A Comedy Of Errors
By Krishnakumar
02 December, 2003
Countercurrents.orgEnglish- Malayalam dictionaries in Kerala are best not looked into.Publication of dictionaries is a thriving business here. There has been no dearth of dictionaries. But not a single one is worthy of being called adictionary. The classic example is the bestseller dictionary known after Ramalingam Pillai. The publisher (DC Books, Kottayam) has sold it about ten lakh copies if their claim is true. It is a thumping sale considering the narrow scope for publishing in Kerala. This dictionary is merely a compendium of errors. There are thousands of errors in this book. Besides, this book has nothing at all to do with Ramalingam Pillai. He died some time in the late 60's.
This dictionary was first published in 1982. The publishing firm claims that it has run through ninety editions. The editors of this dictionary must have been exceptionally endowed people to carry all the nonsense through this much number of editions. Just look at the page 40 of this book. You will find an entry "anabasis". This is a very rare word. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives the meaning of this word thus: "A military advance, an up-country march, esp. that of Cyrus the Younger into Asia, as narrated by Xenophon." But the given dictionary gives another meaning. The meaning given in English is thus: "ability to regain life after apparent death" In fact this is the meaning of "anabiosis", which is quite another word. (Both words are irrelevant in a concise bilingual dictionary.) Apparently the editor while copying from the underlying dictionary blundered.
On page 889 under the entry Spanish there is this phrase: "ride the Spanish mare" The phrase refers to a maritime punishment. The victim is put on the boom (a rod which keeps the mast stretched and firm) with legs on either side. The bilingual dictionary gives the meaning like this: to bypass the fortune (bhagyathe kavachukadakkuka). The editor of the dictionary seems to have mistaken "boom" for "boon". According to this dictionary "throw" in cricket means to strike the ball illegally and the "pitcher" is one who strikes the ball in baseball, not the one who delivers the ball as he really is. Under the entry "when" you will find this example. "Whenever did you see him?" The foolish editor doesn't know that "whenever" is not an interrogative word. At one place (under the entry "harness") there is a word like "equipments". The editor does not know that equipment is a mass noun (uncountable noun).
In another place the editor has dared to correct the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). Under "tomorrow" there is this phrase: "tomorrow comes never". The correct phrase is "tomorrow come never". The verb in the phrase is subjunctive. The editor who is unaware of the existence of such a thing as subjunctive has "corrected" the OED. The head of the publishing firm actually claimed that the editors under him had found out some fourteen mistakes in the OED and the OED editors had admitted that some of their findings were genuine (by the way, a claim brushed off by the OED director Penny Sylva who informed that no correspondence with the said firm ever took place.). The firm appears not to set any great store by the quality of their book. They are content with amassing profit by pushing the sales through heavy advertising. The writer of this letter pointed out the abominable nature of the book to the publisher. The firm not only didn't refute any of the examples cited but also sought help to correct the errors. Thus the firm indirectly admitted the presence errors in the book. However their next step was to put out another "edition" of this trash and hold a "dictionary mela"(fest), which is afoot from November 1st and will last for two months. This is out and out fraud. It is time somebody called the bluff. It is a shame that media cover up such frauds. The writer of this letter sent an article on this to many editors. Most of them were not even ready to read it. They were so afraid of this firm, which is a big cheese in the "culture industry" of Kerala. It is a disgrace to our literati that such junk is foisted upon students and common people in the name of dictionary