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The world is an English village
Deepti

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THE next time somebody curses the spelling conventions or lack of conventions of English, gently remind them that they are not alone. J. Donald Adams wrote that English spelling is ‘wildly erratic and almost wholly without logic. One needs the eye of a hawk, the ear of a dog and the memory of an elephant to make headway against its confusions and inconsistencies’ Mario Pei says, ‘English spelling is the world’s most awesome mess’!

If you belong to a world in which nobody speaks English but you want to speak it proficiently, you can remedy this deficiency by turning to the internet. All you need is access to a computer, audio speakers and a reliable internet connection for two to three hours a day. There are websites that can teach you the four skills very efficiently. For instance, there are websites that can give you the acceptable pronunciation for all the words of English and if you have a microphone hooked up, you can even articulate the sounds and ask for correction.

When you choose something from a narrow range of possibilities, you ‘choose between tea and coffee for breakfast’ but when the possibilities are in a large number, you ‘choose from hundreds of different styles of dresses’. And, of course, ‘choose’ becomes ‘chose’ in the past tense form as in ‘the class chose the monitor on Monday’.

In today’s society of ‘one-handed food’ or food that fits into one hand and can be eaten while working or driving, the takeaway has given way to the fakeaway. The origin of ‘takeaway’ can be traced to 1964 when it was used in Britain for ‘food sold to be eaten elsewhere’. In America, it also called ‘takeout’. Today a ‘takeaway’ is also the input that you carry with you after a meeting or a training programme. ‘Fakeaway’ refers to a meal cooked at home but packaged as ‘food to be eaten elsewhere’. Another such blend word is ‘fast-casual’, used for a restaurant that serves at speed but the quality and ambience is superior to a fast-food joint.