"THE READING ROOM" SPECIALS

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Sunday, February 27, 2011

(9) Facebook rants to make you think about bad English vs good English (36-40)

Ramesh Prabhu
Rant No. 36: When did "post" become the preferred substitute for "after" (when not used as a prefix)?

UNACCEPTABLE: "I'm filing something tonight, which I just got to know of post our meeting."

ACCEPTABLE: "Post-recession, Europe is a little more open"
January 12 at 11:45am 
  • Shweta Rajan and Tania Sarkar like this.

    • Ramesh Prabhu
      Ankana Chakraborty commented on Gmail Buzz:  "Post" does mean after. So why is "post a discussion" wrong?

      My response: Because it is a prefix and not a standalone word.

      From http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/using-prefix-post
       
      Post: a prefix meaning after or later than

      Here are five examples of prefixes using "post":

      1. Postpone (verb): "She decided to postpone her vacation until next year."
      2. Posthumous (adjective): "This is a posthumous album by Michael Jackson."
      3. Postnatal (adjective): "There's a good system of postnatal care for mothers in my country."
      4. Postdate (verb): "I'll postdate this cheque until the end of the month when I get paid."
      5. Postmortem (noun): "They had a postmortem to find out how the man was killed.

      *

      My guess is that the IT industry, which has turned the adjective "corporate" into a noun "corporates" is to blame for turning a prefix into a standalone word.

      January 12 at 3:59pm
       

    • Ramesh Prabhu Would you say "pre a discussion"?
      January 12 at 3:59pm · 

    • Shruthi Shiva Who says that?
      January 12 at 6:13pm
       

    • Ramesh Prabhu Shruthi: The same people who say "post a discussion", I guess. :-)
      January 12 at 7:50pm

      ***
      Rant No. 37: Why do we say "cope up with (something") when it should be "cope with" (something)?
       ***
      Rant No. 38: Why don't we know the difference between "maybe" and "may be"? The opening line of Sunil Gavaskar's column in yesterday's Sunday Times reads: "The Tests maybe over in Australia and South Africa, but...." That should be "may be".

      If he wanted to use "maybe", he could have written "Maybe the Tests are over in Australia and South Africa, but...."
      January 17 at 10:27am

      • Sushmita Chatterjee, Amrita Dey, Tania Sarkar and 2 others like this.

        • Sudhir Prabhu Thanks again. Didn't know the difference between the two. :)
          January 17 at 10:28am
           

        • Ramesh Prabhu
          Sudhir: "Maybe" is an adverb meaning "perhaps."

          "May be" is a verb phrase showing possibility.

          Examples:
          I heard that our instructor may be absent today. Maybe class will be cancelled.

          January 17 at 10:30am


        • Ayushman Baruah Excellent insight...this is why I still like to have my final clarifications from you...
          January 17 at 11:06am


        • Tania Sarkar Thank you, sir... I had been looking up the net for this but was not getting anything as clearly explained as this. :)
          January 17 at 11:27am
           

        • Raka Mazumdar Thanks sir.I was getting a little confused over the usage.
          January 17 at 12:03pm


        • Varun Chhabria You taught me the difference a month back. :P
          January 17 at 7:21pm
           

        • Pratibha Chandran This is like Bhaskar Menon's analysis which used to come in PTI.
          January 23 at 9:43pm

          ***
          Ramesh Prabhu
          Rant No. 39: Why don't we know that the @ symbol in email addresses is pronounced "at" and not "at the rate of"?
          January 18 at 11:07am

        • Divya Bhandarkar, Shweta Rajan, Amrita Dey and 9 others like this.

        • Sudhir Prabhu I wonder how this one started.
          January 18 at 11:17am


        • Vibha Ghai I second that ... gets my goat every time someone says that!
          January 18 at 11:39am


        • Tania Sarkar I knew, sir! :)
          January 18 at 12:12pm  

        • Ramesh Prabhu
          Sudhir: Here's a definition from Yahoo Answers, from somebody whose handle is "Irish (something)":

          *******

          The @ symbol IS NOT exclusively for email addresses. Long time ago the @ symbol was used in commerce and, yes, it already meant "at" ba...ck then.

          It was used to give the price of goods in relation to the quantity of that particular good. For example:

          1 Washer Machine @ $53.00 ea. = $53.00
          (one washer machine at $53.00 each)

          3 Hamburgers @ 5¢ = 15¢
          (three burgers at five cents each)

          4 oranges @ 3¢ each = 12¢
          (four oranges at three cents each)

          Please notice that I am using prices of your prepubescent grandparents' era which is when the @ symbol was more widely used.

          *******

          I think when we were taught this symbol in school, we were told to pronounce it as "at the rate of" in the context given above. And that seems to have stuck in today's email era.

          January 18 at 1:28pm


        • Amrita Dey I KNEW IT!!! :)

          January 18 at 1:38pm


        • Sudha Aries i knew...i knew it!
          January 18 at 5:36pm


        • Princess Sudipta Paul thank god ... i knew atleast this one :)
          January 18 at 10:04pm


        • Ramesh Prabhu ‎"at least", not "atleast", Princess.
          January 19 at 10:30am
           

        • Anagha Gunjal Sir: I can never go wrong with "at least" for the rest of my life.
          January 19 at 8:38pm
           

        • Shaonli Dutta I know this Sir!
          January 19 at 10:30pm


        • Pratibha Chandran This will help everyone
          January 23 at 9:41pm
          ***
          Ramesh Prabhu
          Rant No. 40: Why don't we know how to make simple plurals?

          UNACCEPTABLE: "Daily Bread is looking for franchisee's." (Ad in Bangalore Mirror, Dec. 5)
          ACCEPTABLE: "Daily Bread is looking for franchisees."

          UNACCEPTABLE: "Here are some email ID's."
          ACCEPTABLE: "Here are some email IDs."
          January 19 at 10:40am

        • Divya Bhandarkar, Shweta Rajan and Divya Jaising like this.

        • Ramesh Prabhu UNACCEPTABLE: "Raddi-wala's were enlisted to help...." (Article in Time Out Bengaluru, Dec. 24-Jan. 6)
          ACCEPTABLE: "Raddi-walas were enlisted to help...."
          January 19 at 10:40am


        • Anagha Gunjal
          thank you so much for this one, sir. i am tired of correcting people's plurals and apostrophes. i hope people start getting hints that they need to improve their English at least by reading your rants.

          i am losing friends by correcting their grammar. they have begun to resent me. hehe

          January 19 at 11:15am

        • Bala Murali Krishna This is a biggie. There are so many subs who can never get it right.
          January 19 at 11:32am


        • Anagha Gunjal Bala: really? i am surprised.
          January 19 at 11:34am


        • Bala Murali Krishna Many subs are a lot worse than they get credit for. By the same token, there are great subs who get far less credit than they deserve.
          January 19 at 11:36am
           

        • Nandini Hegde ‎@ anagha: I've the same problem! I keep correcting spellings and grammar! They get annoyed so I just write 'Ted Mosby:' and then correct them! :P
          January 19 at 11:47am
           

        • Ayushman Baruah This is quite an obvious one but ya I guess some do make such mistakes.
          January 19 at 11:57am


        • Anagha Gunjal
          Bala: I am sure the sub is sometimes over-occupied and pressed with deadlines and a few spelling mistakes can be understood by the readers. But getting the basic grammar wrong (something which I can figure out) is something unacceptable which I have learnt from RP Sir.

          Nandini: seriously? haha

          January 19 at 11:59am
           

        • Neil Ima Today I saw someone write CD's for CDs.
          January 19 at 6:21pm


        • Anagha Gunjal Neil: did you correct that person?
          January 19 at 8:39pm


        • Bala Murali Krishna CD's vs. CDs is, I suspect, a style thing with at least some newspapers. I think NYT's style would be CD's, not the simple plural form.
          January 20 at 11:25am


        • Ramesh Prabhu Bala: NYT uses CDs —

          http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/arts/music/11choice.html

          (see headline)
          January 20 at 2:03pm


        • Bala Murali Krishna thanks Ramesh for checking it out. NYT style varies from AP in many things.
          January 20 at 4:12pm


        • Bala Murali Krishna On this topic, some of you not already familiar with this NYT blog might want to check it out: http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/after-deadline/
          January 20 at 4:19pm
           

        • Bala Murali Krishna Ramesh, NYT is inconsistent with its own style. Look at CD's in this headline:
          Pennies That Add Up to $16.98: Why CD's Cost So Much
          http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/05/arts/pennies-that-add-up-to-16.98-why-cd-s-cost-so-much.html
          January 21 at 12:21pm
           

        • Ramesh Prabhu
          Bala: "CD's" was how the NYT used to spell it, but things have changed. Your example is from 1995, mine from this year.

          Here is an explanation, written in 2007, from the NYT's then director of copy desks, Merrill Perlman:

          As to the question ... of why we put apostrophes in decades (the 1960's) and in the plural of some all-capitalized initialisms (DVD’s), the answer is we don't anymore. Phil Corbett, the deputy news editor who is in charge of the stylebook, eliminated those anachronisms last October, with this comment:

          Our main reason for using the apostrophe had been to avoid confusion in all-cap heds, but with those heds long since eliminated everywhere but Page One, that rationale is no longer compelling. And the apostrophe annoyed many readers, who thought we were mistakenly using a possessive form instead of a plural.

          (To read the complete "Talk to the Newsroom" column, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/business/media/19asktheeditors.html?pagewanted=all)           

          January 21 at 1:07pm
           

        • Bala Murali Krishna thanks, Ramesh. NYT always has a proper explanation for these things and I am glad it wasn't any inconsistency.
          January 21 at 1:38pm

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