Misnamed, Misunderstood and Marinated in Irony

What am I even about? It's these National names! Those glittery, respectable tags we slap onto food, fashion, and foolishness to give things a passport they never asked for. But don’t be fooled. Behind every 'French fry' and 'Panama hat' lies a story.

Let me start with that beloved potato strip: the French fry. Eh.. French? About as French as a Punjabi wedding is quiet. The Belgians, bless their chilly rivers, were the ones who first deep-fried their fishless sorrows into golden joy back in the 1600s. When the rivers froze and the fish packed up for warmer waters, the Belgians looked at potatoes and said, “You’ll do.”

Meanwhile, the French, with their eternal flair for culinary colonisation, smirked, dipped them in ketchup, and took the credit. The world followed suit ..except India, of course, where we renamed them finger chips and doused them in spice until they cried for mercy.

And that French toast? Oh la la? Not quite. The Romans were soaking bread in eggy milk long before the Eiffel Tower had a blueprint. But then, in stumbles a New York innkeeper named Joseph French in the 1700s. He slaps his name on this soggy breakfast, forgets the apostrophe, and voilà .. another French invention is born without the French lifting a finger.

Meanwhile, poor Mr. French fades into breakfast oblivion, possibly still muttering, “It was my toast, dammn it!”

Ever seen the Bermuda shorts. Imagine a Bermudian tea shop owner hacking off trouser legs to keep his staff from melting in the tropical sun. The British Army, watching nearby in full colonial wool, thinks, “Capital idea, old boy!” And thus, Bermuda shorts were passed on to mankind: half-trousers, of full rebellion, and a fashion crime that refuses to die.

Speaking of fashion frauds, there’s the Panama hat. You’ve seen it perched on Sunil Gavaskar’s head or on Teddy Roosevelt supervising a canal like he’s judging a cricket match. But.. was it made in Panama? Nope, Not even close. Ecuador made the hat. The Americans saw Roosevelt wearing it near Panama and muttered, “Yep, close enough.” And like that, Ecuador was robbed blind without even a thank-you card.

We also have Venetian blinds, sounding all regal and Italian. But no, they’re as Venetian as butter chicken is British. These slatted window-wonders were likely born in Egypt or Persia. Venice, ever the enterprising trader, simply slapped on their label and ran off with the credit. Typical middleman behaviour, if you ask me.

So what does that mean to us Indians? If I told you, "Let’s simmer in the sweaty mystery of the Indian summer". You think it refers to the blistering heat of Delhi in May? Of course not. It’s actually about Native Americans .. the American Indians, mind you ..who enjoyed oddly warm weather in the fall. The British misunderstood (as they often do), and decided all Indian summers must be named after India. Very colonial eh?

Even the Dutch, poor chaps, got dragged through British idioms like worn-out socks. Double Dutch means gibberish, Dutch courage is gin-fuelled bravery, and going Dutch is when chivalry goes on strike and everyone pays their own bill. It’s less about the Dutch and more about the British being petty ... linguistically and otherwise.

Oh, and let’s not forget Chinese whispers. It's that old playground game where a sentence gets passed along until it becomes total nonsense. It’s rooted in the colonial belief that Chinese speech sounded like gibberish to the delicate Victorian ear. Lovely. Now we just call it “telephone” or “office gossip.”

And the list goes on really.. Mexican waves, Russian roulette, Siamese twins, Greek tragedies, Singapore Slings. It’s like the Olympics of misplaced credit. Every phrase sounds like a passport stamp with a fake visa.

But alas, dear reader, that’s a tale for another day. It’s only Wednesday .. hold tight. The weekend’s just a metaphorical Panama hat away.