More mangled English

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.

Christmas week ruminations

Why have I not been writing? Several reasons, actually.

I am growing old, and slow.

I have been engrossed in reading a lot of very enjoyable books, the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear among them (woman investigator cum psychologist in the early 1930s), besides having just finished the last of the Vish Puri books by Tarquin Hall, and In Search of Wales by H. V. Morton (famed for In Search of England, which is one of the loveliest books I have ever read - and that is saying something!)

I have been having fun, visiting my daughter's new digs in Kolkata. 

There are several dogs around to play with.

It feels unpleasant to sit in a cold room hammering away at the keyboard when I can sit out in the sun with coffee and watch the blue sky, the lush greenery all around, the cooing and chirping of so many birds and the flitting many-hued butterflies. And chatting with favourite old boys or going out walking with them in the late evenings after class.

I have already written so much that I sometimes feel scared that I might be repeating myself.

Readers have not obliged me by writing in to suggest ideas, things which I could write about with interest and knowledge.

In any case, in the Yuletide season, I wish peace on earth and joy to all men and women of goodwill. Who knows but this might be my last post of 2023.

Electoral augury

BJP comfortably voted into power in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh, devastated in Mizoram, and Congress surprise victory (at least to me) in Telangana, trouncing both the BJP and the ruling BRS.

Lesson learnt - the BJP steamroller is not something the Congress can tackle single-handedly any more, except occasionally here and there under special circumstances, probably even less so at the national general elections next year, no matter what pipe dreams they might still be dreaming. 

I am not gloating. I have no reason to. I can neither forget that the Congress has been the root of all political evil in India since 1947 along with most of the good that has been achieved, nor that the BJP is doing a lot of things it shouldn't if it really has the long-term welfare of the country (meaning only the vast majority of ordinary people) in mind.

I speak only for democracy, and for democracy even to survive, a strong and coherent opposition that knows its own mind is absolutely essential. So, for the sake of democracy, I do hope that the Congress gets off its high horse and goes quickly into a real and meaningful electoral (as well as post-electoral) understanding with all the other major opposition parties, so that the BJP at least has to face a strong fight in the 2024 parliamentary elections, and is kept on its toes under the law and the Constitution after - as it seems very likely as of today - it is returned to power once more.

Remember: democracy has been said to be 'not the best, but the least bad of all systems of government known to man'. Destroying it leads inevitably to the reduction of vast numbers into unthinking, uncomplaining poverty, drudgery and servitude. The tragedy is that people start missing it most only when it is lost, and it invariably takes a lot of time, pain and loss to bring it back. 'Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it'.