INDLISH: A Book for Every English-speaking Indian
- K. V.Srikumari
AT LAST, A BOOK ON what ails English in India!
Why do we speak the way we do?
Why do we switch to the passive voice in English, though we keep to the active in our mother tongues?
Why are our letters long and wordy and yet can’t get the point across?
Why are our textbooks so wordy, and yet so vacuous?
Why do we dread reading and filling up official or commercial documents?
Why do we….?
The list of such questions is endless. The answers to many of them you’ll find in INDLISH---The Book for Every English-speaking Indian, written by Jyoti Sanyal, a veteran journalist, and former Dean of Asian College of Journalism, Bangalore.
INDLISH traces the history of English in India from the time British merchants of the East India Company dumped it here--- and the strange khichri it became with officialese, commercialese and legalese as its main ingredients, garnished with mistranslated idioms from our regional languages.
As a technical writer, I found INDLISH identifies and addresses most common mistakes I make. Replete with everyday examples and clever cartoons, this collection of articles initially published in The Statesman makes interesting reading. You can open the book at any chapter and start reading.
The book emphasizes clear and concise writing by shunning needless words, using familiar words instead of the Latinate, using the active voice, and conjuring pictures with lively verbs, instead of dragging in strings of nouns and prepositions.
This book is an excellent guide and reference for all forms of communication – written or spoken--- for amateurs or professionals. The articles are grouped into seven chapters:
- ‘Making a botch of writing’: How to avoid clutter in writing, and veer towards plain English. Here is one of many examples the book cites of cluttered writing:
“If in our country, we are to undertake programmes designed for the protection of forests and thus improve our wood resources, the basic need is to make available to scientists, industrialists, educationists and environmentalists involved in activities related to wood and wood-products, information on scientific techniques for rational and economic utilisation of timber resource . . . It is hoped that this publication will meet the long-felt need toward achieving this objective.”
- ‘The letters we write’ cites conventional openings. Sanyal asks: can’t we do better than start a letter with what no addressee needs to be told?
Dear Madam--- Your letter of the 23d inst. is at hand. Dear Sir--- We have your letter of July 21 and note that it is your intention to include— in your book on modern English prose style, to be published by . . . under the title . . . a few brief passages from our . . . Dear Sir--- We beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 16th instant regarding the price charged for the lubricating oil which we supplied to you sometime back.
- ‘John Company Baboo as hack’. The author lashes out at journalists in English-language papers who, he says, write like office clerks. He quotes numerous news reports and editorials to show how journalists keep using certain words mantra-like. Here’s how they misuse ‘involve’:
- “As the political scenario gets murkier, several ministers, senior party leaders and their kins[sic] are getting more and more involved in the cable war and other shady deals . Mr P--’s son’s involvement in several land deals in Saurashtra is well known.
“Mr S--, a known underworld don and an independent municipal councillor then, was indicted by the Srikrishna Commission for his involvement in the 1992-93 Mumbai riots.”
For each of these samples from newspapers, INDLISH offers a simpler version that sparkles with clarity and precision.
- ‘Usage Indlish style’. How often have we heard these?
“I am having a headache.”
“Why don't you give them one one piece of cake?”
“Tell me no?/say no?”
INDLISH traces how such expressions came in, and explains why they are wrong.
- ‘Those troublesome midgets’ deals with the misuse of tiny words such as also, both, even, only. The book shows how the misplacing of each can alter meaning:
Compare He is an only child with He is only a child “There is a garage on both sides of the street”
- ‘Mother tongue, other tongue’ is the author’s altogether original and insightful explanation that maps where and how English behaves UNLIKE Indian languages. Indian languages, he cautions us, are extremely flexible in syntax---unlike English, which has a rigid syntax. We are therefore prone to errors of syntax:
“Wanted a piano for a lady with mahogany legs.”
- ‘Your reader deserves better’. The author discusses good writing and bad, and suggests how journalists and all of us can make writing lively by importing some literary devices---chiefly dialogue. He argues the case for measured but detailed description, and pleads for using words to paint pictures.
INDLISH shows what we need to do to achieve clarity. The author emphasizes and even repeats his message with this excerpt from the tiniest book ever written on style:
“Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines, and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subject only in outline, but that every word tell.” (The Elements of Style, New York: Macmillan, 1959 and 1972; London: Collier Macmillan 1979)
Martin Cutts, Research Director of Plain Language Commission, UK, who toured India four times, and held numerous workshops on plain English, says in his impressive Foreword to INDLISH, which he has edited:
Enraged polemic though this book may be, it is also constructive, collected and funny. Where it is angry, it is righteous anger because the evils it condemns – if left unchecked – are likely to kill English as a truly expressive medium for journalistic and business writing in India. . . . This book may be the last hope for reform.
I have been a technical writer for 8 years, and I think everyone in the profession should own a copy of INDLISH ---as a guide to clarity and precision in writing.
Let me add: INDLISH is a ‘must read’ for all who wish to write well.
About the Author
K. V. Srikumari has both Science and Management background. She has been working as a technical writer for the past 8 years. Currently, she is employed with Tektronix Engineering and Development India (P) Ltd, Bangalore, under the potential of a lead writer and editor. You may contact her at kvsri@hotmail.com.
- The Quintessential Organizational Being - by Vinay Babu.
- The Myth of "The User” - by Geoff Hart.
- The Fine Art of Editing - by Reena Misra.
- A Lesson in Usability - by Harini Babu.
STC India | Home | Contact Us