'From where did Rs 20, 000 crores or $ 3 Billion come to Adani's shell companies'?

 

What is Rule 267?

 

How native English speakers can stop confusing everyone else

Michael Skapinker in The FT 

From 1999 until 2003, the UK’s Channel 4 screened an Emmy award-winning female-led comedy series called Smack the Pony. In one sketch a woman called Jackie O’Farrell (played by Doon Mackichan) marches into an adult education centre somewhere in England, sits down and tries to register for a course in speaking English as a foreign language. 

But you already speak English, the puzzled course organiser (played by Sally Phillips) says. “I only speak English English,” Jackie replies. “I don’t know how to speak it as a foreign language.” She travels a lot, she says. “Foreign people can’t understand a word I’m saying.” 

Hilarious, except that Jackie was ahead of her time. It is now widely recognised that many people don’t understand what native English speakers are saying. Widely recognised by non-native English speakers that is. The Brits, Americans, Australians and others who have been speaking English all their lives are largely oblivious to the incomprehension they leave behind at conferences, business meetings and on conference calls. 

“The CEO gave me the most almighty bollocking,” I heard a British speaker tell a conference in Berlin a few years back. “I spent time at London Business School cutting my teeth,” I heard another Brit tell a room full of Dutch, French and German speakers in Amsterdam this year. “From the horse’s mouth,” yet another UK speaker proclaimed to a conference I went to in Dubai last month. 

I don’t know what the audiences made of all this. A 2015 survey of a Nato working group tactfully observed that “native speakers of English are not always good at adjusting their English to the manner and level that is used”. 

Regular readers of this column know that I have been exercised by native English speaker ignorance on this issue for years. There are thousands of courses, books and videos on how to be a better communicator, but almost nothing on how native speakers should speak English to foreigners, largely because, like the Smack the Pony course organiser, most native anglophones don’t realise they have a problem. 

So I was pleased to be sent a pocket book (where I found the Nato study) called Is That Clear: Effective Communications in a Multilingual World by Zanne Gaynor and Kathryn Alevizos, two teachers of business English. They describe the book as “easy-to-follow tips for adapting your English”. 

As well as telling native speakers to slow down when they speak to international audiences, Gaynor and Alevizos have advice on two issues I have addressed before: avoiding idiomatic language and being careful with the use of phrasal verbs — a verb plus a preposition — which many non-native speakers find hard to understand. 

Different prepositions can change the verb’s meaning — break in, break up, break down. The authors also point out that the same phrasal verb can have different meanings: put someone down, put down a deposit, put down the cat, put the baby down. 

They add other pieces of advice. I have written about the problems that colloquial language can cause non-native speakers: “shall we crack on then?” But the authors point to the confusion that polite language can use too — “to be honest, I was a bit upset he arrived so late” sounds convoluted to a non-native speaker. “I was angry he was late” is clearer. 

Another issue is the phrasing of questions. “You don’t have time for a quick chat, do you?” is tough for a non-native speaker because it starts with a negative. “Do you have time for a chat?” is clearer. 

The authors advise cutting down on “filler words” such as “as it were”, “actually” and “basically” because they cloud the central message. I am not sure about this. I find filler words helpful when I hear them used in other languages, such as finalement in French. Not only do they slow the speaker down; having heard them often I can also use them myself when I speak, which gives me more time to think of what to say next. 

But the authors do have sound advice on slides. Don’t fill slides with words. Native speakers find them hard enough to read; second language speakers find them even harder. But do put numbers on slides, they say. Numbers can be hard to understand in your second language and seeing the figures on a slide makes it easier.

SO YOU Think English is Easy???

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't ' Buick' rhyme with 'quick'



Can you read these right the first time?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce .

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

You lovers of the English language might also enjoy this .

There is an English two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.' It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP! and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ? We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing , but to be dressed UP is
special. And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP! about UP !

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP , you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP. When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP,

so... it is time to shut UP!