My number is bigger than yours
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The clouds of uncertainty hanging over the Lok Sabha have only been becoming murkier by the day. There is no one to furnish you with a clear picture because everyone who is either a stakeholder himself/herself or is physically keeping track of the goings-on, is not able to make much of the fast-changing equations – what we have, therefore, is a scenario that is perhaps as nebulous as it was when the game of alignments began.
No money in Manipur
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Did you know one plus one can make zero?
You didn't, you say?
OK, take these two gospel truths:
i) The Northeast does not quite make news in the Indian mainstream media
ii) Media owners are loathe to disseminate news items about journalists through their outlets.
Now take an incident which has these two incontrovertible truths as the background: the offices of many newspapers in Manipur and the state's only television channel were shut down on March 21 after threats to four journalists from an Islamist militant outfit.
No points for guessing, even if you are just Paanchvi Paas, that the coverage of this incident in the our country's venerable mainstream media was a mere zero.
The news did trickle out from this landlocked state in the form of an Asia News International (ANI) creed. That was all. No one seems to have carried it. No media coverage.
The Times of Burial
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The Times of India has issued an apology.
That's good news.
The bad news is that the apology has been buried in the 20th page of Sunday's edition. The info comes to me courtesy Utpal.
Here's what the paper had to say:
"An article in TimesLife ('Spa With a Difference', March 2) had an inadvertent mention that has upset our friends from the northeast. We clarify here that we have the utmost regard for them and their contribution to the country. We apologise for upsetting any feelings and wish to state that there was no intention to hurt any sentiments."
The Times of Insensitivity
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Those of us who have more than a soft corner for the Northeast have been crying wolf since the day we stepped into journalism. We have been crying ourselves hoarse over the stepmotherly attitude of the Centre towards the region. And we have also been mincing no words about what we think of how the news media itself has been handling the Northeast.
Over the last few years the news media has shown some interest in the region. For whatever reason. Maybe people have matured. Maybe they have inculcated a sense of sensitivity over time. Maybe political correctness has rubbed on to the journalistic fraternity in the metropolitcan cities from the scores from the region who are now working in the big media. Or perhaps it is a reason I am not aware of.
Just when one thought that things were getting better, comes a slur. Oh, quite a slur it is.
How very resourceful
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HR is hot. HR is in. HR is everything, these days.
But most people do not know how to write it out.
The thing is human resources is always written like this. It is a noun which always takes the plural when meaning people's skills and abilities, seen as something that an organisation can make use of. It is never human resource.
However, when meaning a department in an organisation that deals with employing and training of people, both singular and plural can be used. Preferably the latter. But then it becomes more a question of style than usage.
Incorrect usage in the Financial Express (Attrition rates high among HR professionals; April 19, 2007) [Link]:
Let's mob those desk hands
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There are certain mistakes that are not typos or oversights. The usage of violent mob is one. [I had an earlier take on this about angry mobs.]
A mob is always violent; there are no peaceful mobs. When the adjective that one is using to qualify a noun is embedded in the latter itself, the use of the adjective is redundant. You don't really talk of cold icecreams, do you? Usage of violent or angry mob is as stupid as that.
I found this in a CNN-IBN story (3 get life term for anti-Sikh riots; March 29, 2007):
Kaur's husband Niranjan Singh, a head constable with the Delhi Police, who was on duty at Shahdara Railway Station on November 1, 1984, was lynched and set ablaze by a violent mob led by the accused.
In public interest
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Here's a word that I believe belongs to the vocabulary of upstarts: publically.
To start with, I shouldn't call it a word, for it is not one. It is a figment of imagination — usually, those of upstarts.
The (correct) word, as we all know, is publicly. Meaning, by/of the public (e.g. publicly owned company), or in front of the public or in full glare of the public (He publicly apologised for his misdemeanour).
I found this on NDTV (Suspended Pak CJ addresses rally; March 28, 2007):
Pakistan's suspended chief justice Iftikar Chaudhury has spoken publically for the first time since President Musharraf suspended him about three weeks ago.
A search on Google News yielded only two instances of this non-existent word in the last one month.
The Times of India (Buddhadeb faces politburo test; March 16, 2007) had one:
Stranded on mull road
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Ok. that's a bad pun. A bad joke, I admit.
But if you go through the cruel jokes that subs inflict on us when it comes to phrasal verbs, you are sooner or later going to lose all your sense of humour, and sense of grammar as well.
Just as well.
It is now quite fashionable to use mull whenever you can. I am not going to mull the usage of this word, because it cannot be done. I mean, you just can't mull something as you cull dogs these days.
The thing is mull as a verb in itself does not stand, the phrasal verb is to mull over. To mull over something means to spend time thinking carefully about a plan or a proposal.
Here's a Press Trust of India (PTI) creed reproduced faithfully by CNN-IBN (Govt mulling increasing no of SC judges; March 24, 2007):
Concerning habits
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Some habits are a matter of concern. I mean habits of some subs. Maybe, many subs. It's about usage of concerned.
Concern as a noun is primarily a feeling of worry about/for/over somebody/something. Concern as a verb would mean to involve or affect somebody. Primarily speaking, of course. Concerned as an adjective is concerned with the former. So when you use concerned before a noun, it would mean that the person (yeah, yeah, the noun I am talking about) is quite worried about something. It does not mean that the person is involved with someone or something. If you mean the latter, it is a better idea to use it after the noun.
This example from the Indian Express/Lucknow Newsline (Police pull out gunners of 5 MLAs; March 24, 2007) would suggest that the committees were extremely worried:
In spite of the idiom
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One idiomatic expression which is rampantly, and erroneously, thought of as one word is in spite of. Inspite is NOT a word.
As the OED will tell you, if you say that somebody did something in spite of a fact, you mean it is surprising that that fact did not prevent him/her from doing it. As straight as that.
Some recent examples of this glaring mistake:
The Economic Times (Ore export duty to help in resource conservation; March 11, 2007; PTI creed):
State-owned iron export company NMDC has declared 90 per cent operating profit in the financial year 2006-07 inspite of exports on long term contracts. The majority of iron ore exports is on spot basis that indicates companies in this space are making even higher profits, the statement said.
The Times of India (She saved the girl in her womb; March 8, 2007):