Some things are better ‘now’ than ‘never’. Take change for example. I resisted social networking for months – ages in cyber parlance – hoping better sense would prevail to the gung-ho enthusiasts of modern web generation.
But no, no amount of my ill-wishing could do any harm to the Facebooks and Twitters striding ahead. People laughed at me. Mocked they, “How could a silly, pot-bellied, do-nothing Kolkattan could ever wish such a thing!”
I tried to hold my own even as sand slipped below my feet so rapidly that I almost went off-balanced at times. “To hell with my wish…” I said at long last and joined the bandwagon that rode piggy-back on Facebook and Twitter.
Oh, dear me, look how I’ve deviated from what I was to write! What was I saying?
Yes, change is something that is better done now than kept pending for long. Today’s TOI reports that the schools in Kolkata are now favoring US spellings.
That shouldn’t be a big story, because frankly who cares! But some still do like Sunirmal Chakraborty, the principal of La Martiniere for Boys. He says, “We discourage US spellings. Even though marks are not deducted, we do not encourage students to use them.”
Aha, there lies the catch. You don’t deduct marks, which is like taking the side route to the main road, admitting that US spellings are not wrong after all.
Devi Kar of Modern High School is more practical. “Students have to be consistent in following the UK or US spellings,” she says. That’s it, really.
Meanwhile, there is no stopping the lots of staycation, webisodes, vlogs, shawarma, frenemy, locavor and others join the hallowed precincts of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary.
Wonder what the fuss? Well these are the words spoken in the American society, and yes like it or not, we’re now more ruled by the US societal spellings than the Queen’s English. Ahem.
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