What Is In A Name

My friend LEH, whose Tamil is very good, asked me what the word in Tamil for "Cake" was. I thought for sometime and I couldn't figure it out. I told her I had no idea and that I had never come across the Tamil word for cake. I added that perhaps it was better to use the English word itself "கேக்". She wasn't happy with my suggestion. She thought someone, an authority in Tamil, would have translated the word and she only had to find what the word was. And it was, as per her, imperative to use the appropriate Tamil word always.

I told her that there are plenty of words which are not there in the Tamil dictionary, and even if they were there, they are not known to most Tamil speaking people. I cited examples of such words: biscuit, coffee, cloud (as in internet) etc. And I suggested that we just use the English words in such cases. Matter of fact, such words don't exist in Hindi or Bengali etc either. I sought the help of other friends who are proficient in Hindi who agreed that they were not aware of those words in Hindi.

I told my friend that trying to find the right Tamil word for such nouns was a silly waste of time. And if some scholar were to coin words in the vernacular for such words, it was a colossal waste of time.

She was furious. She said the language (Tamil) had to keep up with the times and words which are now in common use in Tamil were once not there. It is our responsibility, as Tamilians, to keep the language current and to coin new words where necessary and inculcate the use of such words.

Hmmm. Maybe she has a point. So I tried my best. Here is my attempt below, though, slightly longish.

Cake = பெவாபிமூவிமு (abbreviation for பெண்மணிகளுக்கு வாழ்கையில் பிடித்த மூன்றே விஷயங்களில் முதன்மையானது - The other two being chocolate and ice-cream). For those of you who can't read Tamil, here is a rough translation: the first among the only three things in life that women like.

Hope I have made my friend happy. For her deep interest in knowing the Tamil word for Cake, I hereby recommend that she be known henceforth as CakeDG (I am loosely copying a theme from the Tamil movie Thillana Moganambal, where the heroine Mogana is given the title Thillana because of the extraordinary skill she displays in dancing to that Ragam).

Additional reading about my friend:
http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2013/09/speed-at-work.html