Know Your English - 2

Enthused by the amazing feedback, I endevour to present the next selection of “Know Your English”. But where is the feedback, you wonder. Look more closely and the absence of comments tells a story more profound than any other in the recent past. After a detailed study of human nature, I have come to a conclusion that lack of feedback is good feedback, people making sure to express themselves when they disagree. So believing in, as they say, “Maunam Ardhangikaram” – “Silence is half assent”, I plod forward.


Before introducing today’s word, I have some words of solace to certain sections of the publishing world. Word has it that a certain set of publishing houses (names like Oxford Press, Webster also figure in the list) are divesting and moving out of the dictionary business. “How can we compete with such work” seems to be the most heard refrain. Let me assure you all that I have left a niche field for these guys, that of semantics and etymology. There is enough space for all, so quit cribbing.

I confess that there has been a lapse on my part since the start of this series. I have titled this work as “Know your English” but I haven’t talked about English. Setting the records straight, here is a detail on English.

English, in the long forgotten time, was the language spoken by a people populating an Isle just off the coast of mainland Europe. A typical people with starched collars, frosted smiles, tight neck ties and accompanied by women dressed in a medieval torture instrument called the corset (a kind of wear that doesn’t allow even a molecule of air for the upper torso but ample ventilation for the lower. Makes me wonder why), you get the idea… Things were fine and the language remained pristine till one cold foggy day when it came upon one of these weird gentlemen that he ought to have a claim on a place bigger than a small isle.

The idea spread, was taken up by others until there came a day when the entire populace, with a chilling determination, set out to conquer the world. The Englishman may be diminutive, frosty and exceedingly formal but he was no mean fighter when it came to battle. With icy cold logic (reminiscent of his homeland weather), he built armies, destroyed armies, made and marred alliances and in the end, called an area that was a million times larger than his isle, his own. The sun wasn’t able to set over the British Empire, but it began its descent over the English language; the abuse and the final decimation of the language had just begun.

While previously the British would lampoon over the idea of any sort of kinship between the Queen and a petty farmer in the wastelands of Sahara, they had to get off the high horse now. All because the Islanders, in their love for their language, imposed it on all and sundry. A random Telugu guy can now pull the Royal backside off the throne just by saying, “So much cholestrolu in my foodu.” And English has become the language of the greatest common denominator, every rustic manipulating the English dictionary as his whims directed.

When last heard, the Queen was so deeply affronted by this assault on the language of her fathers that she has instituted a top secret committee to formulate a brand new language. To prevent its defilement, it would be taught only to her and her progeny and would be called the Queen’s English 2.0. As they say in the Great Britain, God save the Queen - and her language.