023, Perfect-English

50 Question: Is there anything like 'perfect' English?

Answer: English, is originally a language native to England. If we have to go strictly by definitions, we have to accept that whatever is spoken and written in and around London-Cambridge-Oxford as perfect English.

Question: : What is the definition of 'perfect' ?

Answer: There can be no definition of the adjective 'perfect'. Perfect is an abstract adjective, intangible in character.

Oxford English?

Question: Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s official spokesman, was reported to have said: "Britain is 'just a small island … no one pays any attention to them' ". If what he said is correct, how can we take some style/version/dialect of a language which is spoken in a small island, as perfect?

Answer: For us aficionados (fans) and functional users of English language, and others like- linguists, it is immaterial whether England is a small island or a vast Siberian landmass comparable to Russia.

Errors in British English

Question: We find errors in English spoken-written even in England, the motherland of English. How can we accept that?

Answer: There can be errors even in American English, Australian English, Canadian English, European Continental English, German English, Spanish English, or some other English. Such errors may arise owing to influences of mother tongues and neighbour-hood languages. Best English teaching schools, howsoever superb may be, their self-claims, cannot avoid those influences. We have to recognise the fact that numerous variations of English current all over the Earth, have become a sort of loose twined threaded English which we may call International English. Won't it be better, if we name it, Intglish? The prefix 'Int' here can indicate the genre, either 'Internet English' or 'International English'.

Perfect International English

Question: Is there anything like perfect International English?

Answer: Who can define? We can never define the term 'perfect' and identify something as 'perfect'. Terms like excellent, mediocre can also end up as vague and disputable. We can only see the functionality of the Intglish employed by the user for getting his work done, while communicating with the other person.

Importance of functionality in communications

Question: Can you give an example of how 'to see the functionality in a communication'?

Answer: Here is an example. A person goes to a restaurant. He says something to the bearer, intending that the bearer is to bring coffee. If the bearer brings coffee without looking hither and thither or to the sky, we can say that the request has fulfilled the object of functionality.

Gestural communications

Question: Do you mean to say that even gestures will be sufficient and there will be no need of using English or Intglish?

Answer: Depending on situations, gestures can fulfil the purpose. Sometimes oral, verbal, and written communications, one or more may become necessary. Sometimes, even symbolic gestures (constructive gestures instead of active or showy gestures) can serve the purpose.

Question: Can you give an example?

Answer: Suppose, we go to a booking counter of a cinema theatre. The counter has a sign board indicating the class and the price of the tickets sold through its window. We go into the queue line and tender a currency note meeting the exact price of the ticket. The booking clerk will issue us one ticket in a routine manner. We use neither English nor Intglish.

But, we do not get ideal situations and solutions like these, always. For a person with routine daily programmes, communicating with the same boss, same customers, same employer, same vendors, same wife, same children, everyday, probably no oral-verbal-written-formal-informal communications need to be used extensively. It will be suffice, if we go on fulfilling their needs, the moment we see them, we visit them, or they approach us. Blessed, shall we be, then. No travails of misinterpretations.

Preferences

Question: Do you support gestural communications, oral communications or written communications.

Answer: Written communications will be ideal, where avoidance of disputes through clarity is the object. In Please see the comment made by Mr. Dmitry Peskov quoted above. It might have lead to unnecessary international disputes and misunderstandings. Oral communications tend to be ex-tempore and may sometimes result in a person using unintended words and phrases, inadvertently. Oral communications can serve well the needs of opportunist speakers who may later like to say that they are misquoted. It is not clear, whether Mr. Dmitry Peskov has the consent of his boss Mr. Putin for using the phrase 'small island' for England.

Question: Was what Mr. Peskov said not true?

Answer: Diplomatic communications may differ from citizen-communications. They may have some customs and protocols. Besides, every Nation on this Mother Earth, whether tiny or expansive, possesses and is entitled to some dignity and self-respect. This is a 'natural right' of every Nation, just as every human is entitled to 'human rights'. England, might have owing to its colonial past, might have forgotten this Universal truth, and might have treated poor countries of Africa, Asia and South America, rather condescendingly in an insulting manner. England, seems to be at the receiving end in the hands of Russia, now. But, this condescension is not limited only to England. It is widespread among many politicians of Western developed countries. Anyway, these deliberate or unwitting miscommunications of politicians need not provoke us for new disputes.

Should everybody learn gestural communicaton techniques

Ans: No compulsion. Yet it will be better, if schools teach 'gestural communications' as one language. Reason: Our lives can be full of numerous contingencies and emergencies, such as sudden incapacitations, accidents, being thrown on alien lands where our mother tongue may not work, being thrown into hospital ICUs where conversations are not allowed etc.

Summary

Grammar is only a tool for bringing clarity to communications and minimising disputes. We should not be enamoured with what is perfect English or Intglish, as long as imperfections do not result in embarrassing situations. Excessive obsession with grammar, spelling and style can become counter-productive and retard our job and business skills.