Englindian

I noticed more about the difference in English words here in India. The other day, when I asked our maid lady to go shopping for us to buy some green peppers (among other stuff of course), she asked me whether I wanted the one in a container or in a bag. Hmmm, I never knew that the green peppers came in a container, so I told her that I don't need a bagful of green peppers but probably two or three individual ones. Then she asked me the same question saying "no maaaam, it comes in a bag or container. Which one do you want?"  So I said, "well, if you cannot find the individual peppers, you can get a bag full. But last time I went to the vegetable section of the store, they were selling the individual peppers."  I could tell that she was puzzled. She asked me "vegetable section?"  I had a left of green peppers in our frig, so I showed it to her finally. And, she said "Oh, you meant capsicums."  HA??? Yep, they call the green peppers capsicums here. Apparently she thought I was asking for some ground pepper. Ah, yeah, they do come in a bag or container. :)

At work, too, I noticed some strange expressions like "I will mark you." HA? You gonna mark me??  It meant "I will cc you". Goooood.... :-)  And when I asked where to meet in the office, the person told me "let's meet near the cabin."  Wow, I didn't know you had a cabin for the meetings in the office. But apparently it just meant an individual office room. Boy... It does get really confusing.

My hubby who started to call Indian English Englindian found this great site for other Indian-specific English words. I should go one by one and learn how to speak like an Indian!