The New Nation - Internet Edition

Munir Muztaba Ali

An high court ruling stayed all proceedings of the trial court today of the extortion case against Hasina by businessman Azam J. Choudhury until an earlier ruling regarding the legality of placing the case under emergency power rules is heard. ' No sir, I am neither euphoric nor downhearted about the news. The ruling is probably going to be overturned by the nation's highest court anyway, as the trend of our courts does not suggest otherwise, but what I am confused about the news is the language in which the news has been entertained. Since language is the tool of my trade, I could not help noticing the use of the article 'an' before the 'h' word 'high' and wondered why the English language was made unnecessarily so confusing.

Why do we have to have two articles of the same meaning? Why two, or sometimes three or more, of anything meaning the same? Like he or she, do or does, am, is, or are, etc. I do not think the Mahabharata would be desecrated and the English language would be spoiled if I said, following the pattern above, "I put on an hat and ventured into an hot weather to go look for an house and saw an helicopter while listening to an heartfelt song tuned on an harmonica and ate an hamburger."

The main business of a language is to communicate, and if the previous sentence is capable of communicating what exactly I intended to convey, then what's the heck? But as a language expert, you would probably say that you understand me alright, but my English does not conform to the standard practice. I understand I often fail to conform to the so called Standard English, but that's because the Standard English is fraught with confusion for the infusion of too many unnecessary stuff in it. As I said before, the use of those double words meaning the same is unnecessary, and recalling their proper use put extra strains on my brain. Take the use of 'he' and 'she' (and their objective and possessive versions of him/her and his/her) for an example.

While growing up a few decades ago, I remember using only 'he' for an indefinite person, but it is no longer proper because such a usage now-a-days is accused of being gender biased. So we have to say things like "the student should complete and turn in his or her assignment himself or herself, and he or she should not let any body else turn it in for him or her" how odd they may sound. Such odd sounding awkward formula of 'he' or 'she' is stuck with us because we refuse to accept suggestions of a simple singular pronoun denoting or specifying no gender. Instead of accepting such an easy and logical solution to this conundrum, we, the laymen and scholars alike, have chosen simply to substitute the awkward 'he' or 'she' by 'they', especially after words such as 'anyone' and 'no one', which may imply a reference to more than one, but the words are absolutely singular nonetheless. If such a substitution is universally accepted, I do not see any problems.

The language users will get used to it any way. Some famous writers have accepted it and used it frequently with relative ease in their works. "To be sure, you know no actual good of me-but no body thinks of that when they fall in love", wrote Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice; "Every one to rest themselves betake", Shakespeare wrote in Lucrece; and Thackeray wrote in Vanity Fair, "A person can't help their birth". I see, again, a remarkable following of this pattern among the Bangladeshi news writers. A recent news item read as follows: Deputy Inspector General of Prisons, Maj. Shamsul Haider Siddiqui, told the Daily Star that there would be no regular briefing on Hasina's health conditions as "it is not right to brief everyday on the health of a person when they are detained." The problem with such a usage, however, is that the rule following pedants would say that it is not grammatically correct, and they would insist that it must be replaced by that proverbial formula of 'he' or 'she'.

So the logical solution to this problem would be to come up with a single word for singular pronoun specifying no gender. I would like to suggest the words 'fhe' 'fhim', and 'fhis' for 'he' or 'she', 'him' or 'her', and 'his' or 'her' respectively. Are you laughing, my dear? But if we do not have any problems with gender-neutral 'they' 'them' and 'their' for plural, why should we have any problems with one word for singular? After all, many languages of the world are functioning just fine with gender-neutral pronouns. I come from one, my beloved Bangla, and I am so used to using a single, gender-neutral pronoun in Bangla that when I speak English I often find the correct use of 'he' or 'she' to be an onerous task. So many times have I subjected myself to be embarrassed by referring to a man as 'she' and a woman as 'he'. I am sure 'fhe', 'fhim', and 'fhis' will permanently palliate the pain that I often suffer from such embarrassing situations. I know you are wondering why I have added an 'f' to the gender-biased pronouns of 'he', 'him', and 'his'. Well, probably you have guessed it. In an era of feminist awakening, if my suggestions of a single singular pronoun have any chances of catching the imagination of others and ensuring their approval, then the addendum of that 'f' is wise, practical, and shrewd indeed.

As a university professor here in the United States, one of the four major English speaking countries, I always come across students who are so confused regarding the usage of words such as do or does, was or were. Expressions such as "he do" and "we was" are not infrequent here among not only the students but also their teachers and caregivers as well. I, for one, not too long ago, wrote to a Bangladeshi bureaucrat friend who had earlier emailed me from an African country that he was visiting at the time, "When you goes back home, convey my salam to bhabi". He didn't forgive and forget to point out what I had done; a reply came within the shortest possible time, and sure enough, the letter started with a pointed question: Is "when you goes back home" a new American style, my dear professor? I blushed in embarrassment.

Not that I didn't know the difference between 'go' and 'goes', but my friend chose to shame me for the slip. I felt the pinch of pain, and to minimize the shame, I took the help of humor and wrote him back, "Well, if you doesn't want to convey my salam to bhabi when you goes back home, then do it when you comes back home. Oh, I get it now; it's about you being used as a third person, isn't it? You doesn't want to be a third person, I see! You think second person is better than the third person, huh, but here in America we doesn't discriminate; we treat every person equally. If the third person deserves an extra s, then why not second person, or first person for that matter. I see some bureaucratic hubris in you, my dear friend, but see, our politicians don't mind to be in the third person category. Remember Latif Gazi, an MNA from Jessore or Khulna in the Pakistan era? He once said in the parliament, "This are parliamentary house, this are not your own house, I is the Latif Gazi, and I does not care the Sabur Khan". Ah, Latif Gazi, see how he humbled himself with his acceptance of the third person status"! With my self-servicing humor shoved aside, I have no rancor to admit that my original sentence to my friend had a serious grammatical flaw, but my defense is that such a flaw wouldn't have crept into my writing hadn't we have the unnecessary rule of the double use of verbs as they relate to their subjects in the fancy name of subject-verb agreement. If your subject is a third person singular, you must add an 's' or 'es'. I don't understand what would be amiss without this rule. What would be so wrong with all 'do' and no 'does'? Nothing, absolutely nothing! We would get used to writing "I do", "you do", and "he do". May be some day someone will change the rule, and every one else will be alright with either 'do' or 'does'. After all, changing rule in a language is nothing new. It occurs all the time, and that brings me back to the use of the article 'an' for the H-words.

Originally, there was no rule of the use of the article 'an' preceding an H-word since H is neither a vowel nor does it sound like a vowel. Then a few French words, such as hour, honor, honest, and herb, crept into the English language, but their French pronunciations lacked the 'H' sound. Hence, the usage of 'an' to those few words of French origin became a rule. Then a few centuries ago, a fool started using the article 'an' to the word 'historic' arguing that the 'h' sound of 'historic' was not accented, and the language users seemed to agree.

Unfortunately, no such agreement has yet emerged regarding the use of 'an' to the word 'high' as in 'high court', but who knows such an agreement isn't in the offing. In language, as in politics, or in judiciary for that matter, anything is possible. May be some day our judges on the High Court and the Supreme Court will agree on something, and you will accept my favorite spelling of the word "fish", which I spell as "ghoti". Are you laughing too, again, as do my students? Doesn't it sound like fish? My students opine it doesn't remotely sound like fish. Do you have the same opinion? How come? Doesn't 'gh' of your laugh sound like an 'f', 'o' of your 'women' sound like an 'i', and 'ti' of your 'nation' sound like a 'sh'? Then how come GHOTI cannot be read as fish? Think about it!

(Dr. Munir Muztaba Ali teaches English at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA.)