PDNS - Pet Dog Naming Syndrome
I was watching this movie "Sathi Leelavathi" during the weekend. The pet dog in the movie is called "Sabapathy", it suddenly enlightened me of the fact that pet dogs in India are normally not given local names. All those pet dogs that I've come across are christened only christian names(foreign names to be politically correct or rather english names). It's always the tommy, jimmy, rosy, pinky, browny .. and a never ending list of foreign names. Why a foreign name ? is there a dearth of local names? simply can't understand the reason behind this nomenclature.
BTW, are the dogs english..? what's the sanctity behind attaching an english name even though nobody in the house even utters a single word in english... of course, of late I am seeing even the lower middle and lower class (no offense, meant) folks resorting to address their parents as "mummy" and "daddy", so it's no suprise ! The stricking fact is that this happens only with pet dogs and to some extent cats. Why this hypocrisy ?
Our epics and history in general does not describe anything like a pet dog, it has always been peacocks and parots and pigeons; plus, the other domesticated animals like pigs, cows, goats or cattle in general. The other domesticated animals are rather lucky for they are normally addressed using indian names; cows are generally "kalyani"s, "meenakshi"s etc. the bulls are generally "sorimuthi"s, "pakiri"s etc. goats, "vellaiamma" and so on.
The americans certainly have run out of names, there would atleast be two places with the same name in the US, over and above this they borrow names from India and Europe, but what's wrong with us ?
An outright misnomer,president Bush's pet cat's name is "India" i am not sure if it was meant to condescend indians or was an attempt to express his camaraderie for India.
If i ever get a pet dog I will give it a local name... I would perhaps call it "america" :-)
I was watching this movie "Sathi Leelavathi" during the weekend. The pet dog in the movie is called "Sabapathy", it suddenly enlightened me of the fact that pet dogs in India are normally not given local names. All those pet dogs that I've come across are christened only christian names(foreign names to be politically correct or rather english names). It's always the tommy, jimmy, rosy, pinky, browny .. and a never ending list of foreign names. Why a foreign name ? is there a dearth of local names? simply can't understand the reason behind this nomenclature.
BTW, are the dogs english..? what's the sanctity behind attaching an english name even though nobody in the house even utters a single word in english... of course, of late I am seeing even the lower middle and lower class (no offense, meant) folks resorting to address their parents as "mummy" and "daddy", so it's no suprise ! The stricking fact is that this happens only with pet dogs and to some extent cats. Why this hypocrisy ?
Our epics and history in general does not describe anything like a pet dog, it has always been peacocks and parots and pigeons; plus, the other domesticated animals like pigs, cows, goats or cattle in general. The other domesticated animals are rather lucky for they are normally addressed using indian names; cows are generally "kalyani"s, "meenakshi"s etc. the bulls are generally "sorimuthi"s, "pakiri"s etc. goats, "vellaiamma" and so on.
The americans certainly have run out of names, there would atleast be two places with the same name in the US, over and above this they borrow names from India and Europe, but what's wrong with us ?
An outright misnomer,president Bush's pet cat's name is "India" i am not sure if it was meant to condescend indians or was an attempt to express his camaraderie for India.
If i ever get a pet dog I will give it a local name... I would perhaps call it "america" :-)
2 Comments:
You get your priorities straight.. Is it becoming President of India or is it naming your pet 'America'. Or is it both ? ;)
By
Just Me, at 5:01 am, June 22, 2004
If I were to become the president I would be forced to lecture the school kids to Dream ! I certainly wouldn't want to do that. All the kids have started sleeping in class rooms and are blaming it on the President :-)
By
Anonymous, at 6:46 am, June 24, 2004
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