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Roll over Pygmalion

I read a shocking piece in The Times of India. Schools in Kolkata, the city where the sun never set on the British Empire, have legalised American English! As has Calcutta University!!!! And Bombay University

Topping the list of schools mentioned in the article was my Alma Mater, St James' School, Calcutta. I did my plus two there.

Is this the school where our principal, J A M, ruled as a martinet armed with Wren and Martin? Scratching our essays with red? Making us shiver under his sophistic and pedantic attacks? He even wrote a book on English Grammar which, surprise surprise, was part of our curricula. Though, to be fair, it was a good, handy book. He then went on to Doon and Dubai but left generations of us Jacobeans guarding the Queen's English.

And, he would have spotted sixty two mistakes in this post by now. Including the fact that I started the last sentence with 'and'.

Call me old fashioned, call me over the hill, or call me uncle as the college kid in the corner store recently did, but I can't spell favour favor and I need to start my sentences with a capital letter and the last letter of the alphabet is zed, not zee and I will end this sentence with a full stop and not a period.

The default language in my spell check is English UK.

What is yours?

Comments

RShan said…
But of course, UK English! I am a pedant at heart when it comes to these things....I hate being sent emails which use sms English!!!

Have you read "Eats, Shoots and Leaves"? - I love it! yes, I am that old fashioned ;)
11 July 2009 at 03:50
Scarlett said…
I'm all for practicality & functionality over the 'stiff upper lip' :)
12 July 2009 at 00:12
Rhea said…
:O You DID? I went to Pratt!! He he.. Small world, this. :)
13 July 2009 at 06:19
Kalyan Karmakar said…
Hey RShan, I somehow am slightly more comfrtable with SMS English than American English... what's "Eats, shoots and leaves"

@Scarlett... guess that's why I am quite OK with abbreviatioans

@Rhea: Pratt Bratt huh :) So you might know of J A M. By the way, have you seen 36 Choringhee Lane? The school is Pratt I think
14 July 2009 at 10:09
Sonia said…
All english words spelled any differently than what I read in my school seem strange and unfamiliar to me. :)
And what's more, I could never sms without ending the word limit in my phone. I guess that says about it all.
15 July 2009 at 04:59
Kalyan Karmakar said…
very well put Sonia...and I am sure some of us still lament the end of letter writing
15 July 2009 at 12:24
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