Monday, November 19, 2012

A Word on Spelling


There are so many fascinating examples of the Egyptians trying hard to connect with the travelling public, particularly the English, it seems. In tourist areas, there are lots of English signs along with their Arabic counterparts. Most activities will have some handout or other written in English (and several other languages, I suspect). Almost all of this will be misspelled to a greater or lesser extent.
Some recent examples from the buffet include “Greak Rice” and “Frite Rice”. The city of Luxor was spelled “Luoxr” on a street sight I saw on one coach ride. On the handout from the perfume shop today they had “ariomatic” oils.
Those of you who know me well will know that I’m just itching to correct all these errors. I am, however, refraining from doing so because I don’t want to appear rude and boorish. (How about that! You have to leave the country with me to experience me not being rude and boorish!) And besides, to whom does one complain about misspelled street signs in Egypt? It’s not really the top of the government’s priority list at present.

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