Memes flood social media as Tamil Nadu changes English spellings of over 1000 places

While people welcomed the move, they questioned the timing of the announcement. Many criticised the government for prioritising the changing of names during the pandemic.

By: Trends Desk
New Delhi | June 11, 2020 02:42 PM IST

People largely remained confused over the phonetic makeover of the places and dubbed it over-complicated.

In a sudden move, Tamil Nadu government Wednesday issued a notification changing the English spellings of 1018 places in the state to match their pronunciations in Tamil. While the names of some places were reverted to their original Tamil names, others underwent a spelling change. Soon, the new names of the towns and cities started trending online.

While people welcomed the move, they questioned the timing of the announcement. Many criticised the government for prioritising the changing of names during the pandemic. Many also said that while the reverting to Tamil names was welcome, their complicated English spellings weren’t helping.

Many are now sharing hilarious memes and jokes about the changing of names. Here are some examples:

https://twitter.com/wittyshaman/status/1270968801614417926
https://twitter.com/TheAadarGuy/status/1270971217843875840

https://twitter.com/Justme36541234/status/1270969982055149568

https://twitter.com/SureshEav/status/1270792403893383168
https://twitter.com/jeno3107/status/1270973180140638208
https://twitter.com/iamtvk/status/1270990434290896898

A government release said that during the Tamil Nadu budget allocation session for 2018-2019, an announcement had been made about changing the names of places and towns in Tamil Nadu so that they have the same phonetics in English and Tamil. The revised names and spellings were finalised following deliberations by a committee appointed to oversee the changes.

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