98 THE WEEK • JULY 29, 2018
LAST WORD
SHASHI THAROORILLUSTRATION BHASKARAN [email protected]T
wo columns ago, I rashly ventured the immod-
est thought that I had considered myself the
inventor of the term ‘prepone’, which I had
come up with at St Stephen’s in 1972. Boy, was I wrong.
In keeping with the long-standing wisdom that there
is nothing new under the sun, I am told by Catherine
Henstridge of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), no
less, that they have an example of the use of the word
“prepone” from 1913, and it is not, alas, Indian.
In 1913, a J.J.D. Trenor wrote in Th e New York Times:
“may I be permitted to coin the word ‘prepone’ as a
needed rival of that much revered and oft-invoked
standby, ‘postpone’?” It didn’t catch on much in the
west, but the proceedings of the 1952 Indian Science
Congress reveal that other Indians
thought along the same lines: “in
Indian villages,... demand for power
can be preponed or postponed not
only by hours but even by days in
order to comply with meteorological
conditions”.
Clearly, the origin of “prepone”
has been preponed from 1972 to
1913, and I duly withdraw my claim
to its origination. Mind you, I can
still make a case, through frequent
usage, to being somewhat involved
in its popularisation!
One of the themes of my piece
about Indian English related to
the Indian habit of using words that would be seen
as archaisms by most Brits or Americans. Th e point
remains valid. But not all my examples were. Th e
distinguished OED lexicographer tells me that while I
am right about “furlong”, the words “fortnight” and “do
the needful” are still accepted as being in current use.
Even “mugging” (for an exam) passes muster with the
OED, though they tend to go for the usage “mugging
up”.
Th is is not merely an extended mea culpa. It turns
out I was right about several examples of Indian Eng-
lish. Th e OED accepts “airdash” and “history-sheeter”
as purely Indian usages, and the only examples they
can fi nd of “wheatish complexion” are, as I suggested,from Indian matrimonial ads.
Th e same would probably apply—though I didn’t
check with the OED—to “foreign-returned” and “con-
vent-educated”, two staples of Indian matrimonial ads.
You just wouldn’t fi nd a Brit or a Yank using either of
those expressions (though the latter might apply to a
novitiate in a nunnery).
Th e exchange with Mrs Henstridge did, however,
open up a delightful prospect for those of you who, like
me, delight in the quirks of Indian English. When work
started on the OED in 1857, she explained, there was
a preponderance of British English in their illustrative
quotations, but these days, the OED lexicographers try
hard to include English as spoken in as many diff erent
countries as possible. Th eir problem,
as Mrs Henstridge tells me, is that
they sometimes have diffi culty in
fi nding evidence for Indian English
usages. Th ey are quite willing to
incorporate desi expressions in the
OED, provided we can off er them
precise citations for the usage.
Would we in India be willing to help
them fi nd them?
Th e obvious ones are those
translated into English from Indian
languages—people of Hindi mother
tongue often lapse into phrases like
“the teacher is sitting on my head
(teacher mere sir par baitha hain)”
or “stop eating my brain! (mera dimag mat khana,
yaar!)”. But even seemingly routine expressions like
“Kerala is my native place” or “I belong to Chennai”
are in fact peculiar to Indian English, because such
formulations are not used by native speakers of other
forms of the language.
Th e OED recently launched an appeal for local
words and usages (see https://public.oed.com/ap-
peals/words-where-you-are/) and they tell me they
have already had over 1,800 replies from various
countries. “So if you ever think there is an Indian word
or use of a word we should know about,” says Mrs Hen-
stridge, “do let us know!”
Any Indian reader willing to “do the needful”?Please do the needful