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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

(8) Facebook rants to make you think about bad English vs good English (31-35)

Ramesh Prabhu 
Rant No. 31: Why don't we know how to distinguish a declarative sentence from an interrogative one? DNA published a story today with this headline: "Why keeping New Year resolutions is difficult?" That question mark at the end reduced the headline to "babu" English and ruined the story for me. 
January 5 at 3:25pm

  • Sujith Mohan, Tania Sarkar, Ayushman Baruah and 3 others like this.

    • Tania Sarkar sir, could you please elaborate on this? i didn't quite get it! :(
      January 5 at 8:47pm 
    •  
      Asif Ullah Khan ramesh, my son arsalan says there is no such thing as two persons. it is either one person or two people. can you help me

      January 5 at 8:48pm 

    • Aravind Baliga Ramesh, good one. Without the question mark at the end, it would be a statement, hopefully followed up by the article explaining exactly why this is difficult. On the other hand, the header "Why IS keeping New Year resolutions difficult? " (note uppercase IS) would be grammatically correct as well, followed by an article explaining why its difficult.
      January 6 at 6:52am
       

    • Ramesh Prabhu Tania: Read Aravind's comment. Got it now? Let me know.
      January 6 at 10:48am


    • Tania Sarkar Thanks, sir... got it now... :)
      January 6 at 10:51am


    • Ramesh Prabhu Asif: It is correct, but perhaps rare, to write "two persons". Ask Arsalan to just Google the phrase "two persons" -- there are plenty of entries. (Though I must add that there are one or two websites that say "two persons" is wrong.) Read the second para here: http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/him.html.
      January 6 at 2:19pm


    • Menka Sony Thanks a ton
      January 6 at 3:52pm
      ***
      Ramesh Prabhu 
      Rant No. 32: A "dais" is a raised platform, as at the front of a room, for a lectern, throne, seats of honour, etc. Why do so many of us say or write "dias" when we mean "dais"?
      January 6 at 1:39pm


    • Vibha Ghai Another prospective rant ... if you have not listed it already ... why 'momento' instead of 'memento' ? The Italian connection somewhere? :-)
      January 6 at 1:48pm
       

    • Sudhir Prabhu Blame all the Dias' from Mangalore such as Priscilla Dias and Edwin Dias :)
      January 6 at 2:31pm
       

    • Tania Sarkar this one we did in class, sir! :) thanks... i miss your phrase of the day! :( couldn't it be on fb?
      January 7 at 1:18pm
    •  *** 
      Ramesh Prabhu 
      Rant No. 33: Why is it necessary to use the word "dusty" to describe libraries or encyclopaedias?
      Unacceptable: "Wikipedia [has] replaced libraries stocked with heavy, dusty encyclopaedias." -- Mint, Dec. 31, 2010

      For one, it is a cliché. Second, I have never seen a dusty library or encyclopaedia. Have you?
      January 7 at 3:43pm

    • Sumana Krishnan, Bala Murali Krishna and 2 others like this.

    • Padmini Nandy Mazumder Uh... Yes I have! The District Library at Guwahati is full of dust! :P
      January 7 at 3:51pm


    • Padmini Nandy Mazumder And full of dusty volumes of encyclopaedias!
      January 7 at 3:52pm


    • Ramesh Prabhu Clearly, I have to go to Guwahati and give the librarian a piece of my mind.
      January 7 at 3:55pm


    • Tania Sarkar well, sir... but so have I! :(
      January 7 at 4:13pm
       

    • Debmalya Pablo Dutta Me too... The famous National Library in Calcutta... The old periodicals department... Besides having the choicest collection of magazines and dailies,it has some of the oldest dust in the country... :P
      January 7 at 6:54pm
       

    • Tania Sarkar i belong to the same place!
      January 7 at 7:27pm
       

    • Ramesh Prabhu Calcutta, Guwahati: Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?
      January 8 at 10:49am


    • Debmalya Pablo Dutta Ha ha ha ha ha...
      January 8 at 10:50am


    • Ramesh Prabhu Do our other cities have dusty libraries and encyclopaedias? I haven't seen any in Mumbai or Bangalore.
      January 8 at 10:50am

    • Saffana Michael I dont know about libraries but my bookshelf at home often collects dust.... maybe books just naturally collect dust?
      Sunday at 9:02am


    • Patrick Michael
      You have dust mites, dust storms, dusty roads and dusty libraries. Try the public library in Panjim, or the Asiatic, or the the one that used to be opposite the Jehangir Art Gallery in amchi Mumbai. If you sneezed, you'd trigger a dust storm! Sorry Ramesh, guess you've not been to places I have!!!!

      Sunday at 7:00pm


    • Ramesh Prabhu
      Pat: The situations you describe may have existed 20-30 years ago. Do you think the scene will be different today? Also, these libraries are all public libraries -- does anyone still visit public libraries? I am curious.

      I am a member of the Just Books chain of libraries -- the branch I visit is air-conditioned; I use radio frequency ID, or RFID, technology to return and issue books at a touch-screen kiosk, and I have access to some 4,000 new books every month. I just can't imagine "dusty" being used to describe any Just Books branch or the books on their shelves.

      Monday at 10:22am
    •  ***
      Ramesh Prabhu
      Rant No. 34: India Today (Jan. 10) has no problems with the F-word, spelling it out in full in one article. But in another piece in the same issue it uses asterisks to camouflage a Hindi obscenity (ch*****). What gives?
      Monday at 11:09am

       ***

      Ramesh Prabhu
      Rant No. 35: What is this "ya" one finds so often in Facebook status updates? Here's one: "He's a friend ya...." And here's another: "i ll come tomo ya... m ok hw u?" I understand all the shorthand used on FB but for "ya". Is it supposed to be "yeah"? Or "yaar"? Or is it just another crutch word like "basically"?
      Yesterday at 10:48am 

    • Shweta Rajan, Sujith Mohan, Varun Chhabria and 7 others like this.

    • Sudhir Prabhu ya i 2 need 2 know
      Yesterday at 10:52am
       

    • Samarpita Samaddar I use it as a shorthand of "yaar" :)
      Yesterday at 10:52am
       

    • Kirti Bhotika Garg it's a shorthand for "yaar" Sir... :D lol, I could imagine you speaking out your rant :P
      Yesterday at 10:54am


    • Sharon George mostly short for yaar i imagine
      Yesterday at 10:57am
       

    • Nandini Hegde sirji txt language ko baksh do!! nahi to Rant No. 555 tak pohach jaaoge! :P
      Yesterday at 11:05am 

    • Vibha Ghai I think once you reach 100, it will be time to look for a publisher ... The Rants You Always Wanted To Air But Could Not !
      Yesterday at 11:09am


    • Tania Sarkar sir, although I never use it... but normally people use it as a short form of "yaar"... and this is not just a form of shorthand but they also use it in spoken language too!
      Yesterday at 11:24am


    • Ramesh Prabhu Tania: In spoken language, it's ALWAYS "yaar", isn't it?
      Yesterday at 11:30am
       

    • Ramesh Prabhu Nandini: My "Bambaiya" Hindi vocabulary does not include the word "baksh". Please translate your comment for me. :-)
      Yesterday at 11:46am 

    • Preeti Suman hmmm...point to be noted My Lord !!
      Yesterday at 12:02pm

    • Koyel Mitra HE HE.. SIR, IT'S JST TYM FR U TO GET USED TO OUR TEXT LANGUAGE..
      Yesterday at 12:10pm
       

    • Tania Sarkar Sir, that's what I said... that in spoken language too people have started using this word! :(
      Yesterday at 1:03pm


    • Ramesh Prabhu Koyel and other young people: You will notice that in the examples quoted in my status message there's an ellipsis after each "ya". That's three presses of a key, right? Why not press "a" and "r" instead and complete the word in the same amount of time taken to key in the ellipsis? (Assuming that "ya" stands for "yaar", of course.)
      Yesterday at 2:13pm
       

    • Nandini Hegde sir ji baksh do means spare it!
      Yesterday at 3:12pm
       

    • Ramesh Prabhu Ah, I get it now. No, Nandu, I am not going to be taking on our texters but I was really curious abut this "ya" business. I have my answer now. Thanks.
      Yesterday at 3:26pm


    • Harshada Neem i salute thee for all the rants u can think of !!!!! sirjee tussi great ho !!!
      20 hours ago


    • Mini Kolluri
      Growing up in Bangalore, it was a part of the slang. Almost like "da" in Tamil or "o" in Kannada. Not sure what the origins are, but "ya" would translate to "man". So, "What ya?" or "Tell me ya". "Ya" by the way is gender neutral.

      Before you get mad at me, I haven't used it since childhood when we'd jokingly use "poriki" English.

      16 hours ago
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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

What is the need to turn the air blue?

I don't use abusive language in my personal or professional life. The F-word does pop up in my mind on rare occasions but I make sure it doesn't pop out of my mouth. I don't think that makes me a puritan or especially noble — far from it; this is a personal choice, nothing more.

Having said that, I have to say I am not sure I understand the need to turn the air blue. For many people, young and old, men and women, using swear words is perhaps like breathing. It is so natural that they are possibly not aware they're doing it. Some young people I know, both men and women, seem to be comfortable using the F-word even on Facebook. This is probably okay given that you're doing this within your circle of friends but have you thought about what happens when you use obscenities in the workplace?

Let me quote from How To Sell Yourself, by Ray Grose (Mint published excerpts from the book yesterday):

Some people can be offended by cursing or foul language, even if they don’t show it. Even people who use such language with their peers may find your use of such language to be disrespectful to them if you are their team member or their superior.

Others may be offended because your use of such language shows that you may expect them not to be offended. Even if they might not find the actual language offensive they might find your expectation about their response presumptuous. Since such language can damage your image, and because there is no need for an articulate person to use it, avoid it.

So while you may consider it "natural" and "fun" to use foul language, you should also consider the damage it can do to your reputation at work. And, as Ray Grose points out, if you are an articulate person, you can easily express yourself well without resorting to pyrotechnics, if you know what I mean. So cut it out. Please.

How To Sell Yourself also has useful advice on other examples of inappropriate workplace behaviour. Read up to know what's wrong with correcting a subordinate at work; while gossiping how much is too much; and why power matters when it comes to flirting.

Go to "Mind your language, get your image right".
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Friday, December 17, 2010

(7) Facebook rants to make you think about bad English vs good English (26-30)


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The most valuable thing in a journalist's wardrobe?

Vijay Simha, the deputy editor of Tehelka, has compiled a list of "10 things journalists ought to do" in the December 18 issue of the magazine.

No. 1, he says, is "Have a reason. Journalism doesn't create wealth. There has to be a purpose. When there's none, poor decisions are made."

And here's No. 10: "Shut down. There must be something to go home to. Else, we turn rancid. The booze and drugs are then at hand."

I particularly like these two:

No. 3: "Start at home. Journalists are made in homes, not in offices. The early initiation into newspapers and books is critical."

No. 8: "Have a thick skin. Can be the most valuable thing in the wardrobe. Wear it every day, there will be terrible moments."

Simha then gives us a brief list of 10 things journalists ought not to do.

Check out both lists here.
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Words of the year

If you are outraged by the chaotic scenes in our Parliament, writes V.R. Narayanaswami in Mint today, you can give it a name with a Miltonic touch, "parliamonium" (from Parliament and pandemonium).

Narayanaswami, a former professor of English who writes a fortnightly column in the paper on English usage, has devoted his latest article to a selection of the "words of the year". He begins by introducing us to a process of word-making called "blending". We learn that Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, coined several such words for fun, and it was Carroll who named these words portmanteau words. The most famous of his portmanteau words, writes Narayanaswami, is "galumph", formed from gallop and triumph.

We also learn about other top words of 2010, including "refudiate", "spillcam", and "hikikomori".

Read Narayanaswami's column in its entirety here: "Words of the year, a selection".
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Saturday, December 11, 2010

(6) Facebook rants to make you think about bad English vs good English (21-25)

Ramesh Prabhu
Rant No. 21: Why don't we know that non-essential clauses placed in the midst of a sentence should be set off from the rest of the sentence by commas?

UNACCEPTABLE: "Ashok Row Kavi, the Father of gay activism in India said, 'What I like....' " (Bangalore Mirror, Dec. 5)

ACCEPTABLE: "Ashok Row Kavi, the father of gay activism in India, said, 'What I like....' "
December 6 at 12:55pm
    •  
      Samarpita Samaddar And BM wrote 'F' of 'father' in Caps?

      December 6 at 2:13pm

    • Ramesh Prabhu Yes. I am glad you noticed it, Sam. :-)
      December 6 at 2:17pm

    • Samarpita Samaddar ‎:D
      December 6 at 2.54pm
      ***
      Ramesh Prabhu
      Rant No. 22: In my time, headline errors were unforgivable. ToI has goofed up twice today — what do you make of that?

      1. Page 18, lead story: "Champion of free speech become its worst gag"

      2. Page 19: "Miner offers $3.5B for Riversdale in which Tata hold biggest stake"
      December 7 at 10:08am

    • Sudha Aries likes this.

    • Shiv Sujir Guess the 's' no longer matter ;)
      December 7 at 10:24am

    • Avinash Kumai Mr nitpicker...
      December 7 at 5:21pm

    • Sudha Aries bad subbing!
      December 7 at 6.54pm
       ***
      Ramesh Prabhu
      Rant No. 23: Why does ToI insist on using the lower case "i" for the first person singular on the Edit Page?

      Page 16, Dec. 5: "When i was checking in..."; "But for all my trying, i could not match the shared pain i saw...."

      Page 16, today: Headline       — 'I played a baddie in Aayi milan ki... But i got all the seetis'; "When i came out of hospital, i looked like a peeled tomato".
      Wednesday at 10:47am

    • Edward D'Mello One more glaring rant: Times Now reported on an incident where some men were caught traveling in the ladies' compartment of Delhi Metro. The report began with "Women policemen slapped young men who travelled in the ladies' compartment..." Whatever happened to "policewomen..."?
      Wednesday at 10:52am

    • Ramesh Prabhu Hahaha!
      Wednesday at 10:55am

    • Bala Murali Krishna One more from ToI's top article on the edit page: "...waited with baited breath."
      Wednesday at 11:32am

    • Sudhir Prabhu Another one by the group. This time by Arnab Goswami on Times Now
      "... yesterday night.."
      Wednesday at 11:46am

    • Edward D'Mello Yes, that's a common mistake by both Times Now and CNN IBN.
      Wednesday at 11:55am

    • Ramesh Prabhu BTW, did you all know that "baited breath" is an eggcorn?

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn
      Wednesday at 2:51pm

    • Bala Murali Krishna I wonder then if the usage was deliberate
      Wednesday at 3:45pm

    • Ramesh Prabhu I doubt it, Bala. This seems to be a case of sloppy subbing.
      Wednesday at 4:22pm

    • Bala Murali Krishna guess so. great find on your part so we learn something new every day.
      Wednesday at 4:50pm

    • Edward D'Mello One more common newsreader mistake for your collection, Ramesh: "The situation would've been more better".
      Wednesday at 5:11pm

    • Avinash Kumai House style?
      Wednesday at 7:52pm

    • Sudha Aries It looks so bad sir! don't know probably their house style, but then it is a grammatical error as well!
      Wednesday at 11:05pm

    • Ramesh Prabhu It's ToI house style, sure, for the Edit Page, but how can any newspaper (or media organisation) break accepted rules of grammar for the sake of house style? I am told the lower case 'i' is at the insistence of the ToI proprietors, who insist that this is "good for the ego" (because the capital 'I' is bad for the ego, I presume). Do you get it? I don't.
      Thursday at 10.20am
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      Ramesh Prabhu
      Rant No. 24: Why don't we know how to spell "calendar"? Caption in Saturday's Mint: "... Toyota expects to sell 70,000 units of the two cars by the end of the next CALENDER year." [emphasis added]
      Thursday at 1:24pm


    • Sonam Sarawgi, Amrita Dey and 2 others like this.

    • Shruthi Shiva Do they really have the need to use the word, 'calendar'? It's not like, they want to say, fiscal year. Next year, is good enough, ain't?
      Thursday at 2:17pm

    • Ramesh Prabhu Good point, Shruthi. I think "calendar year" was specified because Mint is a business newspaper — that's probably house style.
      Thursday at 3:19pm
       
      ***
      Ramesh Prabhu
      Rant No. 25: Why do so many of us spell (and pronounce) "pronunciation" as "pronounciation"?
      Yesterday at 12:03pm

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