How We Speak and Play in the Legoland of Words

chillibreeze writer — Ketaki Date

Prize-winning novels, award-winning movies, TV reports, newspaper articles, speeches, memos, PowerPoint presentations, popular one-liners, and hit songs - what do these media have in common? Language!

We are talking about clever use of language where we tweak it, pun it, break it, beat it and mold it to get our point across to the other person. We admire people who have the gift of the gab, who are natural born raconteurs. We love people who are to the ‘microphone born’, to whom words come naturally - it’s like they always read from an invisible teleprompter in a spontaneous manner. Why, I have stood many a times in front of the mirror trying to punctuate my sentences with more than a pause- a sweep of my arm, a head shake, trying to make effective use of body language to convey to my audience my point of view. It’s a different story that I have stage fright the size of a Boeing 747!

Whenever my colleagues send me an email informing us about a business contract we have landed, I always take the time to read the email. The ‘win’ mail has to include everything - genesis of the pursuit, the people involved in it, the process, the expertise that was required and the time span needed for successful closure. He or she has made such optimum use of words by intelligently mixing brevity and humor, facts and wish-lists, sometimes (most of the times I should say) trading length for short and sharp communication.

Now, after I have moved to Chennai, all rules of effective communication in English have changed. It has for me what we call a ‘paradigm shift’. I have realized that now that language needn't be ‘beautiful’ but only ‘understood’. An ‘exquisite’ compliment is useless if the carpenter doesn't understand my effusive praise of him. A staid 'good' works equally well because the end-recipient knows the meaning. Instructions issued to my driver are meaningless if they not used with 'flash-card precision'. Just look at the sample conversation that goes somewhat like this -

You come 8.30. No late
Then we go office.
You go home now, then drop sir to office.

And it goes on and on. Language is a function of time and place - as simple as that. So, if you have fixed Thursday 23rd 1.30 for a lunch rendezvous with friends, you say “we have decided to meet on Thursday”, whereas a person working in the IT industry will say “let’s freeze this”. Access was a hitherto unknown word. I really have no memory of the word access maybe except in military operations. Now everything has access and exit. Residential complexes have access, an authorized user has access, and you are either allowed access or barred from accessing. Whatever this means now, it was absolutely meaningless to me 10 years ago, unless I strained for context to put this in. It can be used as a verb or as a noun. Loop was something used in the tailoring context. Now loop is used in a way that its very form suggests - to include. Drill down is not oil; it’s the nature of data.

These conversations have killed my illusions of language. Language is as malleable and mercurial, quiet and volatile as you want it to be. It can soar for epics and drop all its pretensions for the street. It will speak in one tongue inside a bank and another on the shop floor. It will accommodate the erudite and the laborer equally generously. Language will transform into crass porn and rise gracefully in a ballad (but both titillate and entertain you in equal measure so it’s hard to say which is more useful). It will get cantankerous when angry or calm inside a meditation hall. Use it to lose it (relationships, rapport, and support) or use it to gain (the same things that you effectively lost). Language is constantly reinventing itself, from silent movies to talkies, from huge print media to palm pilot and hand-helds.

It can contract and expand to fit all attention spans, formats and end-users. Language can be like the Alphonso mango - rich, aromatic, delectable or it can be lean like a tennis player or skimmed milk. You have to make the right pick.

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Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in January, 2011. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.

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—About our writer:

Ketaki Has a B.A in German literature and works as a senior language consultant in India’s leading ITES company. She has worked as a freelancer for Indian Express and The Times of India in Pune. Her area of expertise is food & travel, language, parenting (it can safely be said that it covers pretty much all areas under the sun). Ketaki is based in Chennai.

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