Tis OK!

At the high school I attended in Hyderabad, the girls' uniform was a traditional south Indian half sari and Telugu was the medium of instruction. I owned my first pair of jeans about 14 years ago, right before my big move to the western hemisphere. I didn't watch much TV and Titanic and Anaconda were the only non-Indian movies I had watched until then. So when I arrived in the US for grad school, not surprisingly, I fit the definition of FOB to a T. There in grad school, some very good friends introduced me to the television series, Friends. It seemed like the kind of crash course I needed to cover the deltas in culture, language, style and slang. I used to watch it religiously. Of its many unforgettable episodes for me is the one where Phoebe changes her name to Princess Consuela Bananahammock. 

That reminded me of my own stint with name change, or spelling change anyway. It was right before our 10th grade finals and my friend Preethy and I did not even have to stand in long lines like Phoebe had to. It was the first time we had to officially spell our names in English on the application form for finals. With that one form, Jyothi and Preethi forever became Jyothy and Preethy respectively. Since then, in various emails and other forms of written correspondences, my name has been misspelled a variety of ways: Jyothi, Jyoti, Joti, Jodhi, Jyothoy etc. My favorite mis-spelling to date, and the most common one, is Joythy, brings me such joy! A friend asked me recently if it bothers me that so many people, so many Indians at that, misspell my name. He knows the stickler I am for spelling correctly in general and he thinks it is rude to misspell something as basic as a person's name. It actually does not bother me when people misspell my name! Perhaps it would upset me if it is misspelled in Sanskrit or Telugu. But, for the spelling in a language that has nothing to do with my name's origin, anything close is OK! Raaga recently complained about how her best friends at school, Katelyn and Madeline, are both 'Lyns' and she is not. So, in future, if she tells us she is going to change her name to Raagalyn, her dad and I better be prepared to say, it is OK! 

Interestingly, this week marks the 175th anniversary of OK, the most versatile acronym ever! While there are several stories that claim to originate the use of OK, one that has most credibility is the one that says OK is Oll Korrect. OK is 'all correct', misspelled! And here is another misspelling of the week that cracks me up- at least, we won't forget garlic when at the store!

A couple of days ago, we had a garlic emergency and Raaga was dispatched to next door neighbors. After fetching some from them and saving the evening for us, she left us this reminder! 

Happy Saturday!