscenities and MBA jargon in no time. But it IS an intriguing thought.
P.P.S: I’ve visited here for the first time on the back of IE7 and noticed that ur Blog has ads 😮
No wonder the adsense numbers are so pathetic I could cry… sob sob. So much for one kidney…
” If this was before marriage I would have asked aloud in agony: “What is wrong with the posterior for god’s sake? I think it’s mighty fine and deserves wide appreciation!” Today I have no interest in such things at all. In fact you should ignore this last point completely”………… Heheheheh ROTFL…. can’t wait to hear what the missus had to say abt that..
Not what the wife had to SAY. What the wife had to DO about it is a better question. Shudder.
Ha ha! Nice one Sidin.
Try typing ‘Sidin’ in T9.
Some lucky chaps always have it their way!!!
(T9 must be expecting the user to key in ‘siding’!)
Smug I am! You also get riding I believe. But taking the g out of siding is the easiest way to do it.
Hmm. “Taking the G out of Siding” sounds like a good name for a book or a solo acoustic album no?
Hehe….
And which IIM were you talkin about Sidin?
Ha! I am not falling for that one AGAIN!
somene just told me T9 spells smirnoff as poisoned
Have several bucketfuls of Smirny with coke and freshly unfridged old pizza. Closer to poison than you think.
ROTFL…whattay post 😀
“Screw you” since my phone allows me to eloquently express myself. Another feature available in all these lovely T9 phones called “Spell” which allows you to add words and then you can swear/curse/rave/rant/pant (at asses) as much as you want without the phone stopping you. Imagine!
for so long i thought that ‘whatay’ was your version/take on the lovely mallu word ‘vatthay’ (mad/crazy) which would have been quirkier than ‘what-ay sunset’
And thats why, you need a qwerty keyboard.PS- iPhone!
Use Add Word!! That’s one of the best things about a Sony Ericsson phone.
..and have you noticed even if you go thru the pain of actually adding ..er..colorful words, the phone promptly forgets em? every other blinking word in the dictionary gets added to the dictionary but four letter words. no. those u need to key in each time.sigh.
I do not use the t9 feature at all. Get hold of a querty bluetooth keyboard and type what you want! Or, buy a phone that supports hand writing recognition or has a querty keyboard!
this is good encouragement for the students……..
Tahnks for posting
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