Selling English to the "natives"
Hasan Suroor
LAST WEEK, a young anchor on a leading Indian TV channel, seen in Britain, breathlessly informed his viewers that more Indian words had been included in a new edition of a prestigious English language dictionary. It was a case of the "empire striking back," he said, and concluded with a touch of triumph that "Hinglish" was starting to give English a "run for its money."
Really? Empire striking back? Giving English a run for its money? I do not blame the young man. People whose native language is not English do get excited when words from their own language or a "desi" English coinage are mentioned in a major English dictionary, especially if it happens to be from the Oxford University Press stable, a world leader in dictionaries. They feel flattered that their contribution to English has been recognised by the keepers of whatever remains of the Queen's English.
The truth is that the mere inclusion of a foreign word in an English-language dictionary means nothing in real terms. At best it is a guide to — and acceptance of — the many ways in which English is spoken around the world, and an advertisement for its "resilience." But crucially it is about marketing.
Privately, those in the business of publishing and selling dictionaries acknowledge this. The market for dictionaries in the West has reached a saturation point and things have become more difficult now that people can access "word knowledge" free thanks to the Internet. Increasingly, the future for dictionaries is seen to lie in the emerging or untapped markets of former British colonies. It is all about wooing the "natives." And that is where "new" words come in.
Every time a new foreign word or an example of, say, Indian-English, Australian-English or Maori-English (soon we will have Chinese-English) makes it to a dictionary it inevitably generates interest among the local people, which helps publishers shift extra copies. And a bit of media hype that invariably accompanies the launch of such dictionaries can do wonders for marketing. Hence the frequent "new" editions with ever "newer" foreign words.
Common fallacy
There is a fallacy that a dictionary entry somehow "Englishifies" a word or usage. It does not. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating and this pudding, alas, is not for eating. Try using a dictionary-approved form of "Hinglish" in a British exam paper and you will not get any marks. Nor is it likely to be understood in everyday conversation. Tell a clerk in a High Street bank in London that you are an "NRI," which apparently features in the dictionary the TV channel was plugging last week, and, most likely, you will get a blank stare. If a word such as "chota peg" is understood by a certain generation of Brits it is not because it is in the dictionary but because it is a colonial hangover.
American-English is the only foreign form of English that is widely understood and accepted in Britain. "Hinglish" is yet to get there. Indeed, at present, even the term "Hinglish" is not recognised by Concise Oxford English Dictionary whereas the less widely spoken "Singlish" is — defined as "n. 1. a variety of English spoken in Singapore, with elements from other local languages. 2. a variety of English spoken in Sri Lanka, incorporating elements of Sinhala."
Yet, nobody can accuse English of insularity. It has demonstrated a capacity to acknowledge, if not wholly absorb, outside influences which no other language has. Whereas older and richer languages have either withered away or are in decline because of their obsession with "purity", English has been able to spread its wings and emerge as the only truly global language by keeping the "purists" at bay.
While the French are always worrying and moaning about the threat to their language from external influences, the British are rather amused by the diversity that other cultures bring to the English language. In private, they may snigger at the way English is spoken in some parts of the world (jokes about Indian and Chinese English are aplenty) but they also recognise that it is a sign of a living and thriving language.
There is of course the danger — and a very real one — that beyond a point an open-door policy could lead to a situation which may be precisely the opposite of what it is meant to achieve.
Permitting everyone to have their "own" English could, ultimately, subvert the very idea of the world communicating through a common global language. With people of different countries speaking and writing their own brand of English a stage might come when they are simply not able to understand each other's "English." "Hinglish" and "Singlish" may become two very different languages rather than branches of a common language!
Too much of "chutney-fication" — a word coined by Salman Rushdie — is good neither for English nor for the lovers of this very important language. And, meanwhile, beware the hype over what is "new" in the latest dictionary at the neighbourhood bookshop.
(Source: The Hindu)
The trouble with jargon at work
Malcolm Burgess
If you don't know how to `raise the bar' then you're definitely not `in the loop'.
GAP ANALYSIS ... customer offer vision ... paradigm shifts ... thought leadership ... Today a meeting isn't a meeting without a thick sludge of corporate jargon to separate the high flyers from the rest of us. Love them or loathe them (and most of us do), we can't escape the growing avalanche of bizarre words and phrases entering the workplace.
Like many people, I have had a number of careers and found myself the innocent target, and even the occasional purveyor, of management-speak. In book publishing, as it moved from gentlemanly to cut-throat, I sat in meetings where we talked of "vertical integration" and "brandwidth" without batting an eyelid. In further education everyone seemed to be pursuing an elusive "quality." And, as a local authority manager, I was forever trying to work out who my "stakeholders" were.
For maximum effect, as every successful corporate person knows, the most effective jargon is abstract, latinate, and comes from the U.S. Acronyms are excellent for full impenetrability (try Swot, MMM and KVI for starters) while an arbitrary capital letter may even suggest divine origins.
Work has become the new religion and needs its magic phrases for the priesthood to bamboozle us. Ideally, these will be from a lexicon invented by the new faith's gurus, mainly elderly rightwing Americans who seem to know the Way Ahead. Hence, most of us spend every working hour "pursuing excellence," "making a difference" or ensuring some "continuous improvement," while feeling that we must be missing something, given how meaningless these mantras are.
Another tier of jargon seems to emanate from U.S. manager jocks who either borrow their sayings from sports or toilet stalls. Since the 1980s, they have been making sure we "cover all our bases," "punch above our weight" and appreciate the need for a "level-playing field."
But why do we use so much jargon and should all perpetrators be taken out of the meeting room and quietly shot? Not quite. The next time you sit fuming next to someone who says "win-win situation" 15 times in a credit control catchup, try reflecting on the reasons why we end up speaking in corporate tongues.
One-upmanship must come pretty high up the list — nearly all of us have used the latest piece of jargon to impress a superior or interviewer. But this pales into insignificance beside the seasoned operator who uses constant corporate-speak and lets you know when an existing term has been superseded — "core competencies" are just so 2005. They know that using old jargon is professional suicide.
Equally, getting it right means joining an exclusive club that can help your career. Perhaps this is the real reason why more of us are finding romance with our colleagues (with the boss' permission of course). Nobody outside our office has a clue what we are actually talking about.
And then there are times when we use jargon because we can't remember what we said before it existed. Just what is a "portfolio of skills?" It might only mean making all those unsuccessful career starts sound sexy on your CV, but sometimes it is easier to go with the flow and just get on with the important business of not being "empowered" (taking on so many extra duties we don't have time to notice our salary hasn't gone up).
Some of the jargon tripping you up? You are not alone. But unfortunately, nobody is prepared to break ranks and admit it. And so, you find yourself locked into using jargon because it would be too embarrassing to ask what zero-sum negotiations really mean at this stage. If everyone else in the meeting is talking about being "in the loop" you're hardly going to interrupt and say: "Hey, I think you mean those who use the same impenetrable jargon, and see themselves as cutting-edge." We just let our managers carry on speaking to each other in advanced Klingon and hope they don't notice us doodling.
This may possibly leave you, the jargon intolerant person, in a state of some fear and loathing. In which case you may just need to develop a better sense of humour. Hearing others earnestly talking about "the big picture" and "proactive, not reactive" should ideally lead to a serious fit of the giggles. You could even invent your own jargon and watch the MBAers making straight for their BlackBerries.
Alternatively, you could work in an environment where corporate jargon has yet to spoil the working day. Sand sweeping in Timbuktu anyone? —
(Malcolm Burgess is the author of 500 Reasons Why I Hate the Office, published by Icon Books.)
(Source: The Hindu)
