MxMIndia

Category: Opinion – Archives

  • Spelling and grammar is more important than looks, at least for nearly half of the single people in a recent survey. Vidya Heble wonders why

    Speaking of Which | Wats In A Date

    By Vidya Heble

     

    According to a recent online survey of 1,700 adults, 43 percent of online daters consider bad grammar a “major” turnoff. More than a third (35 percent) think good grammar is sexy, and 22 percent couldn’t care less.

     

    A longtime friend and former colleague read this and, naturally, thought of Speaking of Which, so he was kind enough to send it on.

     

    The survey said – ahem – women have stronger feelings about grammar than men do. Check it out: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/13777.aspx

     

    The survey was carried out by a firm that offers professional proofreading and editing services (yes, they exist, and in case you’re wondering about the difference between editing and proofreading, we shall speak of that too in a subsequent column). So it may seem like a vested interest, but the fact is, and I know it has struck a chord with some of you, that a clumsily worded self-portrait may not even attract a second look.

     

    As one of the commenters on the story said, “The lack of proper grammar is a sign of not putting much effort into how you come across to others. If you’re trying to date, or get a job, you should want to sound like you give a darn about the impression others will have of you. I can forgive the occasional typo if the majority of the written words look like thought and time have been put into them.”

     

    Another remarked: “It displays a lack of intelligence and intelligence is very very sexy. It also reveals a lack of attention to the world itself; good grammar can be achieved just by paying merely attention when one reads – if one reads. It’s also just plain rude. If a person really wants to find a life partner, taking the time to proofread is merely polite.”

     

    One does not need advanced degrees to ensure that what one says is reasonably accurate and free of boo-boos. Every program – short of, perhaps, Notepad – comes with spelling and grammar checks, those wavy green and red lines under flagged words and phrases in MS Word for example. Even Google and Gmail check your writing as you type. Your writing need not be flowery – in fact, such attempts usually backfire – but there is little reason it can’t be written in plain English (you know, no SMS-speak) and be free of basic mistakes. In this era, there is very little excuse for not doing so, especially when one is online. There is help for everything on the internet.

     

    Why does it matter? As the commenters on that survey said, it shows that you care at least that much about how you portray yourself. This is, of course, on a dating site where your image is vital. But the principle holds in other situations too, because every time you send out a piece of writing, you are sending out a message about yourself. The sub-text of what you write – is it clean, well formatted, efficiently worded, accurate as to spelling and grammar – tells the recipient that you care about your work.

     

    You don’t need to wait until you write something “significant”, if you make disciplined writing second nature, anything you write can be significant.

     

  • Vidya Heble entreats readers not to beg. The question, that is

    Speaking of Which | Begging the Question

    By Vidya Heble

     

    “Begs the question” does not mean “Gives rise to the question,” which is how I see it used sometimes, much to my dismay. Begging the question is not a phrase or clause, it is a logical fallacy, and it’s been around much before any of our identifiable ancestors. It is one of the classic informal fallacies in Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. The fallacy of petitio principii, or “begging the question”, is committed “when a proposition which requires proof is assumed without proof.” “Beg the question”, simply, means “to assume the truth of the conclusion of one’s argument without bothering to prove it”.

     

    Begging the question is what one does in an argument when one already assumes what one is supposed to be proving. Or, states question itself as the answer to the question. “Why is this a popular programme? Because viewers like it.” The fact that viewers like it makes it popular, so the response to this is, “That begs the question.” Another example is, “Why does opium induce sleep? Because it has a soporific quality.”

     

    “Begs the question” does not need to have an actual question following it; it is a phrase in itself, and the “question” it refers to is already inherent in the statement being discussed. Therefore, desist from talking about begging the question, unless you know for sure that you are using it in the right context. Or, of course, if you’re involved in a philosophical-logical discussion.

     

  • It is not always enough to get facts, spelling and grammar right. You also have to remember the sub-text of what you are saying, writes Vidya Heble

    Speaking of Which | The Last Resort

    By Vidya Heble

     

    If you are someone who writes – or edits – for a living, it is not always enough to get facts, spelling and grammar right. You also have to remember the sub-text of what you are saying. I’ve seen a reporter pulled up for describing someone in their 50s as “elderly”. Of course, this was in a newsroom which was extremely, um, straitlaced, but it drove home to me the importance of implication.

     

    One such mistake that reporters often make is implying that when police teargas, lathi-charge or open fire on protesters, they are forced to do so by the unrelenting provocation of the mob. This is done, probably unwittingly, through the simple expedient of using “resorted to”. “Police resorted to a lathi-charge,” is the most common example. It must be made clear that “resorted to” is not a synonym for “carried out”. “Resorted to” means that the police, at the end of their tether and unable to quell the frenzied crowd by any other means, resorted to violence and there was no other option available.

     

    With the explosion of media, the practice of plain old reporting seems to have fallen by the wayside, but one of the tenets of straightforward reporting is that there should be no slant or opinion injected into it. Implying that the police were pressed into firing or lathi-charging as a last resort is not recommended. “Had to” is another such phrase. Using such phrases implies that there was provocation from one side and retaliation by another. Hold off doing this. The reporter’s job is to be the word-camera, and all you need to do is think about each word as you write it.

     

    If someone says it, of course they can be quoted, and the same goes for an opinion piece. In reporting, stick with the facts. The mob marched, or threw stones, the police carried out a lathi-charge, or opened fire, or water-cannoned the protesters.

     

    Here I have used the police as an example; it can well be the other way round, as in one report where I read that the crowd resorted to stone-throwing and damaged some vehicles. Beats me why it couldn’t have been just “the crowd threw stones”. (None of them, I presume, live in glass houses.)

     

  • Verbs have their places in black and white, not including grey areas. Vidya Heble counts the shades

    Speaking of Which | Shall We Disappear You?

    By Vidya Heble

     

    There is a venerable text by a venerable pair of birds, Wren and Martin. Those over 40 should know about it, and those under that should too, if it is still the standard for school grammar education since I was there. It is titled High School English Grammar and Composition, and it is always called the Wren & Martin, and it has been published by S Chand & Co in slightly different versions of the same utilitarian cover with the insides, as far as I can tell, unchanged.

     

    And as far as I can tell again, there isn’t any reason to change them. Grammar has not, fundamentally, changed. Yes, some words and phrases have expanded in meaning and shifted shape a little, like elastic-waisted jeans that help the wearer absorb delicious dinners without popping a button. But the essentials of grammar are still what they were. A noun is a noun, and the parts of the sentence still need to be in their places for the sentence to make sense.

     

    We may not always need to know why something is right or wrong, except when we’re explaining them to someone else. Generally when writing or editing I don’t usually need to look up points of grammar. After 25 years on the job, language generally comes naturally to one. But when I get onto the Speaking of Which soapbox, and I have to justify my pontification, that’s when a tome is useful. There is a choice of volumes – Fowler’s, Oxford Companion, Websters, a selection of Penguin titles. But to explain one particular point of grammar I had to dig out my Wren and Martin.

     

    That point of grammar is the verb – transitive versus intransitive. In grammarese, an intransitive verb is a verb that has no direct object. This is distinct from a transitive verb, which takes one or more objects. The verb property is called transitivity. Very broadly and a bit simply, a transitive verb is something that you do to someone else. And an intransitive verb is one that you do yourself or to yourself. You don’t have to worry about which verb is called what, although the word “trans” = “transfer” will help you remember if you want to. Far more important is to remember that an intransitive verb should not be made to do a transitive verb’s work. One instance of this is people using (or misusing) “disappear” thus. “He disappeared the file,” was one. You can’t do that. You can make the file disappear, or you can do away with the file. Or you yourself can disappear, as I wish perpetrators of these grammatical injustices would do.

     

    In English, of course, there are grey areas. It has been compared to a woman’s wardrobe in terms of its lack of logic, although these days a man’s wardrobe would compete quite satisfactorily for that. The verb “grow” used in conjunction with money is one which baffled me for a while. “Grow your money” sounded terribly wrong but then what about growing plants? There’s no one-size-fits-all rule here. Finally I decided that you should not grow inanimate objects. Grow tomatoes, yes. Grow money – nice concept but it won’t happen. You can, however, make your money or your company grow, and here’s hoping you benefit majorly from it.

     

  • Don't be unnecessarily shameless, says Vidya Heble

    Speaking of Which | A little less shame, perhaps?

    By Vidya Heble

     

    This time we focus on the wrong use of a word – not incorrect but not quite what is intended to be meant. Chief among them is ‘shameless’, a word that I’ve noticed people using increasingly often. Shameless seems to be the default replacement word to mean anything from frank to brazen.

     

    The murderous assault in Delhi of a young woman and her companion left me drained of the will to be pedantic about word usage in the face of such far more vital issues, but duty does call.

     

    Shameless is a strong word and has a negative connotation. We usually don’t intend to imply this negative meaning when we use the word, so why don’t we take a few moments and look for words that actually mean what we intend? For instance, I unashamedly confess to being a fan of John Abraham. I might even be uninhibited when jumping with joy at the prospect of meeting him. But in neither case would I be shameless. You shouldn’t, either.

     

    Another word I’ve come across, mainly in word-portraits about some personality or the other, is ‘humble’. I can understand humble beginnings such as a handcart pusher going on to become a big businessman. But his personality remains, not humble but modest. In the Indian context modesty is practically synonymous with personal space, the invasion of which amounts to ‘outraging of modesty’. But modesty is also a character attribute, and it means something different from humility (and that is a word related to ‘humble’, in case you wondered).

     

    The big question: How do you know which word to use? How do you know there are these other words that express what you want to say? The only way to find out is to read, read, read. Not text messages but books.

     

  • It used to be suo moto. Now it seems to have turned into suo motu, which sounds wrong to Vidya Heble. Anyone there to clarify?

    Speaking of Which | So Suo Me

    By Vidya Heble

     

    Now and then I dip into other newspapers and every time I think I have indeed made the right choice with my Hindustan Times subscription. It’s not perfect, but no newspaper can be (ok maybe the New York Times but we don’t know for sure, do we?) and HT is probably as good as it can get. Mistakes are few and far between, and often excusable as what I call “genuine typos”.

     

    Now and then HT surprises one with a zinger of the nice kind, such as the other day when they described an upscale neighbourhood as “tony”. An unusual word to use but I’m glad they did; people who don’t know what it means will either get the drift, or (one hopes) look it up and thus be educated as well as edified.

     

    Then I turned a page.

     

    In a report about something to do with courts, there was the phrase “suo motto”. Even typing it makes me laugh; it evoked a hearty chuckle when I read it. Actually the phrase suo moto is one of the topics on the Speaking of Which list, because it usually gets printed as “suo motu”, which may be amusing to those of us who know Hindi, but is also incorrect. That is, as far as I know. Apparently a Wikipedia entry gives the definition for “suo motu”, but the only instances I can find of its use are on sub-continent news sites. I still think suo moto – which exists in Latin definition lists – is the right phrase, and anyone who can back it up with a proper Latin dictionary or the equivalent will get a box of chocolates with no compulsion to share it with me.

     

    Literally translated, suo moto means “on its own motion.” The term generally refers to a situation wherein a judge acts without request by either party to the action before the court. Perhaps if the judge made a quip while doing so, it could well be suo motto.

     

  • Perhaps afraid of committing themselves with a "will", or wanting to sound polite and ineffable, more and more people are using "would" in the wrong place. Vidya Heble tries to restore order

    Speaking of Which – The Woulds Are Not Lovely

    By Vidya Heble

     

    Perhaps afraid of committing themselves with a “will”, or wanting to sound polite and ineffable, more and more people are using “would” in the wrong place. It is reminiscent of the backlash against “me”, which resulted in everyone saying “I” even when “me” was the correct word. That wave has begun to recede, fortunately, but there’s a new one upon us. It’s the tsunami of the “would”.

     

    I see it in at least one press release every other day, and I kid you not. There’s an announcement of someone’s impending appointment or a product launch or an event, and we are told, “So-and-so would take charge on Monday.” “The gadget would be priced at Rs x.” It should be obvious to the reader that “will” is the right word to use in these instances. So why don’t they say “will”? (Or are they secretly telling us that So-and-so would take charge on Monday if he could shake off the massive hangover he’s bound to get after the Sunday party? And that the gadget would be priced at Rs x if the marketers felt generous, but instead they are selling it at Rs x++, suckers?)

     

    I can only imagine that it is some sort of desire to sound fancy – that is what drives most of the drivel these days.  But being wrong is not fancy at all, and the sooner the would-wielders learn it, the better.

     

    “Would” is, of course, used by news writers when quoting someone in indirect speech, ie without inverted commas. For example: The announcement would revolutionize the industry, he said. “The announcement will revolutionize the industry,” he said. When “would” is used in the context of a future event, it indicates a condition attached to it – ie, “I would if I could”. It is also a super-polite way to say “will”, but not quite in Press Release Land: “Mr Tochuka Sui would be happy to attend.”

     

    There are many other legitimate uses of “would”, and who better than the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv43.shtml)  and the British Council (http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/verbs/modal-verbs/will-or-would) to explain them?

     

    I would hit the sack now if I could, but there are miles to go before I sleep.

     

    Vidya Heble is Deputy Editor at MxMIndia, when she is not twitching obsessive-compulsively.

     

  • If it's worth printing, it's worth getting it right. Especially if it's printed on the front page, says Vidya Heble

    Speaking of Which | Drawing the Line

    If I could manage without reading any newspapers at all, I would happily pick that option. But I can’t yet afford to live in a cocoon and, let’s face it, newspapers do give us the lowdown on the news that we may have sampled on the internet the previous day. I subscribe to the best option around, the Hindustan Times, and sometimes I browse other newspapers.

     

    But I seriously wonder if I can take it much longer. There has recently been a steady stream of language-related atrocities, and this is in the very limited news reading that I do. It started with Mumbai Mirror which reported various details surrounding the death of Asha Bhosle’s daughter. It also mentioned Ashaji’s sister “Lala” Mangeshkar. On the front page. Once I had stopped groaning I realized that it isn’t totally wrong, as someone in my family pointed out – she does sing “La la la la la…”

     

    But that one could have been what we call a “genuine typo”. Then came a report in Hindustan Times about the kidnapping of a boy, where the ransom note was written on a piece of “fullscape” paper. This was obvious an error of ignorance, because the term is actually “foolscap”, referring to the size of the typical “long book” that students use. I suppose a simple search for the term (even the wrong term) coupled with “paper size” would have cleared it up. That is, if the reporter or the sub-editor wanted to ensure it was correct. “Fullscape” is an unusual word. Why not look it up to make sure it’s correct?

     

    More serious than that, a few days later in HT, was a report blurbed on the front page and carried in full on an inside page, which left me much alarmed. It talked about the India-China border, referring to it all along as the “MacMohan Line”. (Mac Mohan is a Hindi film villain-sidekick actor!) I find it really hard to believe that no one, at all, on the desk and especially on the front page, knew that it is the McMahon Line. All right, assuming that the average age on the average desk is 24 and that the average range of knowledge considers the 1980s as ‘history’, still… what about looking it up? If they cared enough to look it up. Or cared at all.

     

    Why care? Why do a job well when you can get away with doing it slipshod? Because we are in the profession of disseminating information, that’s why. We should not be allowed to get away with doing it badly. Our job is not only to entertain (did I hear a gasp?) but chiefly to inform. And information needs to be correct. In my hierarchy of getting things right, facts are at the top. Then comes spelling and grammar. The McMahon boo-boo was an error of both fact and spelling. I don’t expect journalists to know everything. But I do expect them to look it up. In an era when search and reference tools are handier and more accessible than I have ever known them to be, there is no excuse for getting it wrong, at least on the front page. Besides, how else are we ourselves to learn anything new if we don’t find out?

     

    This is not a case for perfection. In a business where everything moves fast, and is getting increasingly so with stepped-up technology by the day, it’s not possible to dot every i and cross every t. But “MacMohan Line” is beyond the pale. It was considered important enough for the front page. It is very much an important fact (the India-China border, after all). Was it not important enough to get it right?

     

    PS: In despair, I turned to food. Reading about it, that is. BBC Good Food has been my refuge from the world, and I enjoy sinking into the luscious photographs and excellently presented recipes and articles. But the October issue brought great disappointment. For one, the brand Woh Hup was spelled Who Hup. Yes, the electronic spell checker “corrects” it, though the human eye should have been on the lookout for this particular word. Leaving that behind, later in the same issue I also came across “exhorbitantly” – a damning error if there was any. This is understandable and even forgivable if it appears in a high-frequency publication such as a daily, where a spell-check is sometimes overlooked in the hurry of meeting the daily deadline. But Good Food is a monthly and there is enough time to check everything. I know, I’ve worked in one and done it. Good Food is a publication of quality, not a two-bit magazine from which nothing great can be expected. It’s priced high enough that everything should be obsessively checked before it goes to print. And remember, a spell-check is only as good as the person carrying it out.