Killed by a comma

"The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms."

~ Eric Arthur Blair, known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist and journalist.

'Hang him, not let him go free' means the end of one's life. 'Hang him not, let him go free' means one lives to taste the sweetness of life.

If it is the verdict of a judge, the difference between the two, of life and death, is just a comma. I shudder to think how many innocents have been hung by a misplaced comma; or for that matter, how many brigands worthy of death, set free. Punctuations really matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of, life and death. English is not only a puzzling and difficult language to master, but also funny at times. I have been fortunate in that, several distinguished persons were my English language teachers.The most prominent amongst them, and famous, being Mr. Wilson, better known by his nom de guerre, a pseudonym, of Anthony Burgess.

His book A Clockwork Orange, written in 1962 after he returned to Britain from his teaching assignment in Brunei - then a relatively unknown country - was, made into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1971. I was a student at the Sultan Omar Ali Saiffudin College in Brunei when he was the English language teacher there.

Both the year 1962 and 1971 were also landmarks in my life: the first is when I went to Britain for higher studies, the present Sultan of Brunei too going there for further studies at the same time; and 1971 being the year I went back to Brunei and became a fledgling Film Producer to the Government of Brunei.

The present Sultan had come to throne the previous year; the father Sir Omar Ali Saiffudin abdicating in his favour. Of course, there were many a watershed incidences in-between; but they remain outside the scope of this effort.

A living language lives by evolving; also by, borrowing. Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every

dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all. English as a language, evolved out of the downright confusing aspects of a multi-continental Germanic tongue.

Meanings

Confusion becomes confounded, and funny, when 'fat' and 'slim' - words that usually connote opposite meanings - have identical meaning: a 'fat chance' and a 'slim chance' are the same thing. Further, having multiple English words for just one word makes it very difficult for English learners. One of the best examples is 'hope', 'expect', and 'look forward to'.

To make things worse, 'hope', 'expect', and 'look forward to' have very different and distinct meanings in English. They are usually not interchangeable. For example, 'hope' means you want something to happen. We use 'hope' when we desire something but are uncertain whether it will happen: 'I hope it doesn't rain on my birthday.'

Thus, to hope is to wish for something with anticipation of its fulfilment. Expect, on the other hand is to regard as probable or likely. 'Expect' usually means you believe something will happen, whether you want it to or not. It is an emotionally neutral term: I don't expect to ever win the lottery, but I still enjoy trying. 'Look forward to' is to think of a future event with eager anticipation.

'Look forward to' is used for events that are actually going to happen: "I'm looking forward to my 18th birthday, when I legally

become a major." Hence, we do not use 'look forward to' for things that might not happen. "If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers," said Doug Larson, a columnist and newspaper editor. English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are, based on Latin - a language with which it has precious little in common.

By making English grammar conform to Latin rules, we are asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. Whatever rule applied, one rule to follow is that one should never make fun of someone who speaks broken English.

It means they know another language. The French are fond of saying: "English is nothing but broken French." Yet, it evolved into a language of its own. The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of its own imagination.

If the world today is united by the English language, it is also separated by the common language of British English, Welsh English, Scottish English, Irish English, American English, Australian English, Singaporean English, Indian English, Japanese English, and even Chinglish and Singlish - the latter being Sri Lankan in origin.

Thus, when in doubt about who is to blame for the improper use of the language, blame the English.

English

The limits of one's language are the limits of one's world. If we want to own the world, learn the language that rules the world: English.

Learn everything you can, any time you can, from anyone you can; there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did. "Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere" is an ancient Chinese Proverb; and to have knowledge of another language such as English is to possess a second soul.

The world of English literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. I have been in thousands of cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up, every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give.

I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language. That does not mean to belittle, any other language we may know, including our mother tongue.

I end with a quote by Stephen Fry, an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director. "The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too; common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane.

Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American.

Military, naval, legal, corporate, criminal, jazz, rap and ghetto discourses are, mingled at every turn. The French language, like Paris, has attempted, through its Academy, to retain its purity, to fight the advancing tides of Franglais and international prefabrication. English, by comparison, is a shameless whore." Source: The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within.

See you this day next week. Until then, keep thinking; keep laughing. Life is mostly about these two activities.

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