I was attending a symposium organized locally by a government research organization. Something curious happened there, which reminded me of a conference I had been to attend, organized by the Health University. The enthusiasm of the comperes at the two places was identical. The curious method of speech was common, not only of the comperes, but also of some of the speakers.
“We are pleased that this workshop on this very very important topic is being attended by so many doctors” said the compere at the University workshop.
“Today’s topic is very very important in the management of cancer patients” said the compere at the other workshop.
“There are many many reasons for development of malnutrition in children” said a speaker at the University workshop.
“After many many efforts we have been able to isolate this protein in the tubal fluid” said a speaker in the other workshop.
“We are very very grateful to Dr. xxxxx who has come all the way from Pondicherry to deliver a lecture here” said the person giving vote of thanks at the University workshop.
“We hope there will be many many more workshops like this in future, and we are very very grateful to the government for giving the financial aid for conducting workshops of this nature” said the thanks-giver in the other workshop.
I have typed this article using a word processor with the ‘highlight spelling errors as you type’ option turned on, and it has highlighted every second ‘very’ and every second ‘many’ in the pairs. I suppose they turn this feature off when they type their speeches, or they don’t know its significance, or they don’t type their speeches but use manuscripts instead. I know the ‘very very’ is free translation of vernacular equivalent into English, meant to indicate a lot more than a single ‘very’, and ditto for ‘many many’, and I appreciate the spirit behind it. But they got the Swedish bloke so impressed by their English, that he also used ‘very very’ once in his lecture. I knew some Swedish doctors who were not very comfortable with English, and perhaps this fellow thought he was hearing good English when he heard these speakers. I want to see if they manage to impress English or American speakers equally well and get them to use these words in pairs. If they manage it, I will certainly post it on this blog.
