'Le Mot Juste- - By K.J.S.Chatrath

 I joined service over 55 years back. Mr. M.G.Pimputkar, ICS, was then the Director of the Mussoorie Academy. At that time ‘le mot juste’ or the right expression in passing orders was given great emphasis, so much so that the Director himself used to take a class on this. I remember he advised as to read the book “The Complete Plain Words” written by Sir Ernest Gowers. He suggested that we use use simple English and keep the sentences short.

There have been developments since then. American English became popular and confused us about the use of ‘s’ or ‘z’, for example.  And there was the craze to write like the reports of World Bank, IMF and the UN. Then came Dr. Shashi Tharoor on the scene and we got over-awed and entangled in unheard of words. This was before the debut of Artificial Intelligence assisted drafts and reports. 

But by now a number of words and expressions, which in the beginning looked bizarre have already become a part of our normal way of expression.

Last week I read an article entitled “What next?” (Indian Express June 15, 2024) by the learned and highly respected Mr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta.

Just out of curiosity I started underlining the words and expressions that I thought had become clichés. Take a look at what I collected, alphabetically:

‘Alleviate agricultural distress’, ‘Analyses of tactical choices’, ‘Charismatic leadership’, ‘Floundered’, ‘Governance or economic transformation’, ‘Identity politics’, ‘Mission mode’, ‘Mission mode manifestation’, ‘Mobilisation instrument’, ‘Multi-layered outcome’, ‘Next polarising issue’, ‘Palpable relief’, ‘Policy focal point’, ‘Reinvent itself’, ‘Skyrocketing inflation’, ‘Structural obduracy’, ‘Structural transformation’ ‘Up the ante’ and ‘An open question’.

I showed this note to my son, who is my greatest critic. He dismissed me by saying that I seem to be having a lot of spare time on my hands.

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