THE PLIGHT OF THE ERRONEOUS

 THE PLIGHT OF THE ERRONEOUS                                                                                     

The present write-up painfully summarizes the abject inadequacy among modern graduates and Post-graduates emerging from several parts of Tamil Nadu. My reference to this province gains significance, because this territory in South India has had a tradition of immaculate usage of LANGUAGES INCLUDING English in the first quarter century in the history of independent India. Where have we lost this pristine glory is a lamentation by all elders.

Well, as of now, every situation looms as a plight. Some people advocate the concept of ‘positivity’ in our outlook and approach. It reads healthy with a passive suggestion of ‘self correction’ along the course. But what baffles me is the suggested positivity on the face of inept equipping and callous indifference to the process of learning. Unfailingly it leads to a state of misconstrued opinionating to the extent of bruising cordial friendship among persons of comparable parity of age and levels of study. To me it tends to rake-up a sense of alienation between the mentally ‘haves’ and the have-nots’. Ironically, the latter assume greater wisdom upon themselves, they being more opinionated than they are truly apprised. The malady seems to get entrenched in the society faster largely by callous indifference to appropriate learning and the ever expanding population of incompetent handlers of the languages. The concern expressed here pertains to abuse of the languages with near gay abandon.

The steadfast adherence to such ‘wrong conception, is based on an excuse “someone said so”.   To me it looks a defence, if not defiance. Honestly it is appalling rather than appealing to be a way out. I can bring to the discussion a number of situations where persons make utterances that would not manage safe passage among native monolingual speakers.

The spirit of the suggestion is to fore-warn such deficient minds to get appropriately equipped before any native speaker chooses to dress their ego down to a point of shame, leaving them  ‘bare’ with fangs of wounded vanity. Even among non native speakers, the discerning do not pardon the defiance backed up by emboldened arrogance borne out of numerical frequency of their lot. Being in the bracket of ill- conceived, idiocy is a syndrome that amplifies such defects elevating their status to that of a butt of ridicule. The worst form of defending the defective handling of languages is to baffle the opponent saying that this is the modern way, while yours is the old form. Painfully the truth is – a thing has been wrongly learnt recently; so it is the “modern way”. I readily brush them aside saying    “any defective equipment however new is a liability”.  Look at the following:

Amongst our ‘butts of ridicule’  the terms ‘improve and ‘improvise’   figure liberally as ‘interchangeable’ while in reality they are unrelated. Another inadequacy among them is to wrongly insert ‘continue’  in place of ‘continuous’ in the course of  a conversation with an unfailing alacrity of conservation of jarring error. Quite some assumptions dominate their minds while framing statement; terms are wrongly employed on the belief of their assumed meaning though they spell like near cousins.  For example similar terms   oppose/ appose, Judicial / judicious, ludicrous / luscious, Diffuse / Defuse, Climatic / Climactic, Desert/Dessert, Principle/ Principal, to/ too   etc. look alike but their meanings refer to different items. It is probable that children in their formative days are not groomed well to grasp the essential basics and the difference between verb /adverb and adjectives. In later life, these boys and girls feel it insecure to interact among contemporary learners and they turn mute in the company of those who are adept in the nuances of language. By the time they are at higher levels of study, ego forbids their seeking clarification; instead, they choose to put on airs of confidence and try to silence critics with fragile and futile defence of taking refuge under “modern pattern of usage”. Seldom do they realize how badly they are judged for their inadequacy on all occasions of quality judgment.  It is not my endeavour to portray them in bad light; but often they do not heed well-meant directives and unfailingly irritate those who iterate their flaws. Well before they are ready to launch themselves into the ocean of competition, they would get drowned by the mass of their ego unless they disband it to unburden themselves and acquire the virtue of listening to sensible suggestion instead of being sensitive. Sensibility should always take precedence  over sensitivity                                                                          K . RAMAN    02-07-2020