************************************************************************************************************
DC, Page 6 Monday 25 February 2013:
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
We are passing through a season of regrets and apologies, left-handed, contrived, negotiated, conditional, and plain and simple insincere. Everyone here seems to be offended by everything that is said, implied, filmed, tweeted, blogged or facebooked.
The latest round was inaugurated by the British PM who arrived at the Amritsar Bagh in great style, unshoed, bent and bowed and wrote a few appropriate words in the visitors book. Everyone knows why he took the trouble. But apparently he didn't 'apologize'. And that antagonized some. And he refused to apologize for what someone did a century back (behind his back). That is understandable. But it begs the question why then he 'regretted' it.
And someone asked him to return the Kohinoor crown jewel to its original owner whoever he is. He simply pooh-poohed the idea saying he didn't believe in 'returnism'. That too is understandable. If Britain starts returning and compensating for the loot from its erstwhile empire, nothing would be left of it except the Dover Cliffs and the Thames.
The word 'regret', in the academic world, doesn't exactly mean regret (profusely or otherwise). It is a euphemism for 'get lost'. For instance, in the 1960s, one of my friends in the ME faculty at IIT KGP was fed up with dirty India and applied for a suitable position in an Australian University.
Pat came the reply:
"We regret we do not have a position commensurate with your qualifications"
He then wrote back seeking any position (commensurate or incommensurate).
And he got this:
"We regret we have no position for you"
In my long teaching career at IIT KGP spanning 40 years, there was only one occasion when I asked a student to give me a written apology. And that was out of curiosity to see how 2nd year B Tech students wrote English prose extempore.
I was then the Professor-in-Charge of the 2nd year Phy Lab. I was watching a student playing with a convex lens tossing it from his right hand to his left and talking with his partner intensely. And it slipped and fell down on the floor and broke into two pieces. The chap was taken aback. I called him to my table and asked him how it got broken. He said he was trying to focus it on the wall to measure its focal length when it fell down (almost on its own). That was ok. I asked him to pay the fine of Rs 100. That was not ok with him and he pleaded, 'sir, sir, sir..'. I then asked him to write a letter apologizing for his lapse and assuring he would be more careful.
He was glad and after consulting his partner came up with his 'apology letter'. It was all fine reading with grandiose prose. Except for the sentence I still remember:
"The lens fell down from my hands on the floor and eventually broke".
And of course that delighted me and I asked him to specify the time lapse between the event of its landing on the floor and the event of its breaking. That single word, 'eventually', spoke a lot of the chap's training in buzz words that they learn at IIT; like the words I counted in yesterday's Edit Page pre-Budget article by a technocrat in DC (ibid) which was bristling with 'ecosystems, force multipliers, strategic steps, plain vanilla banking services, leverages, growth engines...'
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Here is a quote from the OP-ED Page (ibid) of DC:
(I tired to keyboard the above as best as I could, true to the original. Perhaps, a few typos can be overlooked)
Now I had, in my time, dallied in doggerels:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2009/04/pet-rage.html
But it is only today that I looked up the meaning and etymology of the word, 'doggerel', to see if it has anything to with dogs. Here is the wiki entry:
*************************************************************************************************************
The controversy over Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde's 'regret' on Hindu terror issue is refused to die down. While the Congress has already rejected the RSS's demand that Mr Shinde to tender 'apology' saying what he said is based on facts, parliamentary affairs minster Kamal Nath in a TV interview said 'regret' cannot be changed once it is used.
The BJP has already welcomed the 'regret' expressed by Mr Shinde and thus cannot back the RSS.
Mr Nath said while Mr Shinde had used the word BJP, he has clarified that he did not mean any political organisation. "If it has inadvertently or advertently been construed to mean that, he said I express regret,"? Mr Nath said. He also said Mr Shinde did not 'deny' the remarks he had made and had only clarified that he did not mean it.
(sic)
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
We are passing through a season of regrets and apologies, left-handed, contrived, negotiated, conditional, and plain and simple insincere. Everyone here seems to be offended by everything that is said, implied, filmed, tweeted, blogged or facebooked.
The latest round was inaugurated by the British PM who arrived at the Amritsar Bagh in great style, unshoed, bent and bowed and wrote a few appropriate words in the visitors book. Everyone knows why he took the trouble. But apparently he didn't 'apologize'. And that antagonized some. And he refused to apologize for what someone did a century back (behind his back). That is understandable. But it begs the question why then he 'regretted' it.
And someone asked him to return the Kohinoor crown jewel to its original owner whoever he is. He simply pooh-poohed the idea saying he didn't believe in 'returnism'. That too is understandable. If Britain starts returning and compensating for the loot from its erstwhile empire, nothing would be left of it except the Dover Cliffs and the Thames.
The word 'regret', in the academic world, doesn't exactly mean regret (profusely or otherwise). It is a euphemism for 'get lost'. For instance, in the 1960s, one of my friends in the ME faculty at IIT KGP was fed up with dirty India and applied for a suitable position in an Australian University.
Pat came the reply:
"We regret we do not have a position commensurate with your qualifications"
He then wrote back seeking any position (commensurate or incommensurate).
And he got this:
"We regret we have no position for you"
In my long teaching career at IIT KGP spanning 40 years, there was only one occasion when I asked a student to give me a written apology. And that was out of curiosity to see how 2nd year B Tech students wrote English prose extempore.
I was then the Professor-in-Charge of the 2nd year Phy Lab. I was watching a student playing with a convex lens tossing it from his right hand to his left and talking with his partner intensely. And it slipped and fell down on the floor and broke into two pieces. The chap was taken aback. I called him to my table and asked him how it got broken. He said he was trying to focus it on the wall to measure its focal length when it fell down (almost on its own). That was ok. I asked him to pay the fine of Rs 100. That was not ok with him and he pleaded, 'sir, sir, sir..'. I then asked him to write a letter apologizing for his lapse and assuring he would be more careful.
He was glad and after consulting his partner came up with his 'apology letter'. It was all fine reading with grandiose prose. Except for the sentence I still remember:
"The lens fell down from my hands on the floor and eventually broke".
And of course that delighted me and I asked him to specify the time lapse between the event of its landing on the floor and the event of its breaking. That single word, 'eventually', spoke a lot of the chap's training in buzz words that they learn at IIT; like the words I counted in yesterday's Edit Page pre-Budget article by a technocrat in DC (ibid) which was bristling with 'ecosystems, force multipliers, strategic steps, plain vanilla banking services, leverages, growth engines...'
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Here is a quote from the OP-ED Page (ibid) of DC:
"...So far, the stormy petrel of Bengal politics has written essays and poems in her mother tongue, Bengali. It is no secret that she has a command over the language. She not only writes but also speaks well. It is her passionate Bengali oratory that has made her the biggest crowd puller in the state.
But now it seems that she is planning to write verses in English. At a recent public meeting in South 24 Parganas, Didi tried her hand at rhyming in English. In an obvious message to her bete noire, the CPI (M), she said: "Mxxxxa Bxxxxxee, Mxxxxa Bxxxxxee / She may be your allergy / But she is people's energy"
More doggerel than verse, perhaps, but the message is clear enough."
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
(I tired to keyboard the above as best as I could, true to the original. Perhaps, a few typos can be overlooked)
Now I had, in my time, dallied in doggerels:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2009/04/pet-rage.html
But it is only today that I looked up the meaning and etymology of the word, 'doggerel', to see if it has anything to with dogs. Here is the wiki entry:
Doggerel is a derogatory term for verse considered of little literary value. The word probably derived from dog, suggesting either ugliness, puppyish clumsiness, or unpalatability (as in food fit only for dogs)
I think a strong case exists for Didi to demand a full-blown apology from the unnamed DC correspondent.
*************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment