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Friday, March 17, 2006

# Posted 4:12 PM by Patrick Belton  

MORE ST PATRICK'S OWN MAILBAG:
It's interesting that the Pakistani national pudding is called barfy. In Uzbekistan, an ubiquitous washing detergent is an Iranian import named "Barf." Curiously, the motto of the detergent is written in the box in English. It says: "White as snow, with Barf."
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Comments:
A fine motto--"Barf" is the Persian word for snow. One of the first Persian words English-speaking students of the language remember, and the last one they forget.
 
A scurrilous attack. The word, in both the Iranian detergent and the Indian delicacy contexts, is actually pronounced along the lines of "burfi," and not "bArfi." Though Alfred's comment above is a nice caricature of how Ahglo-American students often botch the pronunciation of any language from east of the Urals. That said, I wish I had an Irish accent instead of a curious Indo-American amalgam.
 
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