Well, just one more post on the last day of the year.
This is meant to vent my scorn, as a teacher and lover of the English language, on the way it is being mangled by a lot of new-fangled silliness and worse, what we call nyakami and dhong in Bengali. Not the first time I am writing in this vein, nor will this be the last. This post is meant only for those who share my love and respect.
These days it is not enough to talk about 'new' things any more - I suppose because novelties come a dime a dozen every day - so we must gush about 'newer' things: newer fashion wear, newer technology, newer political ideas. Likewise with 'lesser' (and the biggest culprits are journalists, who massacre the language out of both ignorance and careless hurry, probably knowing that it doesn't matter, since their readers are mostly as careless and distracted as they are): few people seem to know any more that less and lesser mean quite different things. 'My father earns less than me' is okay to say; so is, grammatically speaking, 'non-vertebrates are lesser creatures', meaning inferior; but 'I have lesser luggage than you' is meaningless. Nowadays, also, some people can only talk about 'older' people; simply calling us senior citizens 'old' supposedly 'hurts our feelings'. I don't know which morons think so, young or old, but I daresay most of our generation is too mature to be 'hurt' by such trivialities, thank you very much.
I have kept the very worst example for the last. In a recent interview, a journalist (yes, again) asked an elderly musician 'How young are you?' This beggars comment, so I shall leave it there, just hoping that none of my acquaintances ever use such English with me. I would be as offended as if someone referred to me as 'they' instead of he.
I am thankful to all those readers who have taken the page view count beyond 900,000, so that I can seriously look forward to crossing the million mark fairly soon. Some of them, I guess, have been with me for many years at a stretch: I shall be glad if they tell me so, even with one-line comments. Meanwhile, have a very happy New Year ahead, all.
9 comments:
Dear Suvro Sir,
I wish you a very happy new year.
May you be blessed with good health and plenty of time to do the things that you love.
Yours Sincerely
Subhasis
Dear Subhasis,
Thank you, but which Subhasis are you? I have known so many! And how does your comment relate to this particular blog post?
Sir
Dear Suvro Sir,
This is Subhasis Chakraborty from the 2003 ICSE Batch. I hope you are doing well Sir. I have been busy with a lot of things on my plate but I hope we can catch up soon.
Yours Sincerely
Subhasis
I made a small request in the last paragraph of the post: was it too much to ask? Or is it a fact that many of my regular readers are, for some abstruse reason, too embarrassed to let it be known publicly that they have been reading this blog for a long time?
Dear Suvroda
Happy New Year. While I have been with you since the blog started but it took me a Teacher's day post in September 2008 to comment for the first time (I think so!). I revisit a lot of posts from time to time.
Regards
Tanmoy
Dear Sir,
I have been a regular visitor of this blog since 2015. But I have also gone back and read most of the posts written before that. I hope the views hit the million mark soon. Forgive me for I too am guilty of not engaging more on this blog.
Yours sincerely,
Swarnava Mitra
Dear sir,
I have read almost all of your posts since inception of this blog. I have been silently following you.
Many of your observations and thoughts posted over here have invariably seeped in through my "blood-brain barrier" to etch some soothingly colourful brush strokes on my endeavours of apparently necessary canvas of materialistic pursuits.
No wonder why some timeless things take some time to be experienced by oneself, if only someone possessed a sense of wonder.
I am fortunate to have interacted with at least one person in my life till now, you; sir, who remains modern enough to think lucidly and rationally, rather than the vain, AI-powered "modern" unread herd for whom history starts and ends with their FB timelines.
Regards,
Sayan Roy
2005: ICSE/ Xaverian.
Thank you for writing in after ages, Sayan. I had decided years ago that you, like thousands of others, had dropped out of my life.
Sir,
That may be true in India, as you have mentioned. And, as you mentioned before, probably many Indians speak pidgin. But, as for the native speaking world, John McWhorter, Anne Curzan, and David Crystal, don't seem to be too worried. And, David Crystal has talked about the so-called, 'Indian English', too.
David Crystal - What are your views on the trajectory of Indian English?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhaaGjUPxd4
I would be most interested in reading your reviews of their books and research.
Best regards,
Rajdeep
P.S. Once more, it took five minutes to simply prove that I am not a robot!
Post a Comment