English as we know it

I first wrote this for a college newsletter but thought it might be little relevant to this blog too. It's about the English language and how its being abused in the western world. Now we inherited the language from the British Raj and today, although we might not speak with perfect grammar and diction, Indians make reasonable attempt to sound correct. Even a mid level government employee will make a substantial effort to speak the language to the best of his ability to get the message across, if he comes across a foreigner.

Enter Australia. Land of the wallabies and Koalas, and the English language - or at least whatever is left of it. For people to whom English is supposed to be their first language, I must say they are making a pretty big effort to make it sound as un-English as possible. I am not exaggerating. The following is a conversation between two teenagers on the train when I was going to college

A: Ah dude, did u? Oh man... I mean, its like... u know.... at first I thot... then i thot maybe...

B: Yeah man... totally... I was like... woah... no way... and it was all like (makes some gesture with his hands) and she was like.. u know.... I just went... whatever... I mean...

While I was pondering what these two were talking about, they both seem to understand each other perfectly. I must have heard the words "like" "Whatever" "awesome" "totally" at least a hundred times in the 15 minute train journey. That is not counting all the swearing that punctuated the entire conversation. And this is not just an Australian phenomenon. Watch any American reality TV show and you see a similar thing.

At first I thought, maybe as these kids grow up they will start talking properly and in full sentences. But watching youtube videos of Bush speaking in press conferences took a big chunk out of that hope. Grown ups, especially politicians have a similar way of distorting the English language. But it is not as obvious as these two teenagers, but that is their whole point. They are meant to sound normal so that we would think they are talking sense. For instance, recently the CIA being probed by Obama was all over Aussie TV. And they were discussing about torture and whether the CIA went overboard with waterboarding etc. And I shit you not, I heard some guy say "...we need these Advanced Interrogation Techniques for....". Its torture - plain and simple - honest language - conveys the message. Now they describe it as Advanced Interrogation Technique. It almost sounds like a good thing. " hello mr.Mohammed.... come along please... we will be going through some Advanced Interrogation Techniques with you!" "Well gee... thank you sir.. that'd be lovely".

It's always an American thing isn't it. Just like the term "developing nation" that we are so proud of calling ourselves. There is no such thing as a developing nation. Either a nation is developed or it isn't. If you go by GDP growth, almost every country is a developing country. Even the US was, until recently, a developing country, before the excrement hit the ventilation system. The term was coined to label and group a bunch of nations for administrative purpose by some western nation and we proudly followed suit without questioning. That's why I don't like the word Atheist, even though I am one. It assumes that believing in God is somehow normal and the rest of us are deluded. It has a negative ring to it. Same goes for the expression "middle east". The place on the map being referred to as middle is, is nowhere near "east" of us. If anything its the mid west, or atleast near west. But you don't see NDTV reporters saying the "near east peace process", or referring to China as the "near north". Now don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against the US or western civilisation. I just wish we think twice before inheriting these memes.

Somewhere in the past decade, every customer suddenly became a client. Somehow, client sounds more important. So important that I can charge my "client" twice as much as I used to charge my "customer" even though they both are the same people. And the word legitimate became synonymous with anything-under-the-sun. Legitimate actions, legitimate tv shows, legitimate personalities, legitimate views. I even heard "Legitimate concern". Well what other type of concern is there? Illegitimate concern? What do you do with a person with illegitimate concern? throw him in jail? The best place to find these verbal diarrhea is Fox News. Earlier this year when Israel went into Gaza, Fox news had an analyst from inside Gaza accusing Israel of war crimes. The tv host immediately interjected "Ma'm you are totally misrepresenting the facts"! Misrepresenting the facts? Did he mean to say she was Lying? Doesn't "misrepresenting the facts" seem less sinister than "Lying?"

Now even though all these might seem to indicate that the English language is being corrupted, if you stand back and look at a bigger time frame, it seems to indicate the contrary. Every generation had their own lingo. Just watch any film noir and you will see the similar trends. If it is "like" and "awesome" today, it was "swell" and "dandy" 50 years ago. And I think, although it might not be entirely true, that it is this ability of this language to morph and accommodate these memes that makes it the universal language. This property is hard to find in our Indian languages. There are always these defenders of language who are ready to put up a fight whenever they think the language is losing its identity. But hey, languages are not here to stay anyway right?. Humans have been here for 100,00 years but every language spoken on earth is less than 9000 years old. And it is estimated that 90% of the 6000 languages spoken today face imminent extinction. So, enjoy your languages while you can. Adios.