I am feeling a little adventurous today. The best I can do when I feel so is to make a new word and try to make it stick. If Hindi English is called Hinglish (distinct from the Queen’s English and also from Americal English), why not called ‘Missed English’ Minglish?
This question brings us to another question - what is ‘Missed English’? This is a newly described entity, unlikely to be found on Googling, and also not on Wikipedia. It is English used by people who have missed the true meaning of what they say in English, who use those words for something altogether different. A couple of examples should make it clear.
“Doctor, I have a great difficulty in passing bathroom” a patient said.
“Making bathroom?” I asked. The patient had the entire sentence in vernacular except the word ‘bathroom’. I have translated the sentence into English for my overseas readers and also for those who are local but cannot read local languages.
“Yes, bathroom.”
“What is making bathroom?” I asked, because I had to know the symptom so as to be able to make a diagnosis of her condition. She explained elaborately, and finally it dawned on me that she meant defecation by saying making bathroom. Perhaps she thought it was indecent to use that word, or even the word ‘toilet’, and preferred a decent word like ‘bathroom’. I would have thought she would have used that word for micturition at the most, because I could not imagine how anyone could defecate in a bathroom. Over a period of time I realized that she was not alone in the the use of this word in this manner. A number of women in our outpatient clinic, coming from the same educational and socioeconomic strata used that word similarly. That was ‘Missed English‘.
Another example of this phenomenon is use of the word ‘Operation’.
“We need to perform a small operation check your pelvic organs” I explained to an infertile patient. I was talking about laparoscopy and hysteroscopy.
“No, Doctor. I don’t want an operation. How can I get pregnant if you perform an operation on me?” she said in vernacular.
“What do you mean? This operation is to find out why you have been unable to get pregnant” I said.
“Operation is done to prevent a pregnancy” she said. It dawned on me that she was referring to a female sterilization operation. In her world, that was the only operative procedure performed on a woman.
“What you are calling ‘operaion’ is one of a few thousand different operations. It is called sterilization operation. All operative procedures done in operation theaters are called operations. Do not worry. We do not propose to sterilize you” I said and then explained what the endoscopic procedure was all about. I have encountered many more women who believed the word ‘operation’ meant sterilization operation performed as a permanent method of contraception.
I suppose what I mean by ‘Missed English’ is clear to the readers. The compulsion to use English words instead of known and trusted vernacular words has some psychological reason like a desire to appear knowledgeable or as smart as those who speak English. I hope the readers have no objection to calling ‘Missed English’ ‘Minglish’. It may not make its way to the Oxford Dictionary. But so what? I get at least the happiness of having created something unique and original. :-)
