Your Presents Will Be Appreciated!

Your Presents Will Be Appreciated!

By

Gyan C. A. Fernando

Illustrated by N. Senthilkumaran

There is many a slip….

There is no doubt that life in Sri Lanka revolves around Births, Weddings and Funerals. The main box office puller out of the three however, is weddings.

I think I have already expressed my cynical views about weddings, elsewhere, but I think I did forget to tell you about wedding invitations, or “invites” to use the Sri Lankan colloquial, which of course is the misuse of a verb as a noun.

What with so many nephews and nieces of marriageable age lurking around, I am now an expert on how to draft wedding invitations. My favourite niece Samanmalee (“Sam” 35+, loud-mouthed, still single) has provided us enough entertainment over the years by getting engaged many more times than I can care to remember!

If there is an impending wedding in our extended families, there always are, and invitations are to be drafted or proofread, my services are generally called for. That is as long as I solemnly promise not to introduce craziness into the invitations, ‘till death do us part. (there is more!)

I would now like to guide you through the standard pitfalls in drafting wedding “invites” as far as spelling goes.

Your Presents

The classic wedding invitation howlers are of course inadvertent. That is what makes one cringe or bury one’s head in the sand.

This has a lot to do with the vagaries of the English language in which one finds similar sounding words with entirely different meanings. They are called Homophones.  Spellcheck won’t help! In fact, depending on Spellcheck can make matters worse.

Take for instance, Presents and Presence. Quite often you come across the gem: “Your Presents Will Be Most Appreciated”. Whoops-a-Daisy!

It could be a Freudian slip-of-the-brain. After all, weddings are largely about presents, isn’t it?

Horse and Carriage

Then there is Bridal and Bridle. As in Horse. Yes of course, some poor grooms do end up with a Bridle around their necks!

Christian weddings are noted for Altar and Alter. It is usually too late to Alter anything now, dear! You should have thought of that before you got engaged! I suppose you can still Alter the wedding dress even at this very late stage.

Then there are the common spelling mistakes and typos.

The Broom …er… I mean the Groom often ends up doing domestic duties like sweeping the house. So I suppose it is ok to call him the Broom, especially if he hasn’t got much personality or sex appeal. Sam would endorse that.

Talking about Altar and Alter, the Poruwa Ceremony sometimes appears as Boruwa Ceremony.  Boruwa being a lie or an untruth in Sinhala, it is no doubt a reflection on the Broken Promises that come with all marriages!

Exchanging Wows!

Another classic is the Ceremoney. Sure, it does cost a lot of money. You should have known that when you got engaged! The same applies to Matrimoney.

Part of this problem is the use of unfamiliar words; the sort of words that you do not use every day, like Solemnise, as in The Wedding will be Solemnised by, which often ends up as Solomonise, Solomon being a Biblical king generally associated with dividing up infants. Not a very nice thing to do at a marriage.

Do watch out for the Auspicious Marriage which can mysteriously change into Suspicious Marriage. Nasty, vindictive, future mothers-in-law have been known to make this switch deliberately!

Also watch out for the word United as in “United in Holy Matrimony”. United is an anagram of Untied, I said Untied, and typesetters can be clumsy! Sometimes deliberately.

Exchanging Vows can appear as Exchanging Wows which is not a bad mistake, especially if the two of you have had a few Wows between yourselves or with previous partners without your parents’ knowledge, but Exchanging Rows isn’t a good start at all in married life. That usually leads on to Exchanging Blows, as the Police refer to it!

He Married Gold

My Indian friend Anil got married a long time ago to a nice girl called Marigold who, for perverse reasons of her own, always spelt her name as Marygold. The printers got confused and her name appeared as MarryGold on the invitations. They both got funny looks from the guests.

Anil assures me that he only got a basic dowry. He never married gold! They are both still married, to each other.

This one is anecdotal: There was a girl called Anne something-or-the-other who made the mistake of phoning the newspaper classified ads. She emphasised that her name Anne was spelt as “Anne with an E”. Out came the announcement and you guessed it: It said Ann Withaney!

Sam and her Near-Miss Matrimoneys

As I said before, over the years, Sam my niece and her marriage related shenanigans have provided me with a lot of food for thought and, more importantly, a lot of publishable material.

At an early stage in her career as a potential bride, when she was about to be seriously pushed against her wishes into an arranged marriage; instead of going on a hunger strike or threatening self-immolation, she simply devised her own crazy wedding invitation to make a point.

It started off in a conventional manner but:

 Mr & Mrs So ‘n’ So and Mr & Mrs Him and Her

Request your presence

At

The wedding of

 Their daughter Samanmalee to Some Unknown Guy!

Which will take place

Against Samanmalee’s wishes…..

That was rather vicious but I think her parents and his parents got the message! Result: No wedding bells!

Sam has nearly walked up to the Alter or to the Boruwa many times. On two occasions she backed out two and a half hours and three hours before the Ceremoney was to start and the marriage Solomonised.

One complaint she always had was that she didn’t think much of the Brooms. She is rather fussy about that but says that she doesn’t want to Exchange Rows in later life.

I totally agree with that. I have had a few Vows in my time, with the ex-Missus, before she became the ex.

Anyway, if Sam ever gets married I will definitely attend her Weeding. 

I am always ready to Present myself with my Presence.

 First published in the Sunday Times of Sri Lanka on the 6th of January 2013

Copyright: Gyan C A Fernando 2012