Collage of faux pas

Collection of real-life funny anecdotes & atrocious name boards across the length and breadth of the nation!

Towards the end of the last century, I was a young lecturer and my college had the tradition of the general assembly at the quadrangle of all the courses, once a week on Monday. The college also housed the girls’ hostel inside the campus on the second floor, which overlooked the weekly meeting venue.

One day, a few girls from the hostel had not yet come down for the meeting. The chairperson sent a few girl students standing in the assembly line to bring down the hostel girls. A few minutes passed, a voice boomed over the speaker: “Call girls, come down!” This was meant to tell the girls who had gone to fetch the hostel girls to come down. The 600-plus students and teachers burst out laughing at the gathering.

It was a sunny afternoon in school and since it was too hot to play outside, the physical education teacher was engaging us indoors, when he remarked: "Open the window, let the air force come in."

Our annual practical exam was in progress, our teacher was engaged in an animated conversation with the external examiner in our lab, I overheard him say: "I have two daughters, both are girls."

At a saloon, the board declared: Fachial, Messes and Childrun cutting don here. Tailor’s board was very confident: Speclist in Alteration of Ladies and Gents. Our neighbourhood momos shop had this signboard: Veg Moms & Cheken Moms. The laundry shop had this board: Cloth Dricline at Resnable Rate. Near the courthouse the small shops’ board read: Votar Card & Marig Satifiket done here. This signage had some genuineness in it: Genuine Fake Watches.

On an epic board on the highway, a dog breeder had put up an innocent signage: "We sell dog children, both boys and girls." Well, this board at least did not have any spelling error.

These just don’t happen to common people, but also to large corporations. A large company which has the word “Protein” was putting up their massive neon name board next to our home. Looking at the board, I knew something was not right, as I was trying to figure it out, my mom, a teacher for four decades pointed out the word was misspelt as “Protien”. The supervisor thanked us for pointing out the same. They worked overnight to change it, before its inauguration the next day.

The last one is the icing on the cake. In my various travels across India, I saw this big bold board in a liquor shop, next to a bottle of beer: “Child Bear”. Seriously?