Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Random Observations

Random Observations in my two years of stay here in the United States. Some have shocked me, some bewildered me and some just left me in awe

Cars are driven on the wrong side (left) of the road

Automatics instead of manual transmissions

There are neither power cuts nor water cuts

Phones get busy and not engaged (people get engaged)

The floor numbering begins at 1 instead of G (there is no ground floor)

Schedule is pronounced ‘ske dule’ instead of ‘shedule’

Patent is pronounced ‘Paatent’ instead of ‘Petent’

Beta is pronounced ‘Beyta’ instead of ‘Beeta’

Lifts are elevators.

Chappals are flipflops

Petrol pumps are Gas stations (no cars don’t run on gas here)

Color instead of colour

Gray instead of grey

mm/dd/yy instead of dd/mm/yy

Pound instead of kilogram

Gallon instead of liter

A car’s trunk is a ‘boot’ instead of ‘dicky’

Shuttle instead of badminton

Ping Pong instead of table tennis

Eraser instead of rubber (rubber has a totally different connotation and application)

A flat is an apartment (flat is used for indicating lack of contours)

A highway is a freeway (doesn’t mean there are no toll stations)

A cold drink is a soda

A dustbin is a trash can

A footpath is a curb

A cycle is a bike

And finally its paper instead of water!