-ji - Popular Conflation With The Letter 'G'

Popular Conflation With The Letter 'G'

Because English usage is widespread in the Indian subcontinent, the fact that the honorific Ji is pronounced identically to the letter G is used extensively in puns. This is sometimes deliberately exploited in consumer marketing, such as with the popular "Parle-G Biscuits" (where the 'G' ostensibly stands for Glucose), which sounds like Parle Ji Biscuits (or, the respected Parle biscuits). A pun popular with children in North India and Pakistan consists entirely of English letters - BBG T PO G, which is pronounced very similarly to Bibi-ji, Tea pi-o ji (meaning, respected ma'am, please have some tea). Some people also add an 'A' or 'O' to this pun as a prefix to give effect as if a person is calling the Bibi-ji, in a typical Indian friendly way used in regional slangs. Thus we may also write it as O BBG T PO G. One may even add the answer of Bibi-ji as PKIG, means I just had the tea.

It has been known for a Hindi name ending in -ji to be rendered in Sanskrit as -opadhyay (i.e. -a-upādhyāya with sandhi). "upādhyāya" is Sanskrit for "teacher".

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