Friday, October 13, 2006

A phone under conversation

Since quite a while now, when you call a local BSNL phone line in Bangalore which is busy, you get messages in Hindi, Kannada and in English saying the line's busy. Well, the exact wording of the message in English is "The phone number you have dialed is under conversation".

Whoever came up with such a creative construction: "is under conversation"? This is not even a direct translation of the Kannada message, which says "Neevu kare maadiro dooravaani sankhyeyu sambhashaneyalli nirata vaagide" - which could have been translated as "The phone number you have dialed has a conversation in progress". Perhaps the creator of this message had intended "is undergoing a conversation"? Even that doesn't sound right.

The only similar construction in English that immediately comes to my mind is "is under duress". Ofcourse, one can have constructions like "is under construction" - but I like duress better. Being "under conversation" sounds labourious, stressful. It almost like saying, look buddy, this number is deeply immersed under a heavy conversation, so stop bugging us.

Ok, I'm no William Safire, so I'll stop my analysis here :)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well dude, at least it is not "above conversation" :-), which btw, would a nice pejorative equivalent if you tried calling in from a different operator !

Here's my take on the etymological origins - BSNL phones used to be "under repair" - or the diplomatic version would probably have been "under maintenance" (which, in reality meant, they were under-maintained anyway), and would probably need an undertaker while the babus underwrite them off, all under duress from very understanding politicos. Understatement ?