By : Mariam Elmohandes
Words must be pronounced correctly and expressions told the right way, but when it comes to Egyptians (yalahwy), the sacredness of words and expressions doesn’t apply to them. Here are some of the words and expressions Egyptians have been saying wrong:
1- Cleopatra
Cleopatra, the famous Egyptian queen, notorious for one of the greatest love stories of all time, is now turned by Egyptians into (drum roll please)…….. Kilobarta. What!! From a famous ruling queen to famous cheap cigarettes, el masryeen bysna3o el mo3gzat!
2- Canz, Canzaya, Canzat
The actual word is “can”. When you translate the word, it means “safey7a” bs 3la meen. Egyptians are not only pronouncing the word wrong, but they added a plural to it that doesn’t even end with an “S”. The Egyptian plural ends with a “Z”. They also modified the term canz into canzya.
3- Banzema
In Egypt, the gas station is called banzema. Because using the word benzene is for sissies.
4- Ha-rastar el gehaz, Ha-sattab, Ha-sayev
Let’s correct the words and expressions one by one. “Ha-rastar el gehaz” means ‘Restart’ it, “Ha-sattab” is “Setup”, and “Ha-sayev” is from “Save”. The (Ha) is added by Egyptians before the actual word as an implication to the future; that’s an Egyptian future tense.
5- Nenja Terterz
The popular T.V animated series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, became Nenja Terterz. Terterz! As in glitter! Cause Egyptians don’t give a f**k about the right pronunciation. We ana eli kont fkrark nenja, tl3t terter (pun intended). 
6-Tor Allah f Barseemo
Originally, the expression is called “tor layeh f barseemo”. But thanks to Saaid Saleh, the expression is ruined forever, and it stuck with us ever since. We are also blaming Saaid Saleh for ruining the word “men” which became “menz”, but hey, it’s for the greater good of comedy.
Egyptians have ruined so many words that you now need a dictionary to figure out the actual word. No matter how hard we try to fix the words and expressions, they’re not going anywhere. Ba2et ma7fora zy el 3orf, we just have to accept it.
