Strange little language quirk

nauru
Tue, 05 Dec 2006 06:56:27 +0000

Just out of curiosity,

Why do pakistani and indian people always say “give an exam”…


“give gre”
“give the SAT”
“give it again”

…whilst in the west they say “take an exam” “take the gre” “take the SAT”?

In pakistan and india would you “give a dump” or “take a dump”? I suppose the first one makes more sense in this case, but I’ll leave that for discussion. ;)
Also, why do so many people - westerners especially - misspell definitely as definately? The root word is finite, so I don’t see how anyone could routinely mix this up. Even spelling it phonetically, the word sounds like de-fi-nit-lee. I think it’s the one of the most common genuine spelling mistakes (as in not a typo) on CC; even people with good spelling in general are doing it.




And yeah yeah I know this seems like a topic that could easily fit in the cafe forum. But I think there are more pakistanis and indians in here who can answer the first two questions. So it is posted here. Thanks!