Pitfalls of Hindi, cont'd

Recently Ramesh advised me never to say, "Chor do," which means "leave it," or "never mind," or "forget it." He said that because the 'r' is retroflex, halfway between 'r' and 'd', and as I said it, it came out (apparently) sounding like "chod do," which means "f--- me."

So I felt some schadenfreude today, reading The Hindu, a newspaper written in English mainly by Tamil, not Hindi speakers:

Vikings unplugged: A tete-a-tete with Neeraj Shridhar on `Chod do aanchal', his foray into Bollywood and more

In the old Hindi film song "Chor do aanchal," the singer sings coquettishly, "Let go of my aanchal [the part of the sari which hangs over the wearer's shoulder]." Written this way it means, of course, "F--- my aanchal."

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