Extolling what he called the 'splendidly unstoppable' South Asian contributions in Britain, Prince Charles, the heir apparent to the British crown, told a dinner thrown for 200 Asian guests at Windsor Castle that the word 'chuddie' - Punjabi word for underwear - is here to stay in the English language.
'I must say I am constantly struck by the fact the Britons of every origin in fact share more in common than they think,' Charles said in his speech to the celebrity guests at the gala dinner. 'The sharing of language is a further case in point. The most well-known examples are probably 'bungalow', 'verandah' and, indeed, 'shampoo'. And more recently, 'chuddies' seemed to have crept into the English language - if that is the correct way to put it,' he told guests who included actor-couple Sanjeev Bhaskar and Meera Syal, cricketer Saj Mahmood, author Vikram Seth and actor Art Malik.
A day after Hindus anointed Prime Minister Gordon Brown as Govardhan Brown on Diwali at the House of Commons, Charles' mention of 'chuddies' at Windsor Castle - his mother Elizabeth II's 900-year-old official residence - risked lowering the tone of celebrations a bit. But it was an occasion for humour and the British royal made his risque reference fully aware that it was Bhaskar and Syal, the creators of the BBC comedy series Goodness Gracious Me, who first put the word 'chuddie' in the lexicon of the evolving English language. The word became famous after Bhaskar and Syal coined the phrase 'kiss my chuddies' in their serial. And in 2005, it was officially entered into the Collins English Dictionary.
It’s time once again to play What Did That Writer Mean? Elizabeth Kolbert
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