Here's the puzzle. The poster in the photo refers to something called an "Aedikod". What on earth is that? I think I know the answer! (Hint: the poster also refers to "Belause", which I think means "Blouse".)
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Aedikod
Let's lighten things up on this blog! I'm attaching a photo I took some months ago at the TIFR Housing Complex.
Here's the puzzle. The poster in the photo refers to something called an "Aedikod". What on earth is that? I think I know the answer! (Hint: the poster also refers to "Belause", which I think means "Blouse".)
Here's the puzzle. The poster in the photo refers to something called an "Aedikod". What on earth is that? I think I know the answer! (Hint: the poster also refers to "Belause", which I think means "Blouse".)
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11 comments:
Petticoat?
That was my guess too. Perhaps the original writer wrote "Baedikod" and the B got transmogrified into an 8?
Abi and Rahul S. will have to share the cigar (or coconut) for the winning entry... And an extra cigar to Rahul - I had failed to notice the "8", but indeed as he says, it has to be the missing "B".
Someone obviously tried to spell out a word they had only heard but never seen in print. I find it particularly neat that he stumbled on the compound vowel "ae", which - depending on whether the letters are touching or not - is a grapheme or a digraph. Loads of information on the grapheme "ae" (I couldn't figure out how to type the compound letter here) can be found here.
This may be of interest. I agree with the guy's message but it's all pretty funny anyway.
We were always taught that "ae" was a diphthong in school. Like so many other things, it's turned out to be a different animal altogether - a grapheme or a digraph.
About Rahul S's link, I like his 'Fried Crap'. Wouldn't mind serving it to some people I know....
some more trivia
The ligature AE diphthong: Æ
written as
ampersand A E lig ; (no spaces)
Ditto for lower case using ae: æ
One can also use the unicode form but its easier to remember the above than a bunch of numbers.
Rahul B - as you yourself pointed out, that's not a diphthong. A diphthong is two successive, usually smoothly connected vowel sounds (as in "loud", "cooperate"). Ae (as in aether, encyclopaedia etc) does not qualify.
Let us marvel at the depth of understanding that exists!! Aedikod indeed.
Once upon a time a letter reached "Tiffen College, Enbesti Road, Delhi". The postman knocked on the correct door anyway!! In the USA I hear a single transposed digit will take your letter from California to Carolina.
Patting myself on the back for concluding that 'aedikod' was 'petticoat' I then went to everyone's comments and learned that I was late to the party! So to console myself I thought I should research the word, and learned that not at all surprisingly it derives from the old French for little coat.
What I have been unable to discover is just how (and why) the word shifted from describing a man's upper body garment (variously described as being worn over a shirt, or under armour) to a woman's lower body one, and an undergarment at that. It does seem to have happened in the Middle Ages (the fifteenth century?) and probably in Middle Europe, since it also seems to be the same in French and in German (the low countries and Scandinavia call a 'petticoat' more precisely an 'underskirt').
Interesting, though, that the Loknath Saree Centre felt that their wares would be more properly described by these clearly foreign words. Are there no Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati terms? Is a ghagra too different a garment for the word to describe an under-the-sari-garment? Does the lack of a suitable word in the vernacular mean that what's worn under the sari tdoay is a modern invention? But then how did medieval Indian women conveniently manage the sari sans petticoat, if today it's considered indispensable?
Ah, such puzzles.
It is simply a hyper-typo. Also there is NO numeral 8, it is the ampersand, look closely at the intersections in the lower loop. So it should have read "Top BELAUSE & PEDIKOD" but with the hyper-typo ( typo coupled with a phonetic-only spelling ), it became AEDIKOD when the wrong stencil was grabbed. The impoverished writer said "oh well" and submitted his work anyway, which went up as shown. Better than having a correction blob -- no whiteout was available I am sure.
That's Top Belause & Aedikod, like Amok says..
No other mistakes except the creatively spelt 'Handlum'. Makes you wonder if no one else was selling Top Belause & Aedikods, to borrow the right spellings from. Could have changed Loknath's fortunes if he'd looked up a dictionary instead of beng on 'Sale Sale Sale', no spellos in which suggests robust usage everywhere..
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