Congrates?

Have you ever felt like an outcast? Like you really don't belong among a certain group of people, or in a certain population..Somehow, you'd feel like you're totally different from the others, and to make matters worse, it feels as if there is a spotlight aiming right at you. If you have, then you've got yourself a friend.

If you notice the title of this post, 

C O N G R A T E S

Getting straight to my point, "E" doesn't really fit in there.

E: Aww man...why me?!

Sorry, honey..^^'

Yeah, CONGRATULATIONS is quite long, and it takes up space and energy in a text message, so thanks to the people who came up with the short form, CONGRATS came in. It's a short, simple, and noble word :)

Now that makes me wonder, "when did CONGRATES ever came in?" 

A lot of people use it these days, congratulating us, posting on Facebook and all..

So I came up with a story:

In the year 19**, a guy named X who was a literary figure wanted to congratulate his sister who lived in the mountains (with no internet coverage) for giving birth to a baby, so he had to write a postcard and posted it using a pigeon. The pigeon arrived at his sister's cottage 3 months later. At that time, the sister was fast asleep on her bed with her baby son curled under her arms. The tired pigeon flew inside and rested on the bed as well, placing the postcard on the baby's tummy. The little baby, being a born-genius, have already learned how to pronounce and write the alphabets a, b, c, until e on his own. But he was still unsure about his "e", so he took out a colored pencil which he hid under the pillow and started to write "e" on the postcard. Satisfied with his masterpiece, he hid the pencil and went into slumber.

The sister woke up in the evening (wow she was so tired) and found her sleeping baby, a restless pigeon and a postcard under her arms. She put a blanket over her son, fed the pigeon and read the little pink card.

It read:

Dear my sister, Y,

C O N G R A TeS for having a baby! I'd like to meet him soon.

Love,

Your brother, X.

Since then, the sister had been using "congrates" to congratulate her friend who won the cooking contest, the old neighbour who got married for the third time, and the farmer whose corns were the biggest that year.

The new word spread like wild fire, since it was thought to have come from X, a literary figure himself.

The conclusion from the fable is:

Somebody might have made a typo in the first place, and eventually followed by others. Who knows..

Actually, it's not very much of a bother, when people say "congrates" to me, because being congratulated makes me soo happy :D, but I'm just saying that it would confuse some people, like friends from other countries, perhaps? So let's just stick to CONGRATS, shall we? (: