Sunday, April 25, 2010

Jordanian English, and Things That Make Me Go Ugh!


We all know there are slight differences between British and American English, some words are written differently, some words that are used in the US are rarely used in the UK and so on. But, were you aware of the existence of Jordanian English? Yep, it’s there, and it’s agreed upon, Jordanian English words are being used by almost everyone in the internet world, and are also used in everyday talk, you might argue that they are not purely Jordanian and are used in other places, but what the hell do I know I don’t have many connection outside Jordan.

I’m listing some words and phrases, you’ll figure out the rest by yourself, and I skipped the P, B thing because it can’t and won’t be changed, it’s ok now:

1. Alot equals a lot

2. Thankx, it’s either thanks or thanx but the more letters the better

3. Birsday, you know cause we’re too classy to say “th”, oh that’s birthday by the way

4. Am, either I am or I’m and don’t ask where I went, I is out

5. The plural of friend is friend’s, yeah we use apostrophes

6. “There going to the mall”, instead of “they’re going …”

7. “We where there” instead of “we were there”

8. A magriphone is a microphone

9. We don’t use helping verbs, we won’t use helping verbs, we don't need help

10. “Sorry for late” equals “sorry for being late”

11. “when will you back” and “when you will back” both equal “when will you get (or come) back”

12. “Is it have…?” means “does it have…?”

13. Very common in Facebook, “thanks for add me”

14. “These stuff” instead of “this stuff”, similarly, “these kind of people are annoying”

15. You can forget about the difference between “specially” and “especially”

16. Angel and angle are used interchangeably, that's your guardian angel in the picture above

17. We write is’nt not isn’t

18. A low is what you call a “law”, lows are there to make our life better (not)

19. Unlike the alot case, you’ll find words like “a bout”, “a gain” and so on.

20. We say “another things”, “another days” … instead of “other things” or “another thing”

21. Weird, wierd, wired, weired… all lead to the same thing

22. “Paolo Maldini you are rock”, personally I find him more R’n’B than rock but whatever

23. We replay a message or an email, and we reply a song because we like it so much

24. “You will loose your mind if you keep reading this list you looser”

25. “oh shoot, I should of turned left”

26. Whole, hole and hall are also interchangeable

27. “this is a good news”

28. Datas! Yes datas!

29. Informations too!

30. Mash potatoes, no you mash them

31. Girls wear “leggins” instead of leggings

32. But they don’t care because they have high “self-steam”

33. “Your self” instead of “yourself”, again, the more characters the better

Do I need to continue?

On a relevant subject, these things drive me crazy:


1. “She changed 360 degrees” what the hell people! If you turn 360 degrees then you’re back where you were!

2. An email is not a website!

3. “Almost exactly the same number” is it almost or is it exactly?

4. As once heard from a well-known Jordanian football commentator “al la3eb raqamoh taqreeban thamanyeh” (the player’s number is almost 8) is it 8.2? Or is it 7.9?

5. A photocopy machine does not print documents; just like a printer doesn't copy papers

6. A cube is not a square, a sphere is not a circle and so on

7. It’s Barça (pronounced Barsa), not barsha! Just say Barshalona as it is called in Arabic, and by the way in Castilian Spanish it is pronounced Barthelona, like someone with a lisp would read an s

8. While we’re on the subject, it is AC Milan not EC Milan, can you say A?

9. Not all 4x4 cars are a Jeep! And they’re certainly not a “Jaib”

10. Where the hell did the W in BMW go?

11. Asses is the plural of ass, “to assess” something is a whole different thing, unless you’re assessing asses

12. If the 2 in net and text lingo is used instead of “to”, then why would you write 2omorrow? What kind of abbreviation is that?

13. I will say this for the two hundred millionth time and I'm not even a doctor: an antibiotic won’t cure a virus, a flu is caused by a virus and you can take as many courses of antibiotics as you like, it’s not going away unless it decides to. Also, when you feel like you’re coming down with something, those black and red capsules are most likely not the answer to your problem!!! And don't say "eza ma nefe3 ma bedorr" because it does

14. If it ain’t a question, don’t use a question mark!!!

15. To call someone and hang up before they answer (ya3ni te3mallo missed call) you need to have as much credit in your account balance as you need to actually make a call! If you don’t have enough to make a one minute call, you definitely don’t have enough to make a missed call! (unless of course you're with Umniah)

16. If you’re using MS Office Word and you need to put what you wrote in two columns, writing the first sentence and then typing space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space space and then the next sentence is not the way to do it

17. Also, you don’t draw rectangles and use a straight line to divide them to make a table, yes I’ve seen that

18. No I can’t edit the writing in a table if it’s been saved as an image

19. Shaving hair will not make you hairy if you’re not already! New hair follicles will not be created just because you used a razor to cut the hairs that are already there, similarly, by pulling out a grey hair you will not get 5 grey hairs in the same place! If this were true, people with very thin hair should pull it all out, then they’ll have hair that is 5 times thicker!

20. Eating lots of sugar will not give you diabetes! No it won’t. No it won’t.

Ok you’re probably board now. Have a nice rest of the day the whether is lovely today

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

I go nuts when I read Am.. "am very bored!!"

you forgot to mention the vowel-less words. what's up with that?

and easy people on the exclamation mark.. seriously there should be a LOW against abusive use of !!!!!

nice post :)

Anonymous said...

Sorry but this is such a shallow post

you're like: oh am good in english lets make fun of those who are not

this is nothing but a show off

question marks to bug you off???????

Ruba said...

luffly?????

zuhair said...

hmmm yasity 2mnee7 2li 2mne7ki English men 2asaso.. its not our nor ur language so i don't know why u bother feeling bad))
i say .. if u can understand me then its good enough ..cos i don't think that we will take say2at for having bad grammar:)
ma3lesh bas 7abet ankosh mo5aty :P))
mni 2o 3alay law 2li odami be3rafesh y7ki shi wo2albo tayeb bashofo the best human on earth :)

Anonymous said...

Well hello there fellow grammar nazi :D How about we start a twitter campaign to free spell check every tweet with a reply and a hashtag #GrammarNazi, until we get rid of this habit once and for all.

Aaaaaaaalllllsoooooo yooooooouuuuu forgooooottttttt peoooooplllllle whoooo dooooo thiiiissssssss lol

Anonymous said...

English is not our mother language. Therefore, we are allowed to make mistakes as much as we want.
Further, as long as I get the idea of what he/she is saying, then I don’t believe that there is a problem at all.
Other than Indians and Lebanese, we speak relatively good English as a foreign language. You should go to Italy, France, Greece and Turkey to see what kind of English they know !

Rand said...

blabbrgirl, welcome to my blog first of all, and thank you! i hate it when they go like!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous, i'm not saying "am good in English" i'm saying "I'm good in English" what my post is shallow but u writing question marks to "bug me off" isn't?

Ruba, u get me, that's why I luff u!

Zuhair, don't get me wrong, I didn't imply in any way that people who make mistakes are bad people! my whole point is, if you're an Arab, talking to another Arab, why use English in the first place if you can't speak it well? ma 7ada jaber 7ada ye7ki English as far as i know. If you're an Arab talking to someone who doesn't speak Arabic well then getting them to understand is good enough.

seleucid, do u want us to get kicked out of every single society? look how mad people are because of this post :) as tempting as your idea sounds, i'm scared of the consequences!

Anonymous #2 who said we weren't allowed? I already explained my original point

Angela said...

Nice post and interesting discussion. To some extent Anonymous of 19.19 is right, in Italy, France, or Spain the English language is not very much learnt. Is it due to people's laziness or a wrong education system? Maybe both. True is, though, that English-speaking holidaymakers who demand the natives to speak their language without showing the least effort to even babble something in Italian or French, are not quite appreciated, especially in France, where people are still anachronistically proud of their "grandeur".
I went to Spain with a friend of mine from the States and her total refusing to say some words in Spanish (combined with her American accent!) didn't quite help her endeavours to sort out some stuff at the local post office.
I know that learning English is not an option anymore, but why make the English so lazy when they can learn something new? :-P

Anonymous said...

regarding number 7, were you somewhere in the racks when i was shopping with my daughters the other day? we saw some football shirts for Barcelona and I loudly refused to buy it because my ears would hurt to hear anyone comment on Barshalona. ;)

number 10, i once bought my husband a birthday card that said on the front: For your birthday, I got you a BMW. Inside the letter W formed from a bunch of turds. Sick, twisted, but exactly number 10 on your list.

Lists over ten overwhelm me! I can see where anonymous is coming from somewhat but at the same time I think that pointing it out humorously makes people see the error of their ways and remind them to change next time they say whatever it is they have been saying wrong.

Rand, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to do the same thing but about us Americans who murder the Arabic language without knowing any better.

And yet another post, educate me, us, them on this language of Arabish and how to read it! i cannot for the life of me figure out all the numbers in place of the letters. i know they are substitutions but i can't tell what sound it is supposed to be! somehow kinzi has mastered it but i have yet to learn!

Rand said...

Angela, I wish all Arabs would be proud of their own language, it is good to learn other languages, it is said that Prophet Muhammad PBUH encouraged people to do so! but what i'm saying is why speak English in the first place when you don't really have to? Arabs are speaking English among each other and not even doing it right, I speak Italian, some Spanish, I'd love to learn other languages but i'm not planning on using them when speaking to my family and friends, maybe some words for fun but why bother? i wouldn't say I'd mind speaking to a tourist who doesn't know a single Arabic word but I'd certainly appreciate it so much if they tried to say some words, I find it really sweet

joyce I'm on it! I'll do the second post but I can't do anything about the first mission because to make fun of you i have to actually listen to you speak :P no I'm just kidding but seriously, I don't spend time with any American murderers of the Arabic language unfortunately

Anonymous said...

BTW:

-you wrote "weather" as "whether",

-you used ain’t and refuse to say "am a..." there both used in spoken language

I'll be checking your other posts for terrible mistakes like this, they make me so angry,

arrrrgggh??????!!!!

Rand said...

I was being sarcastic when I wrote whether and board that way, can't u see i wrote them in italics?
be my guest u can check everything u want to check, wow u'r really bitter aren't ya?

sheeshany said...

Wait! I can`t stop laughing :D.
Realistic list I must say, and sadly some commentatrz missed the point in my view.
Whenever I see lists like these, my eyes fish for # 19 (I have issues with it, yes :P), and it cracked me to read it.

Regarding the 360 degrees; it`s something I nag about alwAys! You can`t have a full circle change :).

*I think you are going to grow the hate-list (u don`t have 1? well, congrats, u just initiated 1)

** I should be careful while writing here from now on, lol.

Whisper said...

Thankx Rand :)

but what is your boint??
What is the broblem??? :D
Is it have to be right :D
LOOOOOL

zuhair said...

okay 2ktana3et ... fe3lan leash ye7ko ma3 ba3ad bel 3anjalezy 2za ya3ni home mesh kol hal2ad fee ..
mantek mantek mantek :)
sometimes being nerd is a cool thing ))

Anonymous said...

mahahahahahahahaha she has high self-steam....classic

Rand said...

Haitham wait, which 19 is that? la2enno fi tenten :D glad u like it

Whisper it's pecause I want beoble to learn good English :D lol jad da7aktini

Zuhair shayef hek ma a7sanak? sa7ee7 lesh el blog ta3ak reje3 sakkar?

malicious delicious :) see why I missed your comments?

M said...

I think I just found my absolute favorite post of all times.

Thank you for making my morning. :D

Joe said...

I should introduce you to my friend, we call her the English Grammar, spelling and typos Nazi!! :P

Rand said...

M, you are very welcome

Joe, please do :) we'll have a spell check party

Unknown said...

Have you noticed that many Arabs like to use the term, 'too much' to mean a lot or very. Too much has a negative connotation. You can't say, "I like cats too much." Then liking cats is a bad thing. Ha.

Rand said...

yeah some people think it's like saying "so much" if you like something "too much" then maybe you should stop!
hey you are too nice to point that out :P

5hadz said...

I <3 this post. I now have a reason to live.

Anonymous said...

I see where you are coming from, I dont need to be excellent in English but at the same time there is no harm in updating my grammer and vocab every now and then.. I do have a lot of grammatical mistakes and I love it when people correct me so I would learn how to write it or say it the next time.. there is nothing wrong with that..
I know an old military guy who speaks english fluently, his B is a B and his P is a P but he just doesnt have an accent.. neither american nor british..when I asked him about it he said English is my second language, I dont need to have an accent, but when I do use it especially with foreiners I need to have excellent grammer and vocab.. If you learn something why not learn it properly.. I really respected him for that..

Salma said...

I could not stop laughing. Sadly, even with a list this long - there is still more.

Let me introduce you to two of the most common (languages): Syrian English, and Emirate-y English.

Unknown said...

Hahaha! You, my friend, are friggin' hilarious!! Reading your blog has been an absolute pleasure! Chicks with healthy senses of humor kick arse. Thanks for making me day Rand.

Rand said...

I love it when people comment on old posts! :D

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