Eleven Jinping

A few days ago, i came across a news-item saying that Door Darshan, India's public television channel, had dismissed an English newsreader for mispronouncing the name of the Chinese President who was on an official visit to India. The name of the Chinese President is Xi Jinping. She mistook 'Xi' as the Roman number XI, presumably thinking that there was a small mistake in punctuation and read the name as 'Eleven Jinping'. She must have presumed that like King George VI or Queen Elizabeth II, he must be the eleventh ruler with the same name.

Poor lady! News readers are trained to pronounce foreign names correctly but why and how this happened, can be a matter of conjecture. However i feel, the guilt lies not in her but in the English language. Human beings use about 50 sounds to express themselves in words but the English alphabet has only 26 letters to express them. Indian languages are much better in this aspect. The Odia alphabet has 49 letters. The faux pas of the lady might not have happened, were she reading the news in an Indian language. 

This weakness of English language was highlighted by George Bernard Shaw who coined the word 'ghoti' and said that it could be read as 'fish'- 'gh' as in 'rough', 'o' as in 'women' and 'ti' as in 'nation'!

Remember my post 'Ghoti as Fish' dated 14.10.2010?

TAIL PIECE 

The Indian Prime Minister's current visit to the U S of A has brought into circulation a new acronym: ABCDEFGHI - American-Born-Confused-Desi-Emigrated-From-Gujarat-with a House in India.  

Full Stop for Comma?

Linguist John McWhorter, an Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, U S A, has suggested that comma could be abolished as a punctuation mark without much damage to the language. He believes that comma is used as just by a convention and as a fashion. The good Professor says that internet users and some writers have become indifferent about use of this punctuation mark and hence comma can be treated as past its expiry date!

The late Gertrude Stein, the American novelist, says that a comma enfeebles, distracts and annoyingly dilutes what must be intense.

Oscar Wilde delighted many by confessing that he had spent most of a day putting in a comma and the rest of the day taking it out!

So much so that The Times of India recently carried a full second editorial without using a single comma!!

However, the renowned author Pico Iyer firmly believes in the power of pause which is provided by a comma. He has written a memorable essay, ‘In Praise of the Humble Comma’.

In this essay, Pico Iyer says that comma is like God’s gift of breath to us. Comma gives the mind, “quite literally, a pause to think”. It gives the mind, a resting place, he says.

To quote him, “Punctuation marks are road signs placed along the highway of our communication – to control speeds, provide directions and to prevent head-on collisions. Comma is a flashing yellow light that asks us only to slow down.”  Punctuation tells us when to rest, when to raise one’s voice.” It is the way one bats one’s eye-lids, lowers one’s voice, or blushes demurely.”

Iyer further says - When V S Naipal writes, “He was a middle-aged man, with glasses”, the first comma can seem a little precious. Yet it gives the description a spin as well as subtlety that it otherwise lacks, and it shows that glasses are not part of the middle-agedness, but something else.”

Aiyer adds,  “ Punctuation is a matter of care, care for words, yes, but also, the more important , for what the words imply. Only a lover notices the small things, the way the afternoon light catches the nape of the neck; or how a strand of hair slips out from behind the ear, or the way a finger curls around a cup.” For him, this little mark is actually about love. 

 In an interview published in The Times of India of 14.02.2014, Iyer says that we need the comma now more than ever before especially the traffic has increased so dramatically in every sense.

So, is there going to be a full stop for comma in the modern days of SMS and texts where the most important need is of saving time by using collapsible words like ‘wrds’, ‘txt’  and ‘gr8’or even ‘u’ (for ‘you’) and ‘r’ (for ‘are’)? 

Divided By A Common Language

When I type ‘colour’, ‘favour’, ‘programme’ or ‘practise’, my computer underlines these words in red, indicating that the spellings used by me are wrong. When I type ‘recognise’ ‘apologise’, or ‘offence’, sometimes the computer on its own, corrects these to ‘recognize’, ‘apologize’ and ‘offense’. As most of us know, in American English, these words are spelt as ‘color’, ‘favor’, ‘program’, ‘practice’. And my computer says that the word 'spelt' is to be spelt as 'spelled'!

It was George Bernard Shaw who had said that England and America are two countries divided by a common language. The basic difference between Ameringlish and Queen’s English (or King’s English, depending on whether the reigning Sovereign in Britain is a female or male) is that the American spellings are more practical and are more in tune with how a word is pronounced. This makes spellings easier to remember and saves time and space in e-mails, newspaper columns and other modes of communications, even if it irks purists. The American English guillotines extra letters in words like ‘programme’ and ‘travelling’ and prefers ‘program’ and ‘traveling’.

The differences are not confined to spellings. There are many other words and figures of speech in Ameringlish which appear bizarre to a person familiar with Queen’s English. Autumn is ‘fall’; lorry is ‘truck’ and trousers is ‘pants’ ( a shortened form of ‘pantaloons’). Football is ‘soccer’; chemist (medicine-shop’) is ‘druggist’; petrol is ‘gas’; taxi is ‘cab’; road crossing is ‘crossroads’ and tick is ‘check’.

Here are some other American equivalents of English words:

Biscuit-cookies, insect-bug, cheque-check, currency note-bill, car-automobile, bonnet-hood, pavement-side walk, railway-rail road, fly over-over pass, ground floor- first floor, fries-chips, potato chips- potato crisps, soft drink-fizzy drink, lift-elevator, flat-apartment, class (school year)-grade, aeroplane-airplane, bill-check,blue-eyed boy-fair-eyed boy, dust bin-garbage can/trash can, funny bone-crazy bone.

The word 'first floor' referring to ground floor would be more soothing to us Indians. The term 'level I' is more neutral and appears to be better.

Americans ‘speak with’ rather than ‘speak to’. To the question 'How are you?', Americans reply, ‘I am good.’ and not ‘I am fine.’ Often Americans dislike propositions and say, “Let’s meet Monday” and turn nouns into verb (impact-impacts).

Recently, business, travel, Internet and television have brought the old and the ‘new’ world closer and have blurred language-differences. The American style has triumphed over the traditional English spellings and figures of speech. One of the apparent reasons is that the U S of A has become the sole super power in world politics and economy. In the process, English is becoming ‘Globish’.

TAIL PIECE

When television came to India, it was a government enterprise. In tune with the Sanskritised –and very apt- name ‘Akashvani ( literally 'Voice From the Sky' and officially, 'All India Radio') it was named ‘Door Darshan’ (literally meaning ‘view from a distance’). This reminds one of the word ‘doorbhash’ (talk from a distance), the Hindi word for ‘telephone’. There was no problem as long it was the only channel. When Indian air waves opened up and several privately-owned channels appeared, the generic Hindi term ‘door darshan” became a Proper Noun and the word ‘television’ became an adopted Common Noun in Indian languages!. Practically, there is no longer a Hindi equivalent of the English word ‘television’! 2: Francophones asked, "Why do Americans speak English?" The British would like to omit the first word and modify the question to: Do Americans speak English?

An i for an I

Years ago, I had come across an advertisement of Amul Chocolates wherein the cute little Amul girl is featured in a modified version of the Nursery Rhyme ‘Baa, Baa, Black sheep’.

It ran somewhat like this:

Little Maid, Little Maid, Do you have any Amul?

Yes sir, yes sir, full packs three.

One for me, one for myself,

And one for none other than me!

The First Person Singular Number ‘I’ is our most-favoured and most-used pronoun. When someone hands over to another person, a group photograph in which the latter is there, he or she first looks for himself/herself in it, takes a good look, and then only moves to the other faces in it.

And one’s own name is one’s most favourite word.

We are all 'I' specialists.

About a couple of years ago, I came across in The Times of India , a small article by Caroline Winter, reproduced most probably from The New York Times. The writer asks, a thought-provoking question: Why is Capital I used in the First Person Singular?

The writer says that Germans use the respectful Capital Y in ‘You’. The article goes on to say that the Capital I raised its dot-less head first in England. The generally-accepted linguistic explanation, the article states, is that ‘i’ could not stand alone un-capitalised, as a single letter. Charles Bigelow, a type-historian and designer of font families, explains, ”One little letter had to represent an important word but it was too wimpy, graphically speaking, to carry the semantic burden. So the scribes made it bigger, which means taller.”

The writer feels that perhaps our individualistic and workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as the small i, with a sweet little dot!

For that matter,users of e-mail are perfectly comfortable dismissing all capital letters and even correct spellings. The writer suggests: You try an experiment to capitalize those whom You address while leaving yourself in the lower case; it would be an humbling experience.

I feel that the writer has a good point. We write “You, he and I” or “You and I”, in that order. We don’t say “I, he and you” or “ I and you.”. ‘I’ always comes last; ‘You’ always comes first. Then why not always use the Capital Y for ‘You’ and the small i for oneself?

However, we may use the Capital I when it is the first letter of a sentence.

The Times of India has been following this practice in its editorial page.

I feel it is a good idea; i shall be happy to know what You feel about it.

The Feminine Mustaches

I put in 36 years of service in my Bank before superannuating. Out of that period, I served in my Home State for 8 years and the rest of the period was spent in other States in India. Of those 28 years, 16 sweet and eventful years were spent in Bihar, 7 years in places which later became a part of Jharkhand State which was carved out Bihar.

When I was posted to Patna to open and head my Bank’s Regional Staff Training College there, the first problem that I faced was language. Although I had worked in U P earlier, my knowledge of Hindi was not sufficient. Training Programmes for Officers were conducted in English but Hindi was to be used in Training of Workmen employees. While trying to speak in Hindi, I always fumbled when it came to gender.(In fact, I don't fumble; I stumble and fall flat, face down, with a smashed nose!) Unlike in most other languages, verbs in a sentence in Hindi change according to the gender of the ‘subject’. So I used to receive amusing look when I asked, ”Gadi kab ayega?” (When will the train arrive?) The correct way to say this is “Gadi kab ayegi? That is because gadi is feminine in Hindi. In English, both boy and girl ‘goes’ , but in Hindi, ‘ladka jata hai.’ but ‘ladki jati hai’. When a man wants to go, he says, “main ja raha hun”, but when a woman wants to go, she has to say, “main ja rahi hun.” In many other Indian languages, the gender of the adjective is determined by the gender of the noun that it qualifies but in Hindi both the adjective and the verb change according to the gender of the noun.

What saved me was that in the Training College, Hindi Training Programmes were being conducted by the Bank’s Hindi Officer and other Guest Faculty. As far as possible, I used to attend these Programmes. These Programmes were not for teaching Hindi language as such but for imparting to the employees, a Working Knowledge of Banking in Hindi. So I could not still decipher the intricacies of gender in Hindi. All the nouns in Hindi are of either masculine or feminine gender. If I am not mistaken, there is no neuter gender in Hindi. 

Once I asked the Bank’s Hindi Officer to tell me an easy way to know the gender of a noun. He told me, “You always remember one simple formula. You know another name of Goddess Durga is Shakti. Goddess Durga is female. Shakti means power. Remember that whichever noun denotes power, that word is feminine! Simple.” So ‘gadi’ and ‘police’ are feminine. Adalat (Court) is feminine. And ‘Sajaa’ (punishment) also is feminine for the same reason.

Then I reasoned out why ‘muchhe’ (mustaches) is feminine!!!

(And is that the real reason why the word ‘patni’ (wife) is feminine?:))) .


Ever since, while speaking in Hindi, I try to remind me this lesson.

TAIL PIECE

The shakti test applies as a general rule and is not a universal one. In some places,it is said, "dahi khata hota hai" and in some other places, the same expression is spoken as ‘dahi khati hoti hai’ . So you cannot escape slipping !!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Q. What is the other name of 'woman'?
    A. Shakti

   Q. What is the other name of 'man'?
   A. Sahan Shakti (Endurance).

Spell-bound II

In the first installment of the list of creative spellings, i had furnished some examples of words (mis)spelt creatively. Here is another list of some more gems – amusing neologism - in the series. This is a new way of neology- introduction of new words!

As observed in the first list, small roadside eateries are veterans in this area. ‘Rice & Fish Carry’, ‘Bread & Hamlet Sand Wiches’, ‘Silly Chicken’, ‘Pride Rice’, ‘Fresh Muchrooms’, ‘Fresh Garbage & Carat from Ooty’, ‘Ice Scream’, ‘Col Drinks’, ‘Diary Products’, and ‘Chicken Thai Roast’ (chicken thigh roast), are some more bloomers in the series.

As seen earlier, messages painted on the rear of trucks are another source of such amusing mutilations. The very strange Family Planning message ‘We two, our won’ is one more example. The message on another lorry was 'Use Diaper At Night'! The signboard on a highway informs, ‘Petrol Bump Ahead’ -- there was actually a bump in the form of a speed breaker a few meters away! An Electricity Board’s transformer sports a prominent red alert, ‘DANCER’. The venue of meeting of a Lions Club has a signboard near the entrance saying ‘Loins Club’! Another signboard informs the reader about the presence of a ‘Shopping Maul’! The advertisement of a newly opened Marriage Hall informs ‘Cheating Capacity – 200 Persons’. A public convenience is labeled ‘TOLET’. Some days ago, I had seen that on a board painted with the words 'TO LET’, the letter ’I’ had been scratched by hand to make it ‘TOILET’!

A gym has a signboard saying ‘Atlas Buddy Building Gym’. A banner once wished ‘A Marry Christmas’ to its readers. A self-proclaimed English-Teaching Institute carries a sign ‘Learn English in 60 Hovers’. A sign at a traffic intersection reads : Obey traffic rools. !!!

Printer’s devil also contributes a lot to this. A newspaper, carrying news about honouring an Army General referred to him as, ‘Battle-scared General’. When the unintended but irate victim telephoned and blasted the Editor, a correction appeared in the paper the next day saying, ‘Bottle-scarred General’! Imagine the reaction of the General this time!!!

As i have said earlier, some of the messages on the rear of lorries make hilarious reading. But the message, 'Buri nazar wale, Tera muhan kala' has not forsaken politeness; 'wala' in the first part would have well-rhymed with 'kala' in the second part. Politeness has dictated the respectable 'wale'! Urdu language is known for its polite words. To ask someone to 'get out', it uses 'Tasrif le jayiye' (Take away your honour.)!

Another common message 'Mera Bharat Mahaan' on the rear of lorries is obviously meant to convey the owner's patriotism. Recently, I saw a modified, tongue-in-cheek, version of it. The message read, "Sau mein nabe beiman; phir bhi mera Bharat mahaan". :)))))) By the way, when motherland is like mother, why is it not, 'MERI Bharat Mahaan'?

I came across a new word ‘mango-man’ coined in India recently. The origin is 'Aam Aadmi’ in the series of advertisements titled ‘Aam Aadmi Ko Kya Mila?’ (What did the common man get?) released by the Congress Party prior to the General Elections of 2004. During the rule of National Democratic Alliance led by Bharatiya Janata Party from 1999 to 2004, the Economic Growth Rate was good but inflation was high (When is it not so?). The Growth Rate of Gross Domestic Product was high but prices of some items used by the common man was also high. BJP released a series of advertisements titled ‘India Shining’, highlighting its achievements. To counter this, Congress Party’s advertisements bore the title ‘Aam Aadmi Ko Kya Mila?’, highlighted the difficulties faced by the common man (‘aam aadmi’) during the NDA rule. The term has caught on and the Hindi term 'Aam Aadmi' has been literally translated to ‘Mango Man'!

We know the word ‘postpone’. Its opposite is ‘advance’, not ‘prepone’. ‘Pone’ is not an independent word to which ‘post’ or ‘pre’ can prefixed. ‘Postpone’ is a single word, not a compound word. However, nowadays, ‘prepone’ is used by many, to mean its opposite, so much so that even some dictionaries have reluctantly accepted it! Another word by common mistakes is 'normalcy' as the noun form of the adjective 'normal'. The correct word is 'normality' but purists like me apprehend that one day 'normalcy' will become the accepted word:((((

I find that the term 'one of the world's ' is used by many and even by respected newspapers in an incorrect way and in what is called in Grammar an ambiguous way. For example it is said, "India in one of the world's most populous countries." It implies that there many worlds and one wonders to ask, 'How many worlds are there?' The correct expression would be, "India is world's one of the most populous countries." Is it not better and does it not remove the ambiguity?

And now, a word about Hinglish, a hilarious combination of Hindi and English words. In this, the pride of place is occupied by what once Rajiv Gandhi said during his address at an election rally, “Hum jitenge yaa losenge….” etc. By the way, Rajiv Gandhi’s favourite reply, when anyone brought a problem to him was, “Hum dekhenge" (We will see). When the frequency of this reply increased, a listener sitting in one of the back seats once muttered in a low voice, “Humne dekha hai; hum dekh rahe hain; hum dekhte rahenge.”

TAIL PIECE

One person said to another, “I talked to her two hours after she died.” Observing the look of consternation in the eyes of the listener, the first person clarified, “I talked to her. Two hours after, she died.”

TAIL PIECE II

The title of an Odia movie made in 2012 is 'I D I O T '. The expansion of the term given below the title is: I Do Ishq Only Tumse. This strange mixture of English and Hindi words in the title of an Odia movie means in proper English is 'I Love Only You'. A theatre of the absurd?

Spell Bound

‘CHILD BEAR AVAILABLE'

That was the legend written below the name of the restaurant on the board fixed outside the small eatery. It intrigued me and i asked the man at the cash counter near its entrance. He pointed his finger towards the refrigerator with a transparent glass door. I saw beer bottles stored in it and this made things clear to me. It was indeed chilled beer and the restaurant was not selling infant bears as pet!

(By the way, who invented the cute little word ‘fridge’ as a substitute to the long and labour-intensive word 'refrigerator' and to rhyme with ‘bridge’?)

If one goes around reading the writings on the rear side of lorries, one will wonder at the myriad possibilities of using (misusing) spellings of English words. ‘Keep distence’, warned one; ‘nason first, person afterwards’ exhorted another! And still another, after bidding 'O K, TATA', said, 'Work is war ship.'

At another eating place, i saw, ‘Lunch and snakes available here.’ Inside it, there was the warning, ‘No Smo King’. At yet another small eatery, i saw ‘Phamily Cabin’ written outside a small enclosure inside it.

In a small town, i read ‘City Bus Cervice’ painted on a local transport. In the same town, where i had given some clothes to a laundry for cleaning, the Receipt cautioned, “We shall not be irresponsible for any damage to the clothes.” Notice near a swimming pool read, 'Any accident caused during swimming is your responsibility.' I wondered whether it will be the responsibility of the swimmer or that of the person passing by and casually reading the notice.

Near my house there are 3 kiosks named ‘Beetle Shop’, ‘Pawn Shop’ and ‘Pan shop’ selling betel. Next to it is a small sign-board declaring ‘To Let- Shop’s and Offices’. How many places i have seen Name Boards declaring the building as ‘Boy’s Hostel! Is it meant for only one boy? And how many Name Boards i have seen with capital 'I's with dots over them!

I saw a notice near the gate of one Telephone Bhawan, ‘Complaint Book Available with Gaurd on Duty’. However, actually, i saw there no guard on duty. This reminded me of a story about the legendary poet Kalidas. He was in disguise and had joined other bearers to carry a King in a palanquin. The King asked (in Sanskrit), “ Kim skandham badhati?” (Are you experiencing pain in your shoulders?”) Kalidas replied, “Skandham na badhate rajan, taba badhati badhate.” (“There is no pain in the shoulders; the pain is given by your ‘badhati’” ) In Sanskrit, the correct grammatical form of the verb is ‘badhate’ and not ‘badhati’ used by the King. What Kalidas meant was that the real pain was caused by the King’s use of the wrong form of the verb. In this instance, what troubled me, was not the absence of the guard but the spelling mistake!

At one place where the road was being repaired, i saw a notice ‘Caution, Man at Work’. I felt the description was very apt, as out of the 4 labourers, only one man was working; the other 3 were relaxing by the wayside.

Wherever I see some sign in English, spelling mistake, if any, immediately attracts my attention. However, whenever I type something, after typing for sometime, I get a little tired very soon and some typographical errors creep in. Either, a letter goes missing from a word or some words get jumbled but when I go through the draft to find out any mistake, some mistakes escape my attention! Is it because we love to find mistakes of others but our own foibles escape our attention?

When my daughters were in school, i used to help them in studies sometimes. At that time i had told them there is a difference in merely correct English and good English. Correct English includes correct punctuation and spelling and good English includes choosing apt words. It is the proper adjectives that add to the beauty of English. Wordsmiths choose exactly apt words to write enjoyable pieces.

TAIL PIECE:

The Name Board of a small commercial unit had the inscription ‘Juhi Cha Wala’. A peep into the unit showed that it was indeed a tea shop! An enquiry with the proprietor revealed that he had named it after his daughter Juhi!

Ghoti as Fish

It is a common experience to hear people mispronounce English words.

The fault lies with the language, not with the people who speak it. Why should 'but' and 'put' be pronounced differently? Why should the words like 'psychology' and 'tsunami' have a letter which has to remain silent? Why should 'schedule' be pronounced as 'shedul' and not as 'skedul'?

I have read in a popular encyclopaedia that the reason for the confusion lies in the fact that while the sounds made by human beings can be of about 50 types, the English language has only 26 letters to represent these. Indian languages have about 49 letters which almost completely represent these sounds. Indians read and pronounce almost exactly what they write. Of course a few Indians (including yours truly) are not able to differentiate while pronouncing certain letters like 'dantya sa', 'talavya sha' and 'murdhanya sha' but most people pronounce more or less correctly.

Englishmen are conscious about this deficiency in their language. Yet nothing has been done about this. To highlight this aspect of English language, George Bernard Shaw had coined the word 'ghoti' and prononounced it as 'fish'! He reasoned it like this: Pronounce 'gh' as in 'laugh', 'o' as in 'women', and 'ti' as in 'nation'! So you have 'fish'!!!

In that way, American English is better and more practical as the spellings in it in most cases are as the words are pronounced, e.g., program, color etc.

Recently, some have started pronouncing 'schedule' as 'skedul' instead of 'shedul' in English as was done earlier.

Happy pronouncing! :)))))))))))))))