So Close, yet so Fart: Pt-2

Resuming the reasonably gaseous part-I of the current do-it-yourself series, here is another try-this-one. A keepsake: the current context (although it began with music as the contextualized reference) isn’t at all excluding Dos and Don’ts essential to hard political news reporting/writing – the rules are customarily comparable. The motivation behind the following ‘suggestions’, is felt more so, with well-read, schooled and conscious Naga readership increasing, than laic interest as generally used to be.
I’m no Oxford English doyen but I can recognize, well, a freaking bad language gaffe (forgive my semi-French) when I see one. Appended here are some exceptionally common – and equally overlooked – nags. These nits are elaborated not for their significance in as much their being some of the most irritatingly naive, mindlessly repetitive and so conspicuously skewed phrases; yet they’re still so invariably omnipresent in the local writings/reportage.
But, you ask, why the lengthy elaboration on (the ensuing) seemingly trivial points? Well, to perhaps demonstrate how even tiny technical verbiages work into cohesive communication. From the few technical instances here, I hope readers gain insight into various and others, likened print ‘pitfalls’. They have a fart to play, you know.

Hitting the Right Note:
•    Instance 1: The noun ‘band’ (not the verb to mean ‘union’ or ‘formation’) is never to be used as a determinant to the actual appellation (the noun), unless it happens to constitute the musicians’ collective nomenclature. It is gauche to use ‘band’ – even to elucidate it as a music group – with the group’s name itself. Say, our local rock noisemakers Diatribe. It is gauche (or in local Naga parlance, “Bosti”) to say Diatribe band. Or Edguy band, Dream Theatre band…ugh.

There ought to be stringent laws against these bizarre local verbiages. Some time ago, there was a picture in a local newspaper, on local rock band Abiogenesis, at an event. The caption shouted, yet again: “Abiogenesis band presenting a special number….” It’s practically a gruesome murder of decent presentable English. In all intent, its akin to saying ‘mango fruit’, ‘apple fruit’, ‘Kilang vocalist’, ‘Lalhuma Bureaucrat’, ‘Imkong Politician’, ‘girl woman’ or…‘Bosti village’… you get the point. Simply, the name of a thing itself is explicated yet again with the same adjective determinant that itself constitutes the group’s name! In brief, a repetition of the explanation itself.  
If at all the determining classification (‘Band’) constitutes the name (of a band) itself, it’s correct to append (it to the group’s name). For instances, Little River Band, Dirty Harry Band, Blues Boys Band or even Aisle Band and so on; these groups have the “band” forming the collective catalog. But say, Iron Maiden – it has no “Band” attached to it; “Iron Maiden” itself is the band. I hope by now you have understood, comprehended, made-aware, realized what I’m tying to say speak, utter, inform, express, point out and suggest to not to be repetitive!  :p

Secondly. Reread the caption closely. Notice anything freaky?  Yup, it’s that familiar local phraseology illustrating musical actions. Yes, that insufferable, local obsession with “presenting a special number” as captions in most local magazines and print dailies go. Compositionally, there is nothing abnormal in saying so-and-so is “presenting a special number”. For instance: ‘“OTS choir presenting a special number…”at a so-so function’. The demand of Naga parlance has been be satisfied. But for schooled  readers, this innocuous line of lingual abnormality is exceptionally bizarre and too stark to go uncensored. Examine the syntax closely and you’ll notice a number of incongruence that is anything but deictically unifying.

Agreed, the term “number” is a casual derivative used in musicians’ circles to denote a song (and conveniently understood so). But it’s still tacky and rustic – you should see readers’ feedback I receive in the mail: How in the world do you give a mathematical numeral to anyone?
There are practically endless options over “presenting a special number”, say, for instance, ‘“Naga Idol Toshinaro seen here performing...” a song/recital/act/score/piece/chorus/tune’, or something, similar in syntax. Experimenting, and exploring, should do well. Now you know why your Grammar teacher in school insisted on those mind-souping ‘Change the Voice’ and ‘Paraphrase the Tense’ chapters.

Apple Fruit…
•    Another instance is the similar parlance in using more than a synonym to likened derivatives when referring to collective entities. The most repulsively common (and terrifyingly erroneous) use of collectives is in naming ‘NGOs, organizations, civil societies and general public’. We can safely assume that in today’s deeply fractured Naga society, this grammatical aberration is the only common point of agreement for the Nagas; everyone from hohos to students’ organizations, self-help groups to municipal councils, political parties to the Naga factions all happily commit the same gaffe as far as press releases and media statements are concerned. Here is a classic from my Horror-Newspaper-Language-Museum collections: “…he (a prominent Naga leader) called upon the tribal hohos, Naga Hoho, NPMHR, NSF, ENSF....NGOs, churches, students’ and women organizations, political units, public leaders, forums, unions and associations, GBs, civil societies, public organizations and general public to work for peace….” Familiar? (By the way, the man who sent us the press release containing that Fear-Factor thing is a “press secretary” to a senior politician.)
Damage control: look closely at the aforementioned phrase – you’ll notice they’re all practically invariable synonyms. It is incorrect, bizarre, totally superfluous and indulgent. The correct idiom is ‘civil society’. Yes, just ‘civil society’. ‘Civil society’ itself is the collective terminology to denote all organized and collective civil entities – welfare and social – that are not political or governmental. ‘Civil Society’ is inclusive of the so-elucidated “church, tribe hohos, non-governmental organizations, students’ organizations, welfare and social” groups and so on.
So essentially, the application of all collective nomenclatures available is not only incorrect but well, ridiculous. Further, “civil societies” is not a derivative of ‘civil society’ but an exponential term to suggest common populaces. In other words – yes, you guessed right, ‘civil societies’ (contrary to the locally-understood meaning i.e., all mass-based organizations) actually means the public, not organizations per se. Funny, isn’t it?
So here’s what you can do (if you’re on the editing team that’s just been handed a story containing that polio-stricken phrase). Just say, for instance, “…he called upon the political parties, the church and civil society to work for peace…” Exceptions to certain organizations of significance can be made but not necessarily in context. And why has the Church been left out of ‘civil society’ when it’s also an apolitical, non-politic, non-governmental mass-based entity? We’ll discuss it in later editions.
Oh and yes, a likened angle can be applied to, well, our friendly, agelessly painful and unchanging obsession with a phrase you read almost every day…the one that ends with  “….posing for the lens” and the local Naga favorite, “general public.”

Between the Lines
•    Thirdly, it would prove much helpful to readers if the author in concern engage some research. One need not be highly-knowledgeable or conversant in a given subject to tackle thematic matter in written form. I observe many opinion articles and news reports share a peculiar localized affinity in more than a way: the presentation and syntax. Comparatively, there have been such more even in some of the local magazines over the years; some even looked plagiarized either from already published news prints or straight from web portals like yes, Wikipedia.
The existent truth is, no fact – whether it is on Metallica or the NPF – can claim to be original. Yes. But original writing styles, I feel, is the way you shape a perspective from your experience, aptitude and insight basing on an existing point of fact. The only difference is how far you are willing to go and challenge the fact – and this you can, with some research. Research is not about scrounging for likened aspects to a given topic, but for wider empirical input – insight. But if at all, a wee bit of experiential, hands-on knowledge would be an awesome topping.
 •    Don’t bet too high a dollar on self-help info portals like Wikipedia. It is not necessarily accurate (the format and facts keep changing according to different writers’ interpretation). For instance, I’d rewrite or edit Wikipedia’s content on a given subject and the next week, an astoundingly better or woefully worse rendition of the previous revision appears from another writer.
So if you must feel a need to get your facts right, engage research. For music writers, I recommend music fan forums and websites of music publications. They’ll be able to offer you better, eclectic and more precise info, than expository works can. Most importantly, they do stimulate more insightful and objective information to data one already has.
For aspiring music writers and my fellow scribes writing on music as well, here are some portals I feel the best resources to refer to: metalobserver (for reviews on all genres of music. However, I feel their reviews on rock/metal and deviant genres are superior than on jazz, folk and mainstream genres), esnips (for audio samplings), music.ed (for scholarly and academic music writing with special reference to Urban Blues, Jazz and the new age world music).

And above all…
•    The most inexorably critical component to writing? Reading. Keeping “in touch”, through reading, is one activity forming the singular, exclusive potent resource to generating insight or simply, objectifying expression. As much in its power is to enrich, purify and nurture the mind of the reader, reading per se is the edifying energy.
On political perspectives, the pioneering political newsletter, the Frontline, has been of much growth for me prior to my first purely-political opinion piece in 1997. Personally, I have yet to find empirical comparison to publications like the US Weekly, Span, India Today, Newsweek, and Tehelka. On music perspective, publications like Guitar Player, Rolling Stone, Gig Pad, Blender, Modern Drummer, Jazz Player and the Gibson artiste series are some of the music resources I subscribe to, for years now. Musically, they have been a brilliant and monumental source of insight and intellectual catharsis for me over the last one decade.
Lifestyle and culture publications such as the Indo-US magazine Span and yes, even National Geographic, emphasize on academic and human interests and has generated a more eclectic way of thinking for me. Yet, the question here is not what publication – how many, either – you have read. It is reading as an encompassing personal inclination – politics or biographies, economics or comic books – that has yet to fail in shaping the mind into a wholesome, thinking and diagnostic prism, of life and expression. Necessarily? No. Critically imperative.

 

To read Al Ngullie’s other published Music Reviews on bands from Nagaland, Naga musicians and artistes among others, please visit http://alngullie.blogspot.com/ 
Write to him at alngullie@yahoo.com | alngullie@gmail.com