The reader over your shoulder – XXII
In sentence 18 the word ‘releasing’ is not the right one. We do not releas ads in newspapers;
we put ads in newspapers. In place of the phrase ‘decrease the burden’ in sentence 19
‘lighten the burden’ would be more precise, writes Mr Grammarian
Errors in syntax
1. Neighbours caught Yousuf and handed over him to the police.
2. If the Awami League chief knows who were involved, how and where the plan was cooked up, why doesn’t she inform it to the investigators?
3. Irrigation power bill is much effective than diesel price subsidy.
4. The decision of constructing the expressway to ease traffic congestion was made during Thai prime minister’s visit to Dhaka.
5. I like to mention some other points too.
6. There had a little rain in the region in the last two months.
In sentence 1 ‘handed over’ is a two-word separable transitive verb. In other words, the particle (‘over’) can be placed either before the object or after the object. But if the object is a pronoun, the particle must be placed after the object: ‘handed him over to the police’ not ‘handed over him to the police’. In sentence 2 the expression ‘why doesn’t she inform it to the police?’ should be ‘why doesn’t she inform the police of it?’ We inform somebody of something.
In sentence 3 the phrase ‘much effective than’ is wrong. It should be ‘more effective than’. The word ‘decision’ takes an infinitive, but in sentence 4 ‘decision’ is followed by ‘of+ing-form: ‘The decision of constructing...’ The correct expression is ‘The decision to construct...’ In sentence 5 ‘I like’ should be ‘I would like...’ ‘I like’ means ‘I am fond of, whereas ‘I would like’ means ‘I want to’. In sentence 6 the expression ‘There had a little rain in the region.’ is wrong. The introductory ‘there’ is never followed by ‘have’ as a main verb. It takes a form of ‘be’: ‘There was little rain in the region.’
Errors in prepositions
7. The government is now intervening personal life of a former President.
8. The participants expressed their support to the government drive for introduction of a permanent state attorney-general.
9. Foiz went to the institute to express his sympathy to teachers and students who had come under police attack.
10. The land grabbers have been selling their lands and illegal structures through deeds under the knowledge of the officials of the land administration.
11. The failure of the law enforcing agencies to find out the clue of the bomb attack made the people all the more panicky.
12. The Kalurghat Bridge will be opened for vehicles today after its closure for renovation in August 2004.
In sentence 7 a required preposition (‘in’) and the definite article before ‘personal life’ have been omitted: ‘intervening in the personal life of a former President’. In sentence 8 the preposition ‘to’ after ‘support’ is wrong. The correct preposition is ‘for’: ‘support for the government’. In sentence 9 ‘sympathy’ requires the preposition ‘for’ not ‘to’: sympathy for teachers and students’. In sentence 10 the expression ‘under the knowledge’ should be ‘to the knowledge’. The word ‘clue’ in sentence 11 takes the preposition ‘to’ not ‘of’: ‘clue to the bomb attack’. In sentence 12 ‘opened for vehicle’ should be ‘opened to vehicles’.
Errors in subject-verb agreement
13. Even the party chief Sheik Hasina herself along with a number of senior leaders have been working on strategies to minimize the feuds.
14. But I think former president Ershad does have some peculiar qualities which is really interesting.
In sentence 13 the verb (‘have been working’) does not agree with the subject (‘the party chief Sheik Hasina’) which is singular. The rule is that when a subject is modified by ‘along with,’ the verb should agree with the headword which, in this case, is singular. So a singular verb is required: ‘The party chief...has been working...’ In sentence 14 the antecedent of the relative pronoun (‘which’) is ‘some peculiar qualities’. ‘Qualities’ being plural, the verb should be plural: ‘which are’ not ‘which is’.
Errors in idiom
15. The raid was conducted at the order of the state minister.
16. The failure of constructing the expressway to ease traffic congestion was made during Thai prime minister’s visit to Dhaka.
17. He was recently acquitted from murder charges by a High Court bench.
In sentence 15 ‘at the order of’ is idiomatically incorrect. The correct idiom is ‘on the order of’. In sentence 16 the word ‘failure’ takes an infinitive: ‘The failure to construct...’not ‘failure of constructing...’ In sentence 17 there is an error in idiom in the expression ‘acquitted from murder charges’. A man is ‘acquitted of a crime’ not ‘from a crime’.
Errors in vocabulary
18. They continued to charge atrocious sums of money for admission by releasing attractive newspaper ads and organising marketing gimmicks.
19. Can we appeal to our lawmakers that in support of their largely rural constituents to look into the matter and try to decrease the burden on this mode of popular telecommunication?
20. Hasina will visit the Friendship University of Russia where she is scheduled to be accorded with an honourary doctorate degree.
21. Belal Hossain, a hogla (a kind of reed) trader, said if they could cultivate hogla in one acre of land they could earn as many taka as 20 to 30 thousand and on the other side they could earn only 10 to 15 thousand from paddy cultivation.
22. Some areas of West Bengal of India are facing excessive heat.
23. Cracks have already seen in the region as ground water levels have fallen sharply.
24. About 200 consumers gathered at the Poura point after marching through the town in demand of power supply at 11:00 am.
In sentence 18 the word ‘releasing’ is not the right one. We do not releas ads in newspapers; we put ads in newspapers. In place of the phrase ‘decrease the burden’ in sentence 19 ‘lighten the burden’ would be more precise. But even with this change, the sentence does not sound right. I would recast it as follows: ‘Can we appeal to our lawmakers to look into the matter and try to lighten the burden of their largely rural constituents by withdrawing increased fees on mobile phones?’ The collocation in the expression ‘accorded with a degree ‘in sentence 20 is not right. A person is not ‘accorded with a degree’; he or she is ‘awarded a degree’. Sentence 21 has some problems. Money being an uncountable noun, we do not say ‘as many as taka 20 to 30’; we say ‘as much as taka 20 to 30 thousand’. Moreover, the pronoun ‘they’ does nor refer back to any plural noun. The whole sentence can be recast as follows: ‘... a farmer could earn as much as 20 to 30 thousand by cultivating hogla in one acre of land, whereas paddy cultivation would fetch him only 10 to 15 thousand.’ In sentence 22 ‘face’ and ‘excessive heat’ do not collate. I would suggest the verb ‘experience’: ‘are experiencing excessive heat’ In sentence 23 the verb ‘seen’ should be replaced by ‘appeared’. ‘Cracks have already appeared...’ In sentence 24 I would suggest ‘calling for power supply’ in place of ‘in demand of power supply’: ‘About 200 consumers gathered at 11:00 am at Poura point after marching through the town, calling for power supply’.
Dhaka Diary
To some people in Dhaka at least it signaled the opening of a new chapter by the Indian policy makers at the South Bloc in Delhi in their Bangladesh file. Instead of welcoming such a rare development, a section of the media appeared keen to pointedly focus on the points of discords that obviously will continue to exist for a long time to come,
writes Sayed Kamaluddin
Canard on Indo-Bangla moot
Although the much talked about Foreign Secretary level meeting in New Delhi ended two days ago, for a change, on a somewhat positive note, a section of media in Dhaka generally and West Bengal’s CPM chief minister in particular tried to put a damper on the issue. The outcome of the Delhi meeting has a surprising element in the sense that it has made an attempt to sort out all bilateral disputes through a series of meaningful discussions. To some people in Dhaka at least it signaled the opening of a new chapter by the Indian policy makers at the South Bloc in Delhi in their Bangladesh file. Instead of welcoming such a rare development, a section of the media appeared keen to pointedly focus on the points of discords that obviously will continue to exist for a long time to come. The list of bilateral disputes between Bangladesh and India is a pretty long one and they doggedly defied solution for years and decades. So nobody in his or her right mind could expect a ‘quick fix’ solution.
What however, was more surprising was the remarks made by West Bengal CPM leader and chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. In fact, Bhattacharya made a scathing attack on Bangladesh for what he calls ‘sheltering insurgents on its soil and exporting terrorists into India.’ The Indian government and many operatives of its multifarious agencies had been making such allegations for decades in an orchestrated regularity but neither the current nor the past CPM chief minister had ever indulged in such politically motivated exercise.
In fact, both Bhattacharya and his predecessor Jyoti Basu had at times counseled Delhi for developing closer and friendly ties with Dhaka. What has really prompted a person of Bhattacharya’s eminence and wisdom to suddenly come out with such a statement reminiscent of clichés used in the past to denigrate Bangladesh is really a puzzling one.
Interestingly, Bhattacharya was persuaded to plunge into the foray at a time when the moderates in Delhi’s South Bloc appeared to have established their control over the hardliners backed by some of the most powerful agencies. Analysts believe that the success of the moderates in the South Block has not only jolted the hardliners but also shaken the roots of the strings of beneficiaries of such hard line politics. The number of such beneficiaries and the size of the benefits are enormous and it has forced the beneficiaries to resolutely regroup and reassert. They are taking the advantage of the deep channels of widespread network that was developed over the years to fight back. The suddenness of Bhattacharya’s attack on Bangladesh could not have possibly been explained away as a mere coincidence.
A section of the powerful Indian media, apparently spearheaded by the Kolkata-based seven score and some years old English-language daily The Statesman, has been targeting Bangladesh for a long time to portray it as either a ‘failed state’, or an ‘Islamic fundamentalist state’, or a ‘terrorist state’ or a state combined with all these vices etc. etc. but mercifully failed to have met with any tangible success. A group of retired intelligence officers, some of whom had been posted to Dhaka at one time or another in their long career, had been seemingly guiding this campaign and they could not have done so without any tacit understanding with some topnotch at the appropriate level in the Indian government. This vested group’s tentacles, needless to mention, transcend geographical boundaries and could bounce back when summoned.
A beginning has been made
Assuming that the moderates in South Block have succeeded in having their way for a while does not mean that the hardliners have become totally incapacitated. In fact, far from it. The moderates have just made a beginning in their attempt to take a new look at their country’s overall relations with the others in the region. They have made significant progress; but their initiatives need careful reciprocity from the other end and in this particular case, the onus seems to lie on the shoulders of the policy makers in Dhaka.
The Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran cordially received his Bangladesh counterpart Hemayetuddin at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, a formality not always strictly observed these days and should be taken as a positive and sincere gesture. Saran also arranged for his Bangladesh counterpart to call on Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar and State Minister for External Affairs C. Ahamad. This would have been almost unthinkable for a visiting Bangladesh Foreign Secretary to have such effortless access to these cabinet stalwarts. This represents a basic change in the thinking pattern at the highest policy-making level at the South Bloc in Delhi and Saran’s gestures need to be calmly responded to with a measure of warmth and reciprocity.
However, Saran’s gesture this time does not appear quite in line with the tone and language that he had used in delivering his foreign policy speech in New Delhi earlier in February this year. At that time he focused on Delhi’s thinking on the emerging policy toward its neighbors in South Asia and sounded more assertive in his approach to economic cooperation leading to the formation of South Asian common market.
The cooperation he offered was more in line with Indian terms than anything else. His colleague Rajiv Sikri, who was invited to give a lecture at the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI) in Dhaka early this month, practically elaborated his arguments based on Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran’s speech. But the new development has put all of them on the back burner and one hopes that everyone should be looking to only one direction – forward.
This is being mentioned not to undermine the importance of what has been happening quietly but to remind the relevant players about what is likely to follow if they fail to pick up the thread on time, understand the game and play the cards judiciously.
Rumsfeld to promote Gen Sanchez?
It appears that US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld believes that the American folks no longer consider the Abu Ghraib scandal ‘a real scandal.’ This has prompted him to think that it is time to promote Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the US military commander who apparently sanctioned the scandalous prison abuse. This was hinted in a news story published in the New York Times on 22 June 2005. The story says: ‘It is nice that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his team feel as if they have achieved closure on their prisoner abuse issues and are ready to move on. The problem is, they are still in deep denial. The Bush administration has not only refused to face the problem squarely, but it is also enabling a pervasive lack of accountability.’
It further said: ‘The most recent evidence of this sad state of affairs came this week in an article in The Times by Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, who reported that the Pentagon believes the Abu Ghraib scandal has receded enough in the public’s mind that Mr. Rumsfeld is considering a promotion for Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was commander of American forces in Iraq at the time of the disaster.’
Meanwhile, similar state of mind has also been reflected in the White House about the abuse of prisoners at the US military prisons such as the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and elsewhere in a story published in the Washington Post on 21 June. The Washington datelined story says: ‘The White House on Tuesday rejected the proposed creation of an independent commission to investigate abuses of detainees held at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere.
It quoted the White House spokesman Scott McClellan as saying that the Pentagon has launched 10 major investigations into allegations of abuse, and that system was working well. ‘People are being held to account,’ he said. ‘And we think that’s the way to go about this.’ McClellan, however, conceded that the Defense Department would continue to investigate any new allegations. And he noted that the Pentagon has appointed outsiders to some of its investigations as if to suggest that that should do for an independent commission. So much for accountability, fair play and justice.
In this context, the statement made by US Secretary of State Dr. Condoleeza Rice at the American University in Cairo almost at the same time is interesting to ponder. She said:
‘Together, they are defining a new standard of justice for our time — a standard that is clear, and powerful, and inspiring: Liberty is the universal longing of every soul, and democracy is the ideal path for every nation.’ What else anyone should want?
Seafarer: A different take on Nehru
Some recall how Indira Gandhi, knowing her father’s weakness to have a smoke, cut Panditji’s cigarettes into two in order to keep his tobacco consumption down, writes Mukund B Kunte
Memories of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru are being revived once again in these days of intense debates on the partition. He is remembered for many things, foremost amongst them being his historic ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech from the Red Fort. He was, distinctly, a man of letters, a merit somewhat diminished today in our elected representatives, and going by the talent we see in them, unlikely even tomorrow.
One wishes that Nehru-baiters would at least acknowledge his extraordinary scholarship, his great sense of history and his intense patriotic fervour for this country. All these obviously laudable aspects of his life are too well documented but I want to recall some of the lesser-known things for which, for example, he is remembered by us sailors. His famous line, ‘To be secure on land, you have to be supreme at sea,’ swells our naval hearts each time we see them on the wall near INS India’s sailors’ barracks on the capital’s Africa Avenue. The words are not just empty rhetoric, but indeed a truism that nothing else can match.
Half a century back, the Indian PM was on his way to Indonesia and opting out of air travel he took passage on board INS Delhi. In the ship’s visitors’ book he wrote, ‘As I gazed at the receding coastline of India and thought back centuries ago to the times when India was invaded from the north but never enslaved, and how, when the Englishmen came from the sea, they made us into a colony … how sea power was critical for the survival of India as a free nation…’ Words that have been quoted in countless presentations made to our government while projecting the Navy’s case for more funds.
When the PM returned from Jakarta he wrote to Admiral Sir Mark Pizey how, during the time he spent with the Navy, he had been very struck to see that people coming from all corners of the country of diverse backgrounds and religious faiths were so very well integrated into a whole.
The men of INS Delhi could never have imagined that day in 1954 that they were in the company of the current and two future Prime Ministers. Some recall how Indira Gandhi, knowing her father’s weakness to have a smoke, cut Panditji’s cigarettes into two in order to keep his tobacco consumption down.
Now to my favourite story of how the officers’ wardroom mess on Dalhousie Road was saved from extinction. Agitated Lok Sabha members were on their feet (unlike the current fashion of jumping into the well of the House) to protest that on Dalhousie Road, within shouting distance of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, there was a bar where naval officers got drunk. The mess had a small wicket gate and one day the officers were surprised to see the PM walking in. He was returning from Parliament to Teen Murti House and decided to see things for himself — it was a ‘make and mend’ Wednesday (by a naval tradition the half day, mid-week was to allow naval personnel to make and mend their clothes), and all were gathered informally. When he took the floor the next day, he assured the members about the sober decorum of the assembled officers he had observed and thus silenced the agitated House on that issue forever thereafter.
And finally, two small incidents. In 1961 when I was the flag lieutenant (ADC) to the first Indian naval chief, Admiral Ramdas Katari, we were at Palam Airport for the ceremonial arrival of a visiting head of government. While Panditji was also waiting at the head of the gathering we saw him casually draw out General Thapar’s ceremonial sword from its scabbard and, in a mock gesture, hold it up for a duel. On another occasion they were waiting for the arrival of the Chinese Premier Chou-en-Lai, and Admiral Sir Stephen Carlyle remarked to Nehru that all the slogans of ‘Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai’ were not going to lead us anywhere. Panditji put his arm round the admiral’s shoulder — he was the last British chief of the Indian Navy — as they walked and said to him, ‘You know, you may be right but that would be the colonial view. Things are different for independent India.’
Panditji was an idealist and eventually he paid the price for dreaming about Sino-Indian relations.
This article first appeared in The Asian Age
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