My Bad (Spelling)

I am a bad person.

I do bad things behind people’s back and sometimes, I don’t feel the least bit sorry about it.

One of the bad things I like to do is to write down words that they enunciate wrongly, spelling it according to how they pronounce, and then laugh about it after that.

No, I still don’t feel bad. It must be because I’m not a good person.

Here is a list I gathered from a meeting. I wrote this list down so that I won’t fall asleep in front of him.

- Bacheror
- Examper
- Pwojecks
- Exproar
- Poposal
- Dispray
- Principers
- Directioner sign
- Letail hosplitality
- Projek lrelevant to industly
- Interear design
- We hap velly gud prace

Edit: Here is another that grates on my ears, but not from the said meeting...
- Valemtime's Day

Favourite Things...

Last week, F and I met up for lunch and being the word snobs that we are (note: word snobs are not exempt from English butchery, we just like to put ourselves on a high chair and laugh at others condescendingly, thereby rendering us rather unpopular with our friends but WHAT THE HECK muahahahaha), the topic drifted to the best typo errors we've seen. And you know what? The typos we have seen will render this post PG18 rather than the G that my posts are wont to be.

To make sure our already tenuous friendships with these dear folks are not permanently wrecked, we will be keeping the identity of these friends a secret. You'll understand why.

***

Me: So I was ironing clothes the other day and Intuition was at the computer. A mutual friend wanted to fix an appointment with me, and thus Intuition was the messenger boy. She will ask him when I'm free, he will turn around and ask me (cos I was directly behind him), so on and so forth. Intuition decides to be kaypoh and asked Friend, why do you wanna meet Quirkiekai, what feminine gossips do you gals have planned?? And she said "We're going to discuss your bed habits!" ... O_o apparently, she meant BAD habits.

He: That reminds me of my friend. He was going to loan his external hard disk to a female friend, and when he wanted to confirm it, he actually msned her "So do you still want my hard dick?" and then he quickly typed "i mean hard disk hard disk hard disk!!!!!!"

He: And there was this other friend whom I was gaming with, and in there you can send messages to each other. We were talking about weaponry and he was telling me what he has. He typed "xxxxx, xxxxxxxx, breast slayer, xxxxxx, xxxxxx...." I think he meant BEAST slayer, but that was totally a freudian slip.

Me: Speaking about boobs, this one was to an email to a gathering, discussing snacks, activities and what to bring etc. And this guy, in all serious innocence, emailed saying "I'll be bringing the tits bits".

***

After I related these to Intuition, he reminded me of another classic spelling boo-boo. At a gathering one day, we decided rather spontaneously that we were going to a board game cafe, Pit Stop Cafe. A friend was going to be late and was trying to clarify our venue. We told him, over the phone along a busy road, "Pit Stop Cafe. PIT STOP CAFE. Can you hear? No? It's PIT STOP CAFE. P-I-T S-T-O-P Cafe. Yes correct, PIT STOP CAFE."

When he finally arrived, he was extremely flustered and exclaimed "I HEARD TIT STOP CAFE. I even asked you to spell it out and I distinctly heard T instead of P!! I asked my colleagues if they've heard of TIT STOP CAFE and they told me no, but Crazy Horse left Singapore 3 months ago!! They asked WHO WAS I MEETING AND I TOLD THEM *some christian context* FRIENDS. Now they think I hang out with a group of PERVES!"

***

I am the letter-editor for someone Chinese educated, so while her Mandarin packs lots of power, her English is weaker. There was one memorable one where she wanted to write "Corporate" and spelt it as "Copulate".

***

Then there was once we were in a hotel lift, my entire family and Intuition. My mum started reading a poster and grinned, saying "See! These people don't know how to spell 'regret'. They spell it as R-E-G-R-E-T."

*pause*

*silence*

"Mum, that's the correct spelling."

Audio Bites

Colleague: Whyyyy HELLOoooooOOOoo breathtaking beauty! YOU take MY breath awaaay! *cue wheezing hacking gasping breathless sound*

***

Intuition and I, after watching Iron Man.

Me: So which were your favourite parts in the movie?
He: *thinks for a while* I kinda like it when he returns to where he was held captive and rescued all the poor people. Yourself?
Me: Hmmm *thinks*
Me: You know, Robert Downey Jr. looks absolutely haawt in the movie. Love his eyes, it makes me wanna brush his eyelashes. I think my favourite part of the movie is wherever there is a close up of his face and eyes *beams!*
He: ...
He: My favourite part of the movie is when the Iron Man appears fully masked.

***

Scenario: A game of Taboo.

Player: A young lady with an uncanny resemblance to Olive Oyl, in all aspects from head to toe.

She: AAAHHHHhhhh! It's it's... *cups hands at chest* the 2 balloons inside!
Group: ROFL ROFL

The word?
Lungs.

ROFL!

***

Hi, I'm Quirkie and I'm a Pedant

Please do not use more than one spacing between your words
when typing out documents.

Please Also Don't Caps Every First Letter Of Every Word In The Sentence.

• Please do
  
• Bullet your
• Points properly

Please don't use too many fonts on the same page.

These constitute an EYESORE.

Thank you.

Just Shoot me.

The last thing you'd ever want to see

during your peak period,

rushing artwork after artwork,

staying back late day after day,

is a

&#@$*%#

typographical error

on 9000 flyers.

Cheena Lesson 101

So I was talking to my colleague and she was showing me the menu for an event we're going to have...

She: Wah, you all will be having a feast on that day! See!
Me: Oooh, looks good... *looks through the menu*
She: Eh? That girl! Aiyah! She never do the changes! *takes menu back from me* See lah, only know how to 吹马。。。
Me: 。。。吹马??
Me: *brainfreeze moment*
Me: not 吹马 lah! It's 吹牛！！！

***

Yet another office true story:
There was this other person who wanted to learn how to say "愿神祝福你！＂but somehow it came across as＂愿神欺负你！＂.

So naturally, the congregation should respond as:＂也欺负你！＂

***

And with this post, I have justified the hundreds of hours and dollars I have spent on my Chinese tuition throughout the years. You never know when these lessons will come in handy.

Ingrish Lesson 101: Barbeck

Strolling at East Coast Park one Saturday afternoon, Intuition nudged me and pointed at a signboard...

He: Look at the signboard!
Me: What about it?
He: Look carefully! It says "Barbecue"!
Me: ... so?
He: Don't you see anything wrong?? b.a.r.b.e.SEEEEEEE.u.e???
Me: *stifling a grin* that's not wrong what!
He: Aiyo your spelling is going down the drain. It's spelt b.a.r.b.e.KEEEEW.u.e!!
Me: *bimbotic look* then that would be pronounced as BarBECK! See, how do you pronounce boutique? BootiKEW?? NO! It's pronounced Boo-Teek! How about "tongue"? Not "tong-ew", right??
He: *clasps his hands over my head and shakes it* AHHHH!!! You're getting sillier and sillier! I don't want to talk to you anymore!

Actually, I was just having him on. I also thought that the signboard had a spelling error (horrors, our National Parks Board can't spell!) but wanted to have fun with the inconsistencies of the Ingrish Language. Until I checked the spelling of BBQ for this post and saw that BOTH spelling were accepted; in fact, "barbecue" was more common than "barbeque", which was the way I've been spelling it all my life.

So here's Ingrish Lesson 101 for you: Barbec/que, as carefully researched by QuirkieKai.

My Interesting Room-mate

For privacy reasons, CL's name is changed to Spelling Bee (SB for short) for this blogpost.

The Night Before Hanoi:
SB: Are you gonna bring your sleepers and shoes to VN?
Me: *thinking to myself: What on earth..?? Sleeping bags? Sleepers? OH! She means SLIPPERS!*

SB: what other thinks are you bringing there?
Me: ...

At The PCs in The Hotel
SB: How do u spell grateful? Is it "g.r.e.a.t...."
Me: ROFL!!!!!!!!

At a Vietnamese Friend's Place
*SB writing down an address and TH looking over her shoulder*
TH: Urm... how do you spell "Michael"?
SB: M-I-C-H-E-A-L
TH: ...
TH: Oh... I think it's wrong

In the Taxi
Someone: I think we should spend the morning doing this...
SB: I seems to think so too
Intuition: "seems to think so"?
SB: *whacks Intuition*

Last Night
SB: Someone has been making a lot of harsh decisions and shouldn't be so harsh.
Me: Harsh?
SB: Yah lor.
Me: ...
Me: I think you mean "rash"?
SB: HAHAHAHHAHAHAA! *whacks me*

Word Associations

So, there's this little game out there where you say a word, and another person comes up with another word that is associated with it. Example from Family Guy:
Mayor: "Okay, so I'll say a word and you'll respond with another. Mosquito."
Meg: "Bite!"
Mayor: "Good one! Here's one: Bite!"
Meg: "Mosquito!"
Mayor: "Yeah! We have a connection! How about.... hmm, mosquito?"
Meg: "Bite!"
Mayor: "Bite?"
Meg: "Mosquito!"
Mayor: "Oh, you're very clever!"

Some of the word associations in my mind right now?
Bubble ---> Burst (Like the economy... things are on an upswing, but sometimes, u just never know.)
Time ---> Out (Cadbury! Break time!)
Talk ---> Cheap (heard of NATO? No Action, Talk Only. Such as CASE being on NET's case. time to sign up for a debit card)
Over ---> All (Overall, big picture.. or it can mean "Over; all." play on words :P )
Stuff in the news and close to the heart--food and money.. sigh.