ENGLISH -21

 ENGLISH -21

Certainly, I am not under any illusion that these blog posts on ‘English’ serve our readers well to help them handle the language any better.   Yet, I keep writing on language-related items though at random.

I believe that it is this ‘randomness’ that infuses a certain degree of ‘waiting’ on the part of recipients though not of any value of thrill of suspense thereof per se.  So, it is fervently hoped that I do not by design or desire abrogate your precious time on Sunday morning in the garb of ‘discussing’ a thing or two typical to English. Not that I stand at a higher pedestal-- offering sermons on the chosen domain; rather, I choose to be among the learners –may be through some loud thinking.

Incidentally, we know that the term ‘fervent’ is an adjective and it struck me to figure out the noun for the term ‘fervent’. Experts on lexical domain may please be philanthropic –throwing light on the ‘noun’ for the adj. ‘fervent’.   Some dictionaries suggest ‘fervency’ / ‘fervor’ as the noun for the adjective ‘fervent’. Better we await wiser counsel, instead of any hasty assertion.

Be that as it may, let us look for some other items of interest

1.     I knew he would lie. What do we gather from the statement?

2.     He would always lie-no matter who speaks to him. What do we gather from the statement?

Critically follow 1 and 2

Statement 1 can either be understood that the person knew of the man’s

behaviour of telling lies   Or  the person knew of the man’s habit of stretching self horizontally most of the time.

Statement 2 can either be understood that the person would not hesitate to tell lies to any person Or Irrespective of the person interacting, the man would stretch self horizontally to a lying position.

3 He is not interested in helping me

4 He is interested in not helping me

Statements 3 and 4 appear to mean the same- but do they? Statement 3 makes it clear that some X has no interest in helping Y. While Statement 4 Implies that person X is interested in denying help to Y.

 Statement 4 rules out any chance of X rendering help to Y,[as Yis interested in not helping]; while statement 3 implies that Y receiving help from X is not completely ruled out and that some remote chance may arise.

5 All Bengalis are Indians

6 Al Indians are not Bengalis

Though 5, 6 above corroborate the same idea, they present the idea in different ways, as the statements are formulated or ‘paraphrased’ in different ways. If one reads 5 or 6, then [s]he would infer [‘5’ positive] and [‘6’negative] assertions,  relating to the Indian population.

          7 John found the book on the table

          8 John found the book on table

Apparently, ‘7’ and ‘8’ look alike until one takes note of the definite article ‘the’ in both ‘7’ and ‘8’. In both, the information pertains to a select topic. How?

In ‘7’ the statement specifies the location where the book was found.

In ‘8’ the statement ‘found the book on table’  can be understood for the location [table] and also ‘on table’ can be understood as a description of the details presented that could be relating to ‘table’. So, ‘on table’ and ‘on the table’ subtly differ; still purists would dictate that a book pertaining to information on table should be written ‘John found the book on ‘Table’, [the word begins on Capital to imply the work and the content therein].        

9 Look minute every minute.  

10 The tennis player hit the bat that was disturbing, with a bat and immobilized it. One can decipher these by patiently recognizing the meaning of the critical words.

Prof. K. Raman