Day 19 - So

"So, I bought a new phone!"

So, how was your day?

So, it has been raining since morning today. 

So, I am travelling to Delhi this evening.

Here, we are not referring to so as a conjunction (a word that joins two sentence). For example, It's raining so I am not going out.

We are referring to beginning a conversation with the word so.

I have heard many people using it that way. Are you one of them?

Apparently, Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman and CEO of Meta Platforms, is one of them. 

Textbook grammar says one should never begin a sentence (much less a conversation) with a conjunction like so, and, or, etc.

The proponents of its such usage say it sets a context to start a discussion or a conversation; and it sounds more natural that way. Something like a substitute for "You know, .. Well, ... " etc.

They say when you start a conversation with: "So, I am travelling to Delhi this evening", it means "I have been wanting to tell you about my travel plans ..." Or, "Well, there is a change of plan, so I am travelling to Delhi this evening."

However, the opponents say, it is not only grammatically wrong but it also makes the speaker sound a bit defensive (for some unknown reason) saying something that the listener wouldn't be prepared to hear.

I am not one of those who would begin a conversation with so because it sounds a bit odd when I hear someone use it in that manner. 

Language is all about usage, is it not? If it conveys the right meaning, then the usage should be deemed to be right!

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This post is part of the blogging challenge in April every year, wherein bloggers put up one post a day, from A to Z, every day except Sundays. 

I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z. I am also on A2Z April Challenge.

Image credit: Pixabay

Day 15 - Oxford comma

Which of the two following sentences is correct?

For breakfast today, I had bread, butter, cheese and jam.

For breakfast today, I had bread, butter, cheese, and jam.

The only difference in the above two sentences is the comma before 'and'.

Both are okay, since the meaning remains the same.

This comma is called the 'Oxford comma'. It comes after the penultimate item and before 'and' or 'or' in a list of items.

It's so called because Oxford University Press introduced it around 1900 to reduce ambiguity while listing out items.  

SHOULD WE USE IT OR NOT?

What I learnt in school was that when you list a number of items, you don't need a comma before 'and' or 'or' because the conjunction (and / or) brings in the pause and clarity which otherwise is provided by the comma.

However, now I realise that the style books of some organisations (like The Chicago Manual of Style, Garner's Modern American Usage) mandate its use; while those of others (like Associated Press Stylebook and The New York Times Style Book) don't.

Interestingly, while The Oxford Style Manual is for it, the University of Oxford Style Guide is against it.

Some, like The Economist, leave it to the context of the usage.

I don't use it, if it isn't required. 

WHEN IS IT REQUIRED

Look at this sentence:

Nimmy gave the bunch of flowers to her parents, Susan and Chris.

Since there is no Oxford comma, I will presume that Susan and Chris are Nimmy's parents.

If they are not, then you need an Oxford comma. 

Nimmy gave the bunch of flowers to her parents, Susan, and Chris.

Or, list them in a different order:

Nimmy gave the bunch of flowers to Susan, Chris and her parents.

So be careful, punctuations (actually not just the Oxford comma) can alter meanings!

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This post is part of the blogging challenge in April every year, wherein bloggers put up one post a day, from A to Z, every day except Sundays. 

I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z. I am also on A2Z April Challenge.

Caulk

There are so many word games out there. Another one!

I am a sceptic. I don't jump in when everyone jumps in. 

So, I took some time to get on to Wordle.

I am not hooked on to it every day. I play if I get time. 

I don't mind if I miss a day. So, I am not bothered about the streak.

A couple of good things about it. 

One, I am not competing with anyone. 

Two, I have full 24 hours to find the word.

A couple of downsides.

One, it's always only five-letter words.

Two, when you try out a word, you always have to start from the first letter. Meaning, you can't start placing the 2nd, or 3rd or the last letter first, and then guess the rest.

Yesterday's word was just out the world. I got it in the 5th attempt. I usually get it in the 4th try. 

After 'baulk' was marked wrong; since it couldn't be 'a', I tried C and it worked. And I learnt a new word. 

A waterproof filler is something that is so commonly used especially in construction and in house-repair work. But the word for it isn't that common. (At least I didn't know till yesterday!)

In fact, a few months ago, when water was seeping from our washroom to the basement wall, we had a worker coming in to fix it. Now I know what he applied.

Home town or hometown

One of the important functions of my job profile is to check the accuracy of facts and language.

To check facts, I do a lot of Googling so much so that the search engine, mistaking me for a robot, often makes me jump over human-verification hoops!

To check the accuracy of language, I turn to online dictionaries. 

When I began my career in the pre-computer era, we had just one dictionary on the desk, and all of us went by that. It used to be mostly Oxford.

Today, we have at least six well-known dictionaries that are just a click away. But sometimes that has only made the task difficult.

Though all of them give us the same meaning, there are inconsistencies, especially in usage. Here is a good example.

Home town or hometown?

These dictionaries say it's two words

Lexico

Longman 

Macmillan 

And these say it's one word

Cambridge

Collins

Dictionary.com

Lexico.com is a collaboration between Dictionary.com and Oxford University Press. But still, Lexico and Dictionary.com differ.

Longman says it's two words in British English and one word in American English.

Macmillan and Collins say it can be either two words or one word.

#AtZChallenge - Japanese Language School

(This month, each day, except the four Sundays, I will be blogging about interesting features associated with Bengaluru, formerly known as Bangalore, as part of the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge)

Considering that Bengaluru is a melting pot of cultures and a technology powerhouse driving businesses around the world, it's only natural that there many foreign language schools and teachers in the city. 

A random online survey showed at least 10 institutes in the city each for language like French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Italian, Chinese etc. Besides, there are many who teach small groups of students at their homes.

In 2014, there were around 200 Japanese companies in Karnataka and the Japanese population was about 600. Five years later, the corresponding figures were 530 and 1,300, according to Deccan Herald. There are around 30 Japanese restaurants too in Bengaluru. 

We are on J today, therefore, Japanese Language School. It was established in 1984, which its website says is "the first organized Japanese language institute in Bangalore". 

The entire course was designed especially for the Indians by an Indian educationist and Japanese expert late H Ganesh. According to him, the pronunciation and grammar aren't tough; it's the vocabulary that is difficult since it's very different from Indian or European languages.

Images from Japan Habba (Festival of Japan 2019)
Source: Consulate-General of Japan, Bengaluru

The course is stuctured keeping in mind the Japanese Language Proficiecy Test certificate which is recognised world over. The levels of learning range from the basic N5 to the highest N1. Besides grammar and vocabulary, students are also taught basic Japanese culture like etiquette.

My son studied at the Japanese Language School and cleared the elementary level. He couldn't continue the course as he had to move to Sydney. We keep telling him to keep in touch with the language in some way so that he doesn't forget what he learnt. Not sure if he is getting the time for it.

In the city, the other two very popular foreign cultural centres are the Alliance Francaise (for French) and the Goethe-Institut (for German), which in India are called Max Mueller Bhavan, in honour of Friedrich Max Müller, who specialised in Indian languages and culture.

(Tomorrow, we go back in time again - it's about a centuries-old festival.)

Q for Quotes - My favourite things to counter COVID-19 stress

(This post is part of the A to Z Challenge. I am writing this month on activities that keep me refreshed during these depressing days. It's Day 17 today.)

In these times, words of inspiration can be very powerful in combating the negativity and the consequent uncertainty about our future.

I like reading them. At one level, they provide a new perspective to different complex situations and at another level, they reinforce our convictions. I have my favourites, but I don't want to put out a list.

There is no dearth of resources to find them -- from popular websites to social media timelines and forwards.

Therein lies a new problem. We are living in an age of misinformation and disinformation. There are many quotes that are wrongly attributed to famous persons. So much so that when I see a quotation I am a bit circumspect, regardless of how inspirational it is.

SHAKESPEARE

Some very popular quotations are actually paraphrased versions of the original. One of the most well-known is "A rose by any other name smells just as sweet", attributed to Shakespeare. However, the correct words are: "What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet;" from Romeo and Juliet.

MAHATMA GANDHI

Mahatma Gandhi is supposed to have said: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Apparently, there is no documentary evidence to substantiate this, and it's widely believed that he never said it.

According to The New York Times, the closest verifiable remark they have from Gandhi is: "If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him ...We need not wait to see what others do."

NEIL ARMSTRONG

But the quotation that became a major talking point and set off a sort of major research was the one by Neil Armstrong when he set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

According to Armstrong himself, if the quotation had to make any sense, there should have been an indefinite article before 'man'. It should have been "a man", and he insists that he did say with an 'a'.

To find out the missing 'a', a detailed analysis of the audiotape was launched, and according to Los Angeles Times, even a study into the way people in Ohio said "for" and "for a". Apparently, many speakers have a tendency to merge the two words!

'The video has gone viral'

(Sorry, if you were expecting to see such a video.)

I am so tired of hearing the word 'viral' for messages or audio or video clips that have been forwarded or circulated by a large number of people in a short span of time.

The word is such a cliché.

Isn't there a synonym for 'viral', or a single word to describe such messages or videos?

Malapropism: what was that again?

It happens with all of us; but goes unnoticed until it's pointed out. I am referring to malapropism, use of a wrong word that sounds similar to the originally intended word.

This happens because many words sound similar or have similar spellings, but mean quite different. There are plenty of examples. Some of my favourites:

• Defuse, Diffuse

- Timely police intervention defused the situation. (Make less tense or dangerous)
- The gas that leaked from the cylinder diffused rapidly. (Spread)

• Discrete, Discreet

- Rainbow is made up of a set of discrete colours. (Separate)
- He is very discreet when he talks to his boss. (Careful, prudent)

• Adapt, Adept, Adopt

- She adapted to the new place very fast. (Adjust)
- She is adept in dealing with difficult situations. (Very skilled)
- She adopted a kitten yesterday. (Take care of)

The above examples are usually found in writing, because they sound almost same.

There also spoken ones, wherein words with slightly different pronunciation are used mistakenly.

• "After circumventing the world, the ship returned to the base yesterday."

It should be circumnavigating the world, meaning to go around. Circumvent means avoid, though one might be able to circumvent a problem (like a puddle of water on the road) by circumnavigating it.

• "What you are saying does not jive with the evidence we have."

It should be jibe, meaning agree. Jive means to dance to music.

• "He eludes confidence."

This is a sentence supposedly said by William Bratton, Los Angeles police chief, while making a reference to Barack Obama's second inaugural speech in 2009. What he meant was exudes confidence, to mean display. Elude means to avoid. There is also a word, illude to mean trick or delude.

Some famous ones

A well-known malapropism was by Australian Opposition Leader Tony Abbott while criticising Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during a Liberal Party function in Melbourne in August 2013. Abott said, "No one, however smart, however well-educated, however experienced, is the suppository of all wisdom." What he meant was repository. Suppository is a medicine that is kept in rectum or vagina where it gradually dissolves. Repository is a place where something is found or stored.

George W. Bush, (the eldest son of George H W Bush), was famous for the gaffes he used to make during public speeches. So much so that they came to be known as Bushisms.

During electioneering in November 2000, while referring to the advisers of his Republican rival John McCain, Bush said, "They misunderestimated me." There is no word like misunderestimate. It's either misunderstand or underestimate.

In April 2006, while there was widespread call for Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign, because of various issues like reports of abuse of prisoners by US military at the Abu Ghraib prison etc., President Bush said in Washington, "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense." Decider is term used in sports, when a point or a goal decides the winner of the match.

There are plenty of compilations of Bushisms on Youtube. Check them out.

Watch out! Malapropism can be hilarious, embarrassing or totally misleading!

(This post is a part of the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2018.")

Language, an emotional connect

A newborn needs no language to communicate. Her language is the body language. Slowly, she picks up the language her parents speak. When she is in school, she learns more languages. In the company of friends and colleagues, later in life, she might pick up more languages.

But all people are not adept in learning languages: some pick them up very fast, others take a long time, a few simply are unable to learn a new language even after many years. Some people are forced to learn new languages because of compulsion of the new State or country they have moved in to.

In most non-English-speaking European nations, you need to know their national language to study or work. In some countries, people are so attached to their language, they will talk only in that, irrespective of whether you know or not.

Language is elementary to communication, and therefore, to making an emotional connect. No wonder politicians and sales executives try to speak in the vernacular to sound more convincing and make an impact.

As much as emotionally binding, languages can also be emotionally divisive. When two people speak in a language that you can't understand, you feel left out. If you are a bit insecure, you might even think that they are talking about you. Some people see political agendas and hegemonic biases in a particular language.

I am not sure about other countries, but in India, languages is an explosive topic, like religion, unless handled carefully. Ironically, in the South, our own Hindi is a more divisive language than the foreign English. Similarly, in the North, our own local south Indian languages can be a put-off to many people, compared to English.

So, English is seen more as a link language, and generally more acceptable compared to our Indian languages. But some people see English as the language of the elite, and make every effort to dissuade other people from learning it, though they themselves will learn and ensure that their children too learn it.

A few months ago, in Bengaluru, the Metro Rail authorities were forced to remove Hindi signage from stations and drop Hindi announcements, since local Kannada activists saw Hindi signage as a symbol of the Federal government's authority in the State. (India's capital, New Delhi, is in the North where Hindi is the commonly used language.)

Language is just a tool to communicate. One shouldn't see anything more than that in it. You learn languages when you need to use them, unless you have a passion to learn them. Languages should be there for our convenience and comfort. More the better.

By the way, in a testimony to the diversity of our country, we don't have a national language. We have two official national languages - Hindi and English; and each State has its own official language or languages, which may or may not include Hindi and English.

(This post is a part of the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2018.")

Key, there is more to it than what you think

It is something that you use to open a lock.

You use it to wind a clock, tune a musical instrument and to type out a letter on the computer.

It is also an answer to a problem, a fruit, and a region on a basket ball court.

You can key in data into a computer, while it is generally said that the key to success is hard work.

There is a Key in Ohio, West Virginia and Alabama. Besides Keys in Oklahoma, and Florida Keys.

Then in central Iran there is a Key, and a Key Island in Tasmania, Australia.

I am sure there are many more meanings to key.

(This post is part of the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2018.")

Husband, husbandry

This is one of those many words in English that can be misleading. Husbandry has nothing to do with husband, at least not in the present-day context. However, if you look at the origin of both words, you can find a link between the two.

Originally, husband only meant the male head of a house; married, widowed or single. It was only from very late 13th century that it came to mean as a man married to a woman.

Husband is believed to have come from hus = house; and bondi = occupier of land or house, tiller of soil.

Husbandry evolved from there, to mean cultivation and management of crops, animals, or farms in general. 'Animal Husbandry' is a common usage. India has an Animal Husbandry Minister in government. Probably other nations too.

The word husband gradually came to mean as the main, if not the sole, provider of a family. Of course, today, the word means neither someone who is wedded only to a woman nor someone who is the sole or main provider of a family.

Husband can also mean to use resources economically, or someone who uses resources economically. (How many husbands actually use resources economically, is open to debate.)

There are a couple of other interesting related words:

Husbandable, means suitable for husbandry or cultivation.

Husbandage, is the money paid to the manager (or husband) of a ship.

(This blog entry is a part of the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2018")

Euphemism: saying it, without saying it

In school, when our English teacher, Mr Prem C Nair, told us that "kicked the bucket" means "that person is dead", caused a good amount of mirth among us students. We were so excited about the phrase that whenever we heard someone was dead, we used the word "kicked the bucket".

Euphemism is a figure of speech wherein a word or phrase, which sounds more polite or mild, is used instead of one that sounds harsh or embarrassing. There are plenty of such euphemistic words or phrases we use in our daily life.

• He is a bit tipsy. (He is drunk)
  
• He is very economical with truth. (He is a liar.)
  
• He is between jobs. (He is unemployed.)

Euphemisms are also evolving; and I have heard some people objecting to it. 

There are women who prefer to say, "I am pregnant", rather than "I am in the family way". Similarly, very few young women nowadays would say, "I am in that time of the month ..." Instead, they would say, "I have my periods". The use of the word "menstruation" is also no longer a taboo or offensive.

At the end of the day, what word or phrase to use, depends on the context, is it not?

One of the most famous critics of euphemisms is George Carlin, the American stand-up comedian and social critic. Here is a 9-minute video clip of Carlin's take on euphemisms. Enjoy. :-)

(This blog entry is a part of the "Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2018")

Why you can't begin a sentence with "Due to"

One of the tasks of journalists is to get facts and the language right.

We need to get the facts right, for obvious reasons. We need to get the language right, because a wrong preposition or a phrase or a punctuation or a word can even alter the meaning of a sentence.

If there is a mistake in language, it might essentially amount to getting the fact wrong.

Even after so many years in the profession of journalism, I keep looking up the dictionary and renowned publications every day with doubts regarding a word or a phrase. It's always a learning experience, and I thought I must make it a practice to put out here in the blog what I learn. The last time I blogged on "Language" was in 2007.

There is this endless debate on the difference between "due to" and "owing to". Though many believe that the two are synonymous, many puritans aren't amused if one is used in the place of the other.

Here's what I have learnt:

Due to:

• It means "caused by"
• Never begin a sentence with "due to". Actually you can't.
• The right place where it's used is after variations of the verb "to be", like "is", "was", "are", "were".

For example:

• His absence was due to illness
• His success was due to hardwork
• The cancellation of the concert was due to rain

Notice here:

• You cannot rephrase these sentences by starting them with "Due to".
• The sentences are incomplete if you cut off the portion from 'due to'. 

Owing to

• It means "because of"
• You can begin a sentence with "owing to".
• Before 'owing to' you don't have "is", "was", "are", or "were", instead you have a noun, or something that describes the noun.
  
  For example:
  
• He was absent owing to illness
• He was successful owing to sheer hardwork
• The concert was cancelled owing to the rain

Notice here:

• You can rephrase these sentences by starting them with "Owing to".
• The sentences are complete if you cut off the portion from 'owing to'. 

This is the reason you can't begin a sentence with "Due to".

Vanishing hyphen and National Punctuation Day

Is it a coincidence that the venerable Oxford Dictionary is dumping the hyphen (always a source of confusion for writers) just around the National Punctuation Day in the US?

Last week, the sixth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary knocked off hyphens from around 16,000 words. (BBC report)

But the dictionary still hasn't been able to knock out the confusion. Earlier, the doubt was whether a compound word is one word, hyphenated or two words. But still there still no clarity on when is a compound word one word and when two words.

Fig-leaf is now fig leaf and pot-belly is pot belly -- two words; while a few others have fused to become one words, like, pigeon-hole has become pigeonhole and leap-frog has turned into leapfrog. Similarly, ice-cream is now ice cream, but post-modern is postmodern.

Maybe someone with a strong knowledge of English language can throw some light on this.

Shorter OED editor Angus Stevenson doesn't give a clear explanation on why some words have split into two while others have merged into one.

"We only reflect what people in general are reading. We have been tracking this for some time and we've been finding the hyphen is used less and less," he says.

Why people are using the hyphen less? One version doing the rounds is they don't have the time or inclination to reach for the hyphen key while typing.

By the way, around the time the Oxford Dictionary knocked hyphens off, in the US National Punctuation Day was celebrated on September 24.

The official website says, "But what started as a clever idea to remind corporations and professional people of the importance of proper punctuation has turned into an everyday mission to help school children learn the punctuation skills they need to be successful in life."

No doubt punctuations are so important, wrong usage can change the meaning. "My sister, who is in the US, will come tomorrow" implies I have only one sister. But the same sentence without the first comma, could mean I have more than one sister, and it's the one in the US who is coming tomorrow.

But the most celebrated example is this:

An English teacher wrote these words on the whiteboard: "woman without her man is nothing". The teacher then asked the students to punctuate the words correctly.

The men wrote: "Woman, without her man, is nothing."

The women wrote: "Woman! Without her, man is nothing."

(My earlier post: Punctuations are important)

Anyways, it's best avoided

"I am going out with a friend at 5 pm and should be back in 30 minutes. Anyways, I will call you." - A typical sentence spoken or written today.

I knew of only anyway, until recently I began to hear sentences similar to the one above. Now I get to hear and read more and more of anyways, prompting me to find out the legitimacy of its usage anyway.

Merriam-Webster dictionary tells me that anyways is a colloquial expression to mean anyhow or anyway or anywise; or in other words in any manner whatever. I am told it is found in some dialects in the United States.

Paul Brians of the Department of English, Washington State University, says: ... anyways is best avoided in formal written English: an advice today's college students would do well to heed. He says, "The two-word phrase any way has many legitimate uses, however: Is there any way to prevent the impending disaster?"

Kevin Drum wrote in Washington Monthly says: "... there is no such word as anyways. It's anyway. ... anyways is listed in standard dictionaries... as... nonstandard, archaic, colloquial, or dialect versions of anyway. I think I'd still argue that this makes it unsuitable for standard written English, but then again so are "heh," "um," "er," "gotta," and "dunno," which are all blogosphere favorites for capturing conversational tone."

The Random House Unabridged Dictionary and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language are quoted in dictionary.com defining anways as non-standard.

Anyway, avoid anyways at least on formal, official occasions.

Blog posting in Malayalam script

I have been thinking for quite a while on blogging in Malayalam using the transliteration device. My desire intensified the moment I saw and enabled the Hindi transliteration option on blogger. That means.... हिंदी मे अभी लिख सकते है ... I can now write in Hindi.

I Googled... and thanks to technology, all I took was one hour for moving from the "I know nothing about this" stage to "I am able to type in Malayalam font on my blog" stage. പ്രദീപ്, that's my name typed in Malayalam. Wow!

This is how I did it: I came to this site, went to Section 3.1 in the contents (Using Mozhi Keyman to type Malayalam directly), and followed the instructions there to download Keyman and use it. You can visit this site too for lots of info.

Wow! that's some achievement for me! ഇതു ഇത്ര എലുപ്പമാനെന്നൂ എനിക്കരിയില്ലയിരുന്നു. I mean, I didn't know it was this easy.

Of course, there are small font issues to be ironed out like some letters don't transliterate in the way it should. For example, I am not able to get right the sound of the second "l" in the word Malayalam. It's taking only the sound of the first "l"; that is: “ല”. I don't know how I can overcome this problem. Suggestions are welcome.

Anyway, this is a big luxury, I shouldn't complain. I shall try to sort them out as I go along.