Basta!

Some friends (Indian) tried making spaghetti last night. God alone knows what they ended up making, but it was different enough for their Italian roomies to say "Dont KILL Italian food!".

Reminds me of a pasta-making experiment from the Gurgaon days, when I happily added some indian spice (chaat masala probably) to standard arrabiata sauce. After eating which, J commented "This is not pasta, it's basta".

---

P.S.: basta! (rhymes with pasta) is Italian for 'enough!' ... somewhat like our Hindi 'bas!'

Question

Q: What connects a person from coastal Karnataka (India) and a person from Haute-Savoie (France)?

A: The way they say 'Yes'. Vay Vay*

:)

----
* Oui is almost pronounced as 'Vay' , or 'why' up in the Alps :)

Bad grammar in an Economist ad!

What is the world coming to?

When one of the world's most renowned publications (and personally, one's favourite for their sheer command of the written word) gets shoddy creative out the door, one can't help but wonder.

One used to collect their ads because of the beauty of the wordplay used therein... and now this!

Try spotting their mistake

(The ad is (c) The Economist , of course! )

Omphaloskepsis

Came across the word while whiling time at FreeRice.

Know what it means?

Clue: One of the tags of this post :)

Lost in translation

Claudio, telling someone (who had problems with their gas bill)... "Call up the Enel company, and ask them about your consummation".

Makes me wonder... How many such blunders have I made in the past months with my Italian?

I know what word I am taking to my next word-exchange session with him, certainly!

Word Exchange

Claudio, my ever smiling tutor, has decided to begin this word-exchange programme with me.

Basically, once every few days, we will teach each other one new word ... his forte is Italian, and mine is English, of course...

Good fun... considering today's impromptu session clearly didn't stop at dictionary-like explanations...

Given that our past chats have been known to morph into long discussions about everything from India's languages to Hannibal's conquests, this is something one is looking forward to!