G recently had to explain to a friend of ours that the reason why Hindus don't eat beef isn't because it's almost like cannibalism, since that cow could've been your uncle in a past life. (Said friend went to Catholic school…who knows what else they taught them about other religions.)

Christianity – The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree…

For example; sanyassi really sounds like sunyussi. U as in “sun” u. Otherwise native English language folk pronounce is saanyaassi. As the a sound as in “ass”.

When I write non-English words I do the same so that my readers can get a more accurate pronunciation.

Sheeva is prounounced “sheeva”. Otherwise when a native English reader who is not familiar with the name reads “Shiva” they prounounce it “Sheye -va” , like “eye” or the “i' in words like “like”.

They didn't care about transliteration so much as making things palatable to the English tongue, and hence we end up with Sheeva and chicken tikka masala.

Aren't the spellings spelt too unconventionally – Hindoo (for Hindu), Sheeva (for Shiva), Vishnoo (for Vishnu), Kalee Ghaut (for Kali Ghat), India (at least when refering it in the present tense), pretend (where it should be believe)?
Maybe I am just too traditional.