Era of Tweets: Will English Take a New Avatar?
I read a very interesting piece by Sidharth Bhatia in the Deccan Chronicle and wanted to share it with all of you. Bhatia’s questions about the future of English and its usage will make every lover of well-written English prose sit up and think. His love for the language shines through in every line.
He points out how callously words are misused today: ‘it’s’ and ‘its’, ‘their’ and ‘there’ are often used interchangeably; ‘presently’ is used in place of ‘at present’ or ‘currently’ and so on. “Publications are full of the most astonishing howlers and scrolls on news channels can drive one to tears,” writes Bhatia in this well-crafted piece.
Bhatia asks, “In an era of texting and tweeting, should such rigid rules matter?”
Read his piece and share your thoughts. Do you think English grammar books will soon be a thing of the past?
If you are an editor, do read the part about how the AP style guide will now accept what was once considered a wrong usage. I am referring to the part about the use of ‘hopefully’ (as in this sentence: “Hopefully it will not rain tomorrow”).
Can someone clarify if the AP style guide has indeed okayed the use of ‘hopefully’ in such a context? Have I understood it right?
Editors, look forward to hearing from you!
While on the topic, check your English quotient by taking the free Chillibreeze English writing test.
Vilasini
29 April 2012
Expat Guides from Chillibreeze – how it all began
Why Expat Guides from Chillibreeze?
Chillibreeze is new to Shopify but not to eCommerce and ePublishing! Since 2006 we have been Publishing niche eBooks covering topics including survival guides to help Expats settle in and work from India, Writing Courses and Writing Guides, and Assessments.
Let me share a piece of interesting trivia from our records. The first Expat guide that we published was on Bangalore and had taken over a year to compile. Within the first 12 hours of going live on the web, our cash register rang and we saw the first sale! You can imagine the excitement that we felt! The virtual team that had put the eBook together was ecstatic but the best ‘prize’ was the feedback we got from actual users.
Why Expat-related material, you ask? I need to dig into our archives a bit more and bring out another interesting titbit. Our founder directors Ralph and Joanna Budelman had learnt a lot about living in India as first-time expats when they came to Bangalore in the year 1998. Joanna shared her first-hand experience in an article that she wrote titled ‘Expat Mom in Bangalore’, which was published on our website in the year 2005. Very soon this article had become a veritable magnet and we saw it pulling in a lot of traffic. Joanna was flooded with questions about survival tips and so on from many people who were looking to relocate to Bangalore. Voila! We knew other expats were looking for a guide and thus the Bangalore Expat Guide idea took shape.We now have close to 9 Expat Guides – see the list below
– but a special one that needs mentioning is ‘Mini Namaskar Mumbai for Expats Planning to Move to
Mumbai ‘ by Elizabeth Wilder. The author is a member of an Expat Club in
Mumbai called Mumbai Connexions and the Mini Namaskar eBook was a labour of
love. The author donates the money she makes from the sale to charity!
Do you have any interesting tips for expats relocating to India? Share them with the other readers. Add a comment below!
BTW, on a totally different subject – have you heard of ‘Plain English’? Maybe you know enough about it and want to share your thoughts? Email us...we would love to hear from you! Or, if you are curious about it then take a peek at our free eGuide to Plain English.Ciao!
Vilasini
Vilasini Kumar is a part owner and an Executive
Director of Chillibreeze Solutions Pvt Ltd.
A lover of nature, she works from Bangalore. Her hidden passion for
writing was the reasons she discovered Chillibreeze and later joined it! But, all
she ends up writing these days are tons of emails! She hopes to rediscover the joy of
writing by blogging for the websites under the Chillibreeze umbrella! You can reach her on vilasini@chillibreeze.com
Expat eBooks published by Chillibreeze
Bangalore Expat Guide
Chennai Expat Guide
Delhi Expat Guide
Hyderabad Expat Guide
Kolkata Expat Guide
Mumbai Expat Guide
Nagpur Newcomers Guide
Noida Expat Guide
Pune Expat Guide
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