Requiem For The Apostrophe

Is the apostrophe on its way to annihilation? Will punctuation soon enter the annals of history? Is a new era of transitional grammar dawning?

Well, it looks like that’s the way the winds of change are blowing. For many, any kind of protest is just a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. After all, what does it really matter whether something is spelt Kings or King’s? Dispense with that little tadpole like thingie once and for all and you don’t really have to worry your head about where it goes anymore. Ah, blessed relief!

For others, it’s the death knell of language as they know it. The beginning of the end, as it were. First the apostrophe, then, who knows? It could well be every punctuation mark we know. ‘Out, damn’d spot!’ would probably be the last of it as the world entered a brave new world unhampered by any kind of punctuation. For the purist, there could be no fate worse than this, never mind that some might just see it as a natural progression or evolution of language.

Well evolution is, as we speak, taking place on the streets of Birmingham and place names and road signs are going to bid a quick goodbye to the apostrophe. The Birmingham City Council feels it will be much better from the point of view of emergency services. The banishing of the apostrophe will make it easier for them to find places and not get lost. One infers from this that the apostrophe led the emergency services a merry dance through the streets of Birmingham like some Will o’ the Wisp, spreading confusion instead of clarity. If America and Australia do not put the apostrophe on place names to avoid confusion, can Birmingham be far behind?

Strangely, there are a number of professors and such erudite ilk who really don’t see anything earth shattering about this move. After all, how many really do get their apostrophes right? They should know – they correct heaps of student papers. Looked at from that angle, maybe they have a point. However, there are many others who are making a strong protest against this move, asking the Council how they can teach their students what is right and what isn’t when the city signboards are wrong? The Apostrophe Protection Society (oh, yes, there really is one!) is up in arms against what it sees as a very bad example to students.

Well, the ones who do not subscribe to this don’t see this move as either wrong or right, just expedient. Does it really matter what someone like Lynne Truss has to say – well, anyway, who is this Lynne Truss? Didn’t she write something about pandas? Expediency is the need of the hour and if one has to axe the unnecessary, the superfluous, the hangers-on, so be it. Let’s guillotine the apostrophe and get back to business as usual.

And leave it for some band to compose a song about ‘The Day The Apostrophe Died’.

The Sins Of Our Fathers

 

Am I my brother’s keeper? I’m not. If I don’t even have to be my brother’s keeper, why should I have to live in a constant state of guilt for my forefathers’ sins? Biblically, the sins of the fathers are supposed to pass down to the third and fourth generation. Look around the world today and you’ll find that the shadow cast by past sins or perceived sins is much, much longer than that.

In almost every country, there are people who bear a historical grouse – about oppression, suppression, cruelty against their forefathers. Through generations, this ferments inside till suddenly there’s a venting and all hell breaks loose. Just one little seemingly innocuous incident is enough to be the flashpoint for a blaze of emotions that can very well end in carnage.

The trouble is, there seem to be no answers in sight and maybe the time has come for both sides to sit down and let it go. It’s hard to let go of a cross your forbears bore which has been handed down with the unspoken urge to carry it on. It’s hard to let go of anger that very often you were born with. It’s hard to root out a crutch that makes you feel that all your present problems are due to something that happened generations, maybe even centuries ago.

I read a hub the other day and it touched me because it reflected the angst and pain of a group pf people. We have a similar situation in our country – only it isn’t colour but caste that is the issue. I asked myself if I really wanted to apologize for what my ancestors did and the answer is NO. Or rather, the answer would be No if I were expected to. I might do it if I were moved to but I know that the compassion that maybe I should feel would vanish in a trice if I were MADE to apologise.

Because I wasn’t there. And the person who feels the pain passed down wasn’t there either.

So what is the solution? If there is a solution. Will this impasse just get worse? It will when there are tremors in other areas. The prospect of depression, the prospect of jobs being lost, the prospect of prices rising. In times of trouble, it isn’t Mother Mary who comes to you but the spectres of times gone by, raising their ugly heads. It rarely happens in times of plenty. It almost never happens when a country is threatened from outside – an outside enemy usually makes everyone come together. It happens, like I said, in troubled times within.

The solution as I see it has to be at the grassroots or the community level. If one were to look at our politicians to fulfil this role, you couldn’t be farther from a viable solution. Politicians tend to divide and rule – that’s the way they stay in power. The only way to get people to sit together is to educate and to spread awareness. Here’s where local leaders will have to rise up for the common good.

The ideal way to get there would be a 3-point programme.

- Acknowledge

- Accept

- Address

One has to acknowledge that there were inequalities and acts of oppression and cruelty. One has to then see how that has affected the present. Once you accept it as being the cause of certain effects that are detrimental to the functioning of society and maybe even a country, it is easier to see things objectively. The next step is how to address these ills practically, logically, rationally and unemotionally.

When you don’t HAVE to feel sorry, you’ll find the barriers breaking down and the possibility of bridges being built. You’ll find the walls of political correctness crumbling and a sense of humour coming to the fore. In the old days – well actually not so long ago – comedy meant catharsis. We saw ourselves on stage or onscreen and we laughed. Today, we see any kind of humour against ourselves as personal and we’re quick to take offence. All it does is make the chasms between groups even wider. Laughing at ourselves and at others is the only way to bridge the gap. If only we learned to laugh at ourselves, we will stop feeling so sat upon and spat upon.

It has to be a concerted affair – everywhere, at all levels. The American forthcoming elections have highlighted the latent racial tensions but it’s there alright - the danger beneath. As it is all over the world in different forms. South Africa, India, the UK, Sri Lanka. It’s the same story whether it’s played out by the factions of different creeds, races, colour, caste or class. In most cases, the flames of hatred are kept alive to keep certain people in power. We need to get over this without any political interference. In the age of the Internet when a whole mass of humanity has been powered with connectivity at the click of a mouse and there’s a wave of globalisation sweeping over the world, it’s time we shook off the politics of prejudice, the acid of internalized hatred, the shackles of the past and the fear of the different. It’s a long haul but we can do it if we try and who knows - Lennon’s legendary song might well come to pass. Imagine all the people sharing all the world……..

Medicine, Men Of The Cloth And Mammon

Money was, perhaps, never meant to be a part of religion or of medicine. There was a time when physicians did not have a rate card and men of God lived on charity. Then the greenback serpent entered the idealistic worlds of both and offered them visions of great wealth and power. It was too much to expect them not to succumb. The few who didn’t were left behind and not counted.

Healing – the Body and the Soul

Both professions are supposed to be about healing – while one looks after physical wellness, the other looks after spiritual well being. Time was when these were ‘noble’ professions – when sons were offered to enter the priesthood or were given to study under physicians in order to learn and grow into these professions. Healing was god-like and that meant that you could not be earthly when it came to being compensated. So it was left to the one who was administered to – body or soul – to give what he deemed best.

When it came to religion, most priests lived by taking a portion of what was offered to the gods. This was their payment for selflessly serving the divine. They were to take only what they needed – not what they wanted – and then leave the rest to be distributed to charity. Physicians were the same. They treated the sick and the suffering and for their care and concern, they were given cash or kind – it wasn’t right for them to ask for anything.

Take the old Levite tradition for example – this tribe was the one from where the Jewish priestly class emerged – they were not given any land in the promised land. Instead all the other eleven tribes had to give them one tenth of what they got. In this way, they were allowed to do God’s work and were supported by the rest of the community.

This is very similar to the Brahmin tradition in India where the priestly class was entrusted with educating the people and running the temples. As they indulged more and more in literary pursuits, they were soon asked to advise the kings about military and other strategies – which they did very well. Very soon, power and money beckoned and the simple life was left behind.

Later, came the Christian priests and the nuns who didn’t or rather, weren’t supposed to call anything on this earth their own. They were here to serve the Lord and humanity at large. From living lives with just the bare necessities however, many of them grew to embrace a life of comfort and even luxury, wielding great power over the people who they were supposed to look after.

Take the case of the physicians or of the healers of the bodies all over the world. There was a time when it meant a life of hard work and a tremendous amount of sacrifice. It was their commitment to the well being of mankind that made them take up that particular profession. Man or beast – physicians were those selfless beings who were at everyone’s beck and call, always smiling, soothing away aches and pains and fevers and helping you get back into the wellness zone.

If we go back further in time, the witch doctors or the Druids were very much the same – their job was to cure or try their best to cure whichever patient came to them – king or pauper. More often than not, they are portrayed as living in little huts away from the main populace of a village and practicing their medicine with herbs, roots and rituals, the knowledge of which was passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation.

Enter Money

Once their eyes started lighting up at the sight of money, it was the beginning of the end. Suddenly, money was the ultimate goal, not the wellbeing of people. Once the focus shifted from the ones they had vowed to look after to themselves, the picture changed and it was the power of money that became important – not the power that their profession gave them over illness or ignorance. A J Cronin’s The Citadel is a perfect example of how money can insidiously compromise a physician’s ethics.

Is there merit in religion and medicine going back to the days of dedication and working for whatever was given? Can we really take the money factor out of what has grown to become among the most paying professions? If only we could take the money out and put the ethics back in, maybe a lot of ills in this world would get ironed out – but then again, maybe that is being too simplistic and hoping for too much. What is relevant however, is that Mammon should not have pride of place in medicine or religion.