English for Lovers of English: Comments on English Usage for Advanced Learners

By S.K. Rana

In this book, I have brought together about 1,400 utterances that are faulty. None of these faulty utterances have been produced by me to illustrate incorrect use of English. All the faulty utterances found in this book have been taken from printed materialmostly from the newspapers I read. In order to focus attention on the error, I have shortened some of the faulty utterances. To me, it is very important that the faulty utterances in this book have not been produced by me. Jacques Barzun, the celebrated American scholar and recipient of the Gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters has something very pertinent to say on genuine faults as opposed to faults that have been produced as sample utterances. This is what Barzun says: In student writing, when the assignments are frequent and well designed, all kinds of error and clumsiness occur that are never found in the sample sentences of manuals and grammar books. These faults have the advantage of being genuine; they represent somebodys way of thought, and finding them faulty is a therapeutic attack on the mind that produced them. Barzun is talking about writing done by university students in America, but what he says about it is applicable to a great deal of Indian writing too.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524525804

S.K. Rana

In recognition of his outstanding performance as a participant at the Summer Institute in English sponsored by the University Grants Commission in 1967, S. K. Rana was deputed by MS University of Baroda to do a course at Central Institute of English, Hyderabad. At the end of the course, he was awarded postgraduate diploma in the teaching of English. He also has an MA in English language and literature awarded to him by Gujarat University, Ahmedabad, in the year 1961. He has taught university and college teachers of English at three summer institutes. These summer institutes were sponsored by University Grants Commission and conducted by Department of English of MS University of Baroda in the years 1972, 1973, and 1977. He has also taught English in programs organized, among others, by All India Radio (broadcasts meant for secondary school teachers) and IAS Training Centre of MS University of Baroda for its trainees. He has also taught English to participants in training programs organized by the Rotary Club of Baroda and the Gujarat Electricity Board. All through his teaching career of thirty-two years at MS University of Baroda, he has been deeply interested in English usage. For him—to use Samuel Johnson’s words—“the allurements of emendation are scarcely re-sistible.” He has written 140 articles on the correct use of English, and these have been published in the Times of India and the Indian Express publications. These articles were widely and warmly praised by readers. S. K. Rana has also published a few articles of a noncritical nature. Most noteworthy among these is an article published by SPAN magazine, which is brought out by American Center, New Delhi. The title of this article is “American Girl in an Indian Home,” and it was published in SPAN magazine’s issue of January 1994. This article was subsequently published in a university-level textbook, Indian Prose for Effective Communication (Macmillan). Included in this textbook meant for university students are writings of such luminaries as Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, Rabindranath Tagore. M. K. Gandhi, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Jawaharlal Nehru, C. Rajaaopalachari, R. K. Narayan, B. R. Ambedkar, Swami Vivekananda, Khushwant Singh, R. K. Srinivasa lyengar, and Sri Aurobindo.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by S.K.Rana.

ISBN:   Softcover       978-1-5245-2581-1

              eBook             978-1-5245-2580-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/20/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

745937

This book is dedicated

in loving and lasting memory to the late

H.H. Major Maharaj

Shri Naharsinhji Saheb of

Chhota Udepur.

Preface

In this book I have brought together about 1400 utterances that are faulty. None of these faulty utterances have been produced by me to illustrate incorrect use of English. All the faulty utterances found in this book have been taken from printed material – mostly from the newspapers I read. In order to focus attention on the error, I have shortened some of the faulty utterances. To me it is very important that the faulty utterances in this book have not been produced by me. Jacques Barzun, the celebrated American scholar and recipient of the gold Medal for Criticism from the American Academy of Arts and Letters has something very pertinent to say on genuine faults as opposed to faults that have been produced as sample utterances. This is what Barzun says, In student writing, when the assignments are frequent and well designed, all kinds of error and clumsiness occur that are never found in the sample sentences of manuals and grammar books. These faults have the advantage of being genuine; they represent somebody’s way of thought, and finding them faulty is a therapeutic attack on the mind that produced them. Barzun is talking about writing done by university students in America but what he says about it is applicable to a great deal of Indian writing too.

In each of the roughly 1400 entries in this book I have placed the faulty utterance first and have put the letter W before it. The second part of the entry consists of the improved version of the faulty one and I have put the letter R before it. In order to ensure that no error creeps into the improved version, standard dictionaries such as the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English have been carefully referred to. The third and the final part of each entry consists of a few brief remarks on the faulty utterance; this third part of the entry has the letter C before it.

I have taught English for thirty-two years. An intense enthusiasm for good English has always been a part of my attitude to the teaching of English. I would like to quote here some thoughts on good English that have been formulated by an association of American teachers of English: Good English is that form of speech which is appropriate to the purpose of the speaker, true to the language as it is and comfortable to hearer and speaker. It is the product of custom, neither cramped by rule nor free from all restraint. It is never fixed, but changes with the organic life of the language.

It is not at all likely that everything I have said in this book is free from error. And differences of opinion will always be there. Informed differences and discussions on usage promote the health of the language. David Crystal is respected as the foremost writer and lecturer on the English language with a worldwide reputation. On the subject of differences among eminent authors, Crystal has this to say, It seems to be one of the consequences of becoming a usage critic that your own usage will be pilloried sooner or later. Dryden and Defoe castigate the usage of Jonson and Shakespeare. Swift castgates the usage of Dryden and Defoe. And in due course, as we shall see, eighteenth century prescriptive grammarians castigate Swift for carelessness. Then those grammarians begin to criticize each other, as they continue to do today.

There seems to be a widespread feeling that the realm of literature is too exalted for language critics to step into it. In ancient times such august personages as Aristotle, Cicero and Longinus were deeply interested in effective speaking and writing. Eminent authors such as John Dryden, Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift were all in favour of the idea of protecting the English language from abuse.

There seems to prevail some reservation about usage manuals in general. This reservation borders on disdain among some people. David Crystal says that the lives of usage manuals are short. Elaborating his point of view he says this in a passage which is strikingly picturesque: …we can see the corpses of usage manuals littering the battlefields of English… If any one of these had worked, we would not have needed the others. The use of the word battlefields is apt because the passage in which it occurs is taken from David Crystal’s book, The Fight for English.

But in the paragraph that follows the one about corpses of usage books, we have some convincing points from him on the value of usage manuals. Here are his points: I am not against usage books, as such. I have written one myself. All I am saying is that they are not a panacea. They do not solve the underlying problem of obtaining systematic help about language. But they do have a value. They help us to alert us to the issues of change that worry the more conservatively minded members of society. They also perform a valuable service in drawing attention to those features of language where it is all too easy to be lazy or careless, and where sense or intelligibility suffers as a result. And above all, in some recent books, they identify some serious problems of communication in contemporary society.

Let me now come back to the errors that might have crept into this book. Kingsley Amis is a British novelist, poet and literary critic. He has written more than twenty novels, one of which – The Old Devils – has won the Booker Prize. He is one of those men of letters who is deeply interested in the use and abuse of the English language. He is charmingly conscious of the errors that might have crept into his book, The King’s English – A Guide to Modern Usage. This is what he says, I am sustained by reflecting that the defence of the language is too large a matter to be left to the properly qualified, and if I make a mistake, well, so do they, and we must carry on as best we can pending the advent of a worthy successor to Fowler.

I earnestly hope that this book will be a help in the endeavour to increase awareness of proper and appropriate use of English.

S. K. Rana

We ought to be able to see that it is still an important question for every generation whether it should say this or that, whether this or that form is correct, and so on, and that it would be regrettable if those who were most competent to decide such question should leave the decision to the less competent.

– Otto Jespersen

Perhaps for our last words on the subject of usage we should listen to the last words of the venerable French grammarian Dominique Bonhours who proved on his deathbed that a grammarian’s work is never done when he turned to those gathered loyalty around him and whispered: I am about to – or I am going to die: either expression is used.

– Bill Bryson

One should not aim at being possible to understand but at being impossible to misunderstand.

- Quintilian

A civilization which loses its power over its own language loses its power over the instument by which it thinks. Without some power there is neither greatness nor accuracy of thought.

- Henry Beston

Unless we can restore to the words in our newspapers, laws and political acts some measure of clarity and stringency of meaning, our lives will draw yet closer to chaos.

- George Steiner

Two (Arabian) princes…quarrelled over the honour of putting on the shoes of the most learned of the realm; whereupon their father, the caliph, is said to have remarked that it was the glory of his kingdom that grammarians were honoured even above kings.

Benjamin Lee Whorf

Indian English represents the evolution of a distinct standard – a standard the body of which is correct English usage, but whose soul is Indian in colour, thought and imagery, and now and then, even in the evolution of an Indian idiom which is expressive of the unique quality of the Indian mind while conforming to the correctness of English usage.

And the Indianness of it consists in its cultural overtones and undertones.

- Vinayak Gokak

"(Literature) has to do with the clarity and vigour of any and every throught and opinion. It has to do with maintaining the very cleanliness of the tools, the health of the very matter of thought itself.

Save in the rare and limited instances of invention in the plastic arts, or in mathematics, the individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectlively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and the despised literati.

When their work goes rottern – by that I do not mean when they express indecorours thoughts, but even their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated – the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot. This is a lesson of history, and a lesson not yet learned."

– Ezra Pound

The fight against bad English is not frivolous.

– George Orwell

A

W He will get a insurance cover of Rs. 20 crore.

R He will get an insurance cover of Rs. 20 crore.

C Because the word insurance begins with a vowel sound, the article that precedes it should be an and not a.

A

W It is for the first time that a MSU professor has been nominated to the prestigious body.

R It is for the first time that an MSU professor has been nominated to the prestigious body.

C The abbreviation MSU starts with a vowel sound. Hence we should say an MSU and not a MSU.

A

W Some years ago he was a SP in our district.

R Some years ago he was an SP in our district.

C SP is pronounced with a vowel sound at the beginning and hence the article an should be used before SP. The article a can be used if we use the full form of SP: Superintendent of Police. We can say a Superintendent of Police.

A

W The president’s seat in the municipality is reserved for a SC candidate.

R The president’s seat in the municipality is reserved for an SC candidate.

C In place of the article a, the article an should be used. The article an is used before singular nouns that begin with vowels (a, e, i, o and u). SC does not begin with a vowel. But the sound of S begins with the vowel e. Hence the article an should be used before SC.

ABOUND

W In monsoon, Kerala is abound by coconut palms, rolling hills and streams.

R In monsoon, Kerala’s coconut palms, rolling hills and streams enchant the tourists.

C Abound by coconut palms makes no sense at all.

ABOUT

W Residents never came to know the importance of the stone.

R Residents never came to know about the importance of the stone.

R Residents never learned about the importance of the stone.

C You don’t come to know the importance of something. You come to know about the importance of something.

ABOUT

W The group has talked with the principals of about over a dozen schools in the city.

R The group has talked with the principals of over a dozen schools in the city.

C This sounds awkward: talked with the principals of about over a dozen schools.

ABOVE

W Usually, police inspectors and above ranking officers apply for reimbursement.

R Usually, police inspectors and other officers of higher rank apply for reimbursement.

C This part of the W sentence makes no sense: and above ranking officers.

ACCOMMODATION

W When they saw that there were no accommodation available they were greatly disappointed.

R When they saw that there was no accommodation available they were greatly disappointed.

C The word accommodation is in the singular and so the verb with which it is connected should be in the singular.

ACCOUNTS

W There are accounts where Desai visited Bapu in Rajkot.

R There are accounts from which we learn that Desai visited Bapu in Rajkot.

C This utterance makes no sense: Accounts where Desai visited Bapu.

ACQUIT

W The court acquitted his wife from the charges.

R The court acquitted his wife of the charges.

C You don’t acquit people from charges. You acquit people of charges.

ACROSS

W The university comes across a sizeable number of applications.

R The university receives a sizeable number of applications.

C The phrase comes across is not appropriate here.

ACTUAL

W A large number of farmers are shown as owning much more land than actual.

R A large number of farmers are shown as owning much more land than they actually do.

C This part of the W sentence is incorrect: owning much more land than actual.

ADAPTS

W Once 3D conversion adapts to popular themes and uses, will it be a cakewalk for Hollywood’s avatars?

R Once 3D conversion adapts itself to popular themes and uses, it will be a cakewalk for Hollywood’s avatars?

C As soon as one hears or reads the verb adapts, this is the question that arises in the mind of the hearer or reader: What or who is it that adapts? Hence the use of the word itself is necessary after the word adapts.

ADDRESS

W He was addressing the platinum jubilee function.

R He was addressing the audience at the platinum jubilee function.

C You don’t address a function. You address an audience.

ADDRESS

W The public health issue needs an immediate remediation.

R The public health issue needs to be addressed immediately.

C I have not been able to find the word remediation in any of my dictionaries.

ADHERE

W People should adhere to the warning and remain indoors.

R People should pay heed to the warning and remain indoors.

C You don’t adhere to a warning. You pay heed to a warning.

ADHERE

W The MLA refused to adhere to the plea of the speaker and continued shouting slogans.

R The MLA refused to listen to the plea of the speaker and continued shouting slogans.

C You adhere to a plan and not to a plea.

ADMISSION

W He took admission as an external student.

R He secured admission as an external student.

C You dont take admission. You secure admission.

ADMISSION

W He claimed that he had admission in the college.

R He claimed that he had secured admission to the college.

C One can secure admission to a college. This phrase is incorrect: admission in.

ADMISSION

W Shah tried to get admission in the college.

R Shah tried to get admission to the college.

C You get admission to an institution not admission in it.

ADMISSION

W Admissions are done in June every year.

R Admissions are carried out in June every year.

C Admissions are not done. Admissions are carried out.

ADMIT

W A patient admitted in a multispeciality hospital has an advantage.

R A patient admitted to a multispeciality hospital has an advantage.

C People are not admitted in a place. They are admitted to a place.

ADMIT

W The deceased was admitted at the SSG Hospital.

R The deceased was admitted to the SSG Hospital.

C You don’t admit people at a hospital. You admit them to a hospital.

ADULATION

W The adulation that a large number of Indians feel for our cricket and movie stars should not be underestimated.

R The adulation from a large number of Indians that our cricket and movie stars enjoy should not be underestimated.

C Adulation is not felt. It is enjoyed by the people who receive it.

ADVICE

W I would advice people to run for the sheer joy of it

R I would advise people to run for the sheer joy of it.

C The word advice is a noun and the word advise is a verb. Here the word advise is needed.

ADVISER

W He is a former CIA officer and security affairs adviser to four US Presidents.

R He is a former CIA officer and has been security affairs adviser to four former US Presidents.

C He could not have been security adviser to four US Presidents at the same time. This is implied in the incorrect sentence. The phrase has been will have to be used.

ADVOCATE

W He is advocating for a separate council of physiotherapists.

R He is advocating that there should be a separate council of physiotherapists.

C You do not advocate for something. You advocate that something should be done.

AFTERWARD

W My father was transferred to a big city and I was born soon afterwards.

R I was born soon after my father was transferred to a big city.

C I was born soon afterwards is very wrong.

AGGRIEVED

W Aggrieved by the growing differences between her father and her uncle, a thirteen-year-old girl killed herself on Monday.

R The anguish caused by the growing differences of opinion between her father and