Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Is it right to use ‘According to me’?



According to me’ is one of the most popular usages among the speakers of English in south Asian countries, especially in India. Though beautiful and of course nice to hear, this phrase is un-English.

But why?

Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines the preposition ‘according to’ like this: as stated or reported by somebody/something. What does it mean? Well, ‘according to’ should be used to repeat a statement which was made by another, preferably a third person.

Let’s take an example to make it clear:

“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” is a very famous quote made by Edison. When you want to repeat this quote, you may say, According to Edison, genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration’. Here you are repeating the statement made by a third person (Edison). So ‘according to’ can be used.

The sentence ‘According to Edison, genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration’ means ‘as stated by Edison, genius is……………………’

According to John Keats, ‘a thing of beauty is a joy for ever’
(As John Keats said, ‘a thing of beauty……………………..’)

According to Napoleon, ‘nothing is impossible’
(As Napoleon said, ‘nothing is……….’)

In all the examples above, the statements/opinions were made by a third person (Edison, Keats, Napoleon etc) and we are repeating or reporting them. That’s why we use ‘according to’.

Now, what’s wrong with ‘according to me’? When you say, ‘according to me, she is not reliable’, you are making your own opinion (not reporting a third person’s). Remember that ‘according to’ does not have the meaning ‘in my opinion’.

Apart from a third person, ‘according to’ can also be used with a third source such as a book, newspaper, TV channel and so on. For example, ‘according to BBC, the incident took place at midnight’, ‘According to the Holy Bible, drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of heaven’, ‘according to Bhagvad Gita, man is made by his belief’.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Pleasure, Measure and Vision: Funny Indian pronunciation!


/ʒ/ (the sound of ‘s’ in pleasure, measure, leisure, vision etc) is another sound which is still beyond the reach of many of Indian speakers of English.

The speakers of Hindi and other north Indian languages use something like a ‘y’ in place of the sound /ʒ/. A good majority of them pronounce pleasure, measure, leisure and vision almost as ‘pleiyar’, ‘meiyar’, ‘leiyar’ and ‘viyyan’ .

What about the southern speakers? Their tongues can utter these words only as pleshur, meshur, leshur, vishen etc. The apparent absence of an equivalent to the original English sound /ʒ/ in any of the Indian languages is the culprit in this case as well.

The only way out for those who live in this country yet want to improve their pronunciation is to listen to good English, preferably spoken by native English speakers.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Indian English – North Vs South!


India has already been officially declared as the world’s second largest English speaking country. However, being home land to more than a billion people with noticeable social, economic and linguistic diversity among themselves, there are a number of Englishes spoken throughout this country.

While the people living in the north claim to be comparatively better in pronunciation, those down south of the country boast of their upper hand in grammatical accuracy. Here I am posting a few non-English elements which I came to notice in the speaking habits of both south and north Indian speakers of English.

Many speakers of English in south use /s/ in place of /z/. So ‘Zen’ becomes /Sen/. ‘Jazz’ is pronounced as /jass/. Zigzag is distorted as /sigsag/. ‘Zeal’ is /seal/. Interestingly, many of them pronounce the following pairs of words in the same manner: [sip, zip], [sing, zing], [is, ease], [rice, rise], [C Tv, Z Tv] etc. The apparent reason is the lack of a corresponding sound to /z/ in many of the south Indian languages. So, they naturally tend to manage with its lookalike /s/!

Now, let’s move a little north. Many northerners find it difficult to pronounce the sound /z/. You may often hear ‘jen’ in place of ‘zen’; ‘jeero’ in place of ‘zero’ ‘joo’ for ‘zoo’ and ‘jigjag’ instead of ‘zigzag’! The reason is the same as that of the southern speakers – lack of an equivalent to /z/ in most of the north Indian tongues!

(to be contd…)