Friday 27 August 2010

They’re trying to translate the doosra

Into French. And I’m totally against it.


If you had a half decent knowledge of French, you wouldn’t ask me why. I can only see it being translated into something like ‘la deuxette’ or something. Now can you even pronounce that correctly? I can’t. And I don’t even want to be reminded of my French classes; speaking French is like trying to crack nuts with your mouth and the ‘r’ plays havoc with your throat. Also, how many French words don’t we have in the English language? Pirouette, tete-a-tete and stuff...so French folks, just try to speak it. It’s not English, it’s Urdu, but since it’s part of the Cricket language, you have to learn to. Sorry, no other way out.


Also, many words often lose their value in a context when translated. If you ever try to say ‘shit’ in Dutch, people will give you a disgusting look and point to the toilet. The doosra in another language would simply mean ‘the second one’. How boring. Doosra is actually such a cool word, not only because it’s part of the cricket language, but because it alludes to a creep trying to poke his nose in your affairs. The doosra is just wrapped in mystery and secrecy and you wouldn’t want to change that. It’s like being a word Nazi otherwise.


There are plenty of other savvy words in cricket’s lexicon too of course, but I don’t need to tell that. Just have a look at the countless cricket blog names around.


So I’m ending now and just have tried to be informative for once. Or so do I think, at least. And could someone tell me what the heck a ‘mullygrubber’ is?


And these word programs are total suckers. They’ve been underlining all the cricket words in red while writing this, thus having an apathy for the cricket language. Philistines.

7 comments:

Suhas said...

LOL, can only imagine the bewilderment at having to translate "googly", "fine leg" and "bowling a maiden over", et al. Though why they need to make the french connection is beyond me.

This reminds me of something I read about radio coverage in India back in the 50's and 60's. Apparently, commentators couldn't come up with a Hindi equivalent for the verb "bowl". They were too proud to use the English expression, and the closest word they came up with literally means "throw".

Anonymous said...

I love the word "doosra"! It rolls so nicely off the tongue.

And isn't mullygrubber somet type of dodgy bowling? How it came to be called "mullygrubber" is beyond me though.

sunny said...

They might be trying to make the French connection because French people have got a terrible accent when it comes to speaking other languages. ;)
Funny incident there which I think just suggests that these cricketing words are universal and count for all nations that play it-no need to translate them.

sunny said...

It only rolls nicely of the tongue if you speak it the correct way Sid, 'doosra' not the 'dusra'. The Urdu way you know, not the English one. ;)

Anonymous said...

Sunny, I can honestly say I have never heard any Englishman or Australian say "dusra"!

sunny said...

No, I didn't mean it that way...gah..how do I explain this.
Like in the typical Urdu style, without the English accent.

Anonymous said...

Well, I certainly don't speak it in the "Urdu" style and yet:

"I love the word "doosra"! It rolls so nicely off the tongue."