Canting

I have spent thirty six years in my institute. I joined as a student in 1975 and have remained here for all these years. One would expect I would know all places in campus. I thought I did, until I heard someone say, "Let us go to canting". The word 'canting' was uttered as spelled, the rest was said in vernacular. I was surprised. This was a new place. So I turned around to see where they went. The walked into the 'canteen', which was the local equivalent of a cafeteria.. I was surprised briefly. Then it dawned on me that the speaker did not know English, and did not know the word 'canteen'. He had first heard someone say it and heard it as 'canting', and had used it as such since then. Perhaps all his buddies used the same word for that place. I heard a few others say the some word subsequently. Perhaps they were his buddies. I suppose the owner of the canteen does not mind, because they are customers, and they pay for the food and beverages they consume there just like others who call the place 'canteen.' If the color of their money is the same, why criticize someone only because he pronounces the word wrongly? That reminded me of one of our patients. She had had a cesarean section in the past. Then she underwent a vaginal hysterectomy, and some complication when I was on vacation. When I came back, she said, "It is surprising I did not have any complication after a cesarean section and had a complication after a normal one." "What normal one?" I asked. "This operation" she said. "What do you mean by a normal operation? There is no normal operation." "Normal means from below, by vaginal route" she said. So she was using the word 'normal' from the term 'normal delivery' indicating 'vaginal route.' "It is not called normal" I said. "It is a vaginal operation and can have complications just as abdominal operations can have complications." The urge to use a foreign language without knowing it can be misleading, sometimes dangerous.