English Vinglish

I recently moved to Oslo, Norway on a medium term professional engagement. My engagement requires me to solely support multiple software applications, which were developed by my offshore team of 6 members. The obvious surge in expectations on a client facing role, with no member to support from offshore, made me a bit nervous.

“Don’t take tension, slowly slowly you will get used to it”- my colleague’s comments made me feel comfortable. However, I never knew “Tension” was a “thing”, probably on a festive offer, that could be easily given or taken. “Don’t get tense”, is probably what he meant, literally translating “Tension mat le” in English.

And “slowly slowly”, I mean, will it take ages? Ah, that’s the literal translation for “Dheere dheere” J

Having a prudent eye and ear towards correct usage of words and grammar, be it in any language that I know, has developed the kind of reflexes where these language blunders do not go unnoticed or ignored (few of you who love the languages won’t disagree with me). It is not fault finding per se, probably just a naive study of how native language that we speak, influences the other languages which we (try to) speak.
I’ve often heard Indians complaining against politicians who “only do timepass and eat money”, as Hinglish an expression as a student complaining about his classmate using abusive language says- “Sir, he is giving me bad words”, urgghh…such an abuse of such a beautiful language L.

Certain words or phrases gel so cleanly within our everyday communication, that those may not sound blunders at all. While “revert” suffices to explain the action, many of us unnecessarily use “revert back”, of course, no one can revert ahead J. Same happens with terms like “lagging behind”.

I was surprised to understand from a professor of English, that chaste English also finds fault in sentences like “He runs faster than me” or “He is taller than me”. Correct usage would be “He runs faster than I can” and “He is taller than I am” respectively. Through all my readings thereafter, especially of old English (British) authors like Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie, I’ve consciously observed the above rule in place. Also surprising was the widely used “prepone” not being an English word at all. It is an Indian alternative for “advance”, which is the correct antonym for “post pone”.

Few terms have evolved over time, few dictionaries have accepted them as valid words, however I personally and very consciously avoid using them (maybe because I belong to the generation where I learnt British English, have loved reading Agatha Christie and still insist on writing “honour” as “honour”, and not “honor)”, few of them are:

• Pick up the phone: Nothing wrong here, but action sounds more like picking up a receiver. Smart phone users should better “answer the call” on mobiles, than “picking up the phone”
• Anyways: Sounds more informal, I like to use “anyway” both orally and in writing
• Parallely: Not sure if this is a correct word, concurrently, simultaneously or “in parallel” is what I would prefer
• Cheater: I hate this word, I still prefer the old Victorian “cheat” for anyone who “cheats”
• Slowness: Again, not sure if this is correct English, I better avoid it.

While I offer the justifiable benefit of doubt to lack of access to quality education (in schools or at home) especially in countries like India, and the individual preference and importance to correctness of language, fact remains that the first impression is always formed by the way a person communicates (be it any language), but still languages (along with behavioural and other soft skills) are the most neglected and most reluctantly studied subjects in our schools.