English has always borne the brunt of ire of lot many as far as the pronunciation goes.The simplest and most cliched instance is the difference between TO,DO and GO.It's very interesting to find the contrasting phonetics of the alpahabets "C" and "K".For instance "CHARLATAN" is pronounced as "SHAR luh tun" which means a fraud or a conman and "CHAGRIN" which means humiliation or disappointment whereas "CHASM" is pronounced as "KAZ um" which means a large gaping hole or gorge.Another interesting pair is "CHICANERY".......pronounced as "SHI kuh nery" which means trickery and again there is another word starting with "CH" but pronounced differently and that is "CHARISMA"...pronounced as "KUH riz muh" which define
s magical and attracting ability of someone.
So that is the reason English has received the high brow from one and many for not being everyone's ballgame.But if you try to learn words the fun way and find these fine nuances then i am sure English becomes far more interesting.
Will keep you posted on other phonetics as well!
Phonetics of "Ch"
IN CONUNDRUM EVEN AFTER ENGINEERING?
Once upon a time, the parents of a certain family were very worried about their only son’s future. Their son was almost on the verge of completing his engineering and they were paranoid about what lay ahead. The boy on the other hand was crumbling under the gargantuan expectations of his parents. The trouble wasn’t as simple as it appeared. The father wanted his son to study further and then get a job with a fat salary package,. The million dollar question was what course would actually satisfy the aforementioned conditions.
The mother being a superstitious lady called the family priest (read palmist/ fortune teller) .Fortunately the priest wasn’t a British era man, he was in fact aware of all the alternate career options, which could get the boy achieve a two storied bungalow and a shiny car in a jiffy. The priest suggested MBA- as a career option.
“Why MBA?” the ignorant mother asked. The priest then told her all about “THE MOST LUCRATIVE CAREER”.
Then the old routine of a family’s round table conference begins.........
Agenda of the meeting: To convince everyone around that MBA is the ultimate career option.
With that the meeting starts. WHY MBA? The presenter in the meeting believed in objectivity...
MBA is the quickest way to gain a remarkable status in the society.
One doesn’t need 20 years of experience to reach the top managerial level of an organization, 10 times less which is only 2 years of MBA and one can be one of the top managers.
When any topper engineer gets a good campus placement and goes to work in a good company, he could come across most of his bosses (the top guys of the company) have the most coveted degree- no prizes for guessing the right answer this time, it’s an MBA degree.
The mother almost had convinced the boy because he anyways was quite bored of all the technicalities pertaining to engineering and had been dreaming for a shift for quite a long time.
Resuming the meeting, the mother continued, “my son could be a CEO of a
Company in no time, if he does his MBA from a good B-school.”
The good part is MBA is so much in vogue. And you need not be the brain of the
Class to get through CAT (common admission test), the test which if one cracks would be definitely on his way to a good B-school. Only two skills are mandatory which with practice and perseverance can easily master.
(a) You got to make speed your slave.
(b) Logic should be your element.
If our son does MBA, sky would be his limit. He might even get a job abroad and
we could proudly say that “ hamara beta ab NRI ban gaya.”, says the mother. This was enough to convince the father.
Now the heavy mist of paranoia is cleared at least for the case of one family, and off goes the son of this certain family to get an MBA degree and to bring the world at his feet.
CET 2008 Activity schedule
Note : Due to unavoidable circumstances the schedule displayed above may change. The
revised schedule will be notified on website www.dte.org.in/mba. Schedule of further activities
will be notified later. Please refer the website or contact the Regional offices of Joint Director
of Technical Education or ARCs for further information.
Lending From Mythology!
Roman and Greek mythology has given us a lot of interesting words.Just came across this very interesting word that i would want to share with everybody-----"Deus ex machina(dey-uhs eks mah-kuh-nuh)" which refers to an artificial,unexpected and improbable character who provides an unexpected solution to a difficulty.
This word reminds me of a much hackneyed hindi term that is "Masiha"who is a saviour of mankind.I could also relate this to our much loved superheroes of the west or closer home,even SHAKTIMAAN!
Keep watching this space for a lot more interesting words borrowed from mythology!
WORDS ORIGIN WEEK
Career launcher celebrates its own WORDS ORIGIN Week.
Mere mugging of words cannot guarantee retention, instead if we associate words with origins (interesting ones of course, in the form of stories) words get notched in our brains quickly and we tend to remember them better.
Few words with interesting origins
Bedlam: Mayhem/ a scene of wild uproar and confusion
Origin: A popular name for the hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, which served as a lunatic asylum.
Adonis (n): A very handsome young name.
Origin: A young man slain by a wild boar but permitted by Zeus to pass 4 months every year in the lower world with PERSEPHONE in the winters and summers with APHRODITE(Goddess of Love).(LUCKY GUY)
Keep watching this space for more words with more interesting origins.