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See English, Talk English, Think English

The main purpose of language is communication, and here we shall look at English language, ways to improve its usage, and also the pitfalls which prevent us from learning it adequately.

As the story goes, once upon a time in British India one of the English officers had a difficult time communicating with his Hindi-speaking peon. If he wanted the door of his office shut, the
peon used to open it and vice versa. Another English friend offered this advice to help him communicate. He advised the officer to speak out rapidly the sentence "There was a cold day." if he wanted the peon to open the door. He also advised him to speak rapidly another sentence "There was a brown crow" if he wanted the door closed. These roughly translated phonetically into "Darwaza Kol Dhey" and "Darwaza Bandh Karo" which the Hindi-speaking peon was able to grasp. Thus, communication eased.

This story brings out the common problem of language usage. If it is difficult for a native English speaker to communicate and understand Hindi, it is also equally difficult for Indians to communicate and understand English. There are many reasons for this, and I shall dwell on two of the most important reasons here.

The first and most obvious one is our limited exposure to English. We Indians rarely get exposure to English from an early age. We are first exposed to the mother tongue or the vernacular and then later to English. (I don't mean to say that our mother tongue hampers us entirely from speaking English but no one can argue the fact that it does prevent us from speaking English well.) This prevents us from getting a head start in learning English early in our life. This problem, however, is easily remedied. The effective ways to get good and proper English exposure are by reading books and watching English movies and English TV shows. Books help us get a grasp of sentence construction and grammar usage whereas movies and English TV shows help our listening and increase our understanding of spoken English. If done regularly, one can grasp the nuances in both written and spoken English thereby leading to better and more effective English communication.

Since we all start out speaking in our vernacular or mother tongue and rarely use English at our homes, we tend to think too in the vernacular. This leads to translation of thoughts from the
vernacular to English and then into spoken or written English. This is one of the foremost reasons which leads to our poor form of English. Some English phrases we Indians use are exact translations from the vernacular and are sometimes hilarious. They make perfect sense in our vernacular languages but the meanings are lost upon translation to English. This is admittedly a difficult thing to conquer as few of us ever speak English at home. The best way to go about this problem would be to start by writing on any subject in English all the while forcing the mind to think in English and then bring out the thoughts into words through pen and paper. The writing done need not be an essay or a poem or anything that requires a lot of thought. It could be as simple as keeping a diary in English which one updates on daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Also, one can write letters to newspapers with their opinions on the burning issues of the day. When we start writing in English it forces us to think in English and hence in due course will make us better users of English.

Since English is the worlds second most spoken language it is worthwhile to purse a certain amount of time daily towards improving our skills in spoken and written English. English is a steadily growing language and is starting to show its influence everywhere and the right knowledge of English is going to make a lot of difference tomorrow's world.

So let's all push back our difficulties and let's refine our English.

Know Your Word

We often say the word F**K you. Actually it has a long history related to it. In the Medieval era in England, child bearing and giving birth wasrestricted by the king. So those who wanted to have children should geta proper consent from the king. They would be given consent and a messageboard saying "Fornication Under the Consent of the King" will be hangedin their doors outside the house. So that became to be shortly called asFUCK, and the Americans who settled from over Europe took there and madeit a complulsory part of their slang.

We usually call rouges in Tamil especially, as kedi. When the British ruled India, habitual crime doers and local bandits who frequently are jailed for petty offences were called as Known Depredators. So evenafter the British left us, we still use the short form KD. Also the same case with OC which was used by the British posts for mails without proper stamps on it and the current day usage is well known.

Answer These Questions Plz

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of its bottle?

Why are there flotation devices under plane seats instead of parachutes?

Why are cigarettes sold in gas stations when smoking is prohibited there?

Why do you need a driver's license to buy liquor when you can't drink and drive?

Why is lemon juice mostly artificial ingredients but dishwashing liquidcontains real lemons?

If 7-11 is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, why are there locks onthe doors?

If nothing ever sticks to TEFLON, how do they make TEFLON stick to the pan?

If you tied buttered toast to the back of a cat and dropped it from a height, what would happen?

If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

Have you ever imagined a world with no hypothetical situations?

You know how most packages say "Open here," what is the protocol if thepackage says, "Open somewhere else"?

You know that little indestructible black box that is used on planes, why can't they make the whole plane out of the same substance?

What do you plant to grow a seedless watermelon?

When sign makers go on strike, is anything written on their signs?

Idioms For You - Take the Ball and Run With It

Here are some idioms on "Take"

'Take something with a grain of salt' - means to listen to something without completely believing it.

'Take the bull by the horns' - to accomplish a difficult task in a determined and correct manner.'Take the path of least resistance' - to follow an easy way out, where obstacles can be avoided.

'It does not take a rocket Scientist'- means something is clear and easily understood; it is obvious.

'Take a trip down memory lane'- remembering some of the good deeds you have performed in the past.

'Take Pot luck' - without knowing the end result you accept what is available.

'To take somebody for a ride' - means to cheat someone wilfully.

'Take to something like a duck to water' - means to easily acquire the method of doing a thing and finding pleasure in performing the same.

'Take umbrage' - to lose temper on something someone has said or done.

'Take a pew'- (Humourous) means to ask someone to be seated.

'Take each day as it comes' - to face things as it comes on a day to day basis and not to draw a master plan for one's lifetime.

'Take the ball and run with it' - to take an idea or plan and develop it further.

'(Let) the devil take the hindmost'- means to think about yourself and your prosperity and not to mind about others.

'I take my hat off to somebody' - to adore and respect someone for their excellent accomplishment/ for something they have done.

'Take something as gospel (truth)' - to believe that some news or information provided is very true.

'Take centre stage' - an object or a person most noticed in a gathering.

'To take the brunt of something' - means to face and suffer the worst part of something harmful such as an attack.

'To take the lid off something' - to make public a scandal etc.

'Take matters into your own hands' - to tackle a problem by yourself .

'Take up the cudgels for somebody or something' - to furnish evidence and argue in support of someone or something .

'Take somebody's name in vain' - to quote someone's name in their absence.

'Take your life into your hands' - encounter something very fatal; to do something dangerous.

'Take the wraps off something' - to publicise a thing after guarding a secret for long.