Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Remarks on English Usage

Notes on Usage Apropos of a Translation of Sarat Chandra Chatterji’s {{0}}Nishkriti[[Above a typed copy of this letter, Sri Aurobindo wrote the jocular heading: “Note on the red marks in the proof of ‘The Deliverance’ ” — Ed.]]

I have gone carefully through the proof of the first chapters of The Deliverance, but find most of these unexplained red marks totally unintelligible; sometimes I can make a guess, but most often not even that. What, for instance, is the objection to the use of “its” and “it” for a river?

There seems to be an objection to any metaphors or figures such as “the scales of public opinion” or “a river rejecting someone from its borders”. This seems to me astonishing; at any rate the figures are there in the original and one cannot suppress them in a translation or alter arbitrarily the author’s substance.

Objections are made also against quite good and appropriate English words such as “beggared” and “quadrupled” or against perfectly correct phrases like “All that was now a history of the past” or “reaching” a figure or “dropping” some money or “he sat at home in his room” in the sense of remaining inactive. One can say, for instance, “He sat in his palace listening to the footsteps of approaching Doom”. So too there appears to be some objection to the phrase “neither X nor another”, a common English turn; to “started (in the sense of beginning an action or movement) a relentless insistence and {{0}}importunity”.[[One can say for instance, “He started an obstinate resistance which never flagged nor ceased”.]] Vivid epithets, e.g., “rapid visits” or familiar and lively phrases such as “she was back again”, are found to be improper and objectionable. “Cares of her household” gets a red mark, though one speaks of “household cares”, “cares of State”, cares of all kinds. A fever (one must not refer to it as “it”) is allowed to throw a person down, but not to let him rise from his bed. Incomprehensible?

All these startling red-ink surprises are packed together in the short space of the first chapter. But in the second we meet with still bigger surprises. One is not allowed to “make time” for anything, a most common phrase, or to “leave” a responsibility to someone. A meal must not be “vegetarian” though a diet can be, and though one speaks in English of “a frugal vegetarian dinner”. One is not allowed to have a school task to do or to “prepare” a task; but unhappily that is done in England at least and in English.

“Today” is objected to because it is applied to past “time”; but it is put here as part of the tone of vivid remembered actuality, the past described as if still present before the mind, which is constant in the original. Similarly, a little later on, “the early dusk had fallen a couple of hours ago”; in strict narrative time it should be “before” and not “ago”, but though the author writes in the past tense, he is always suggesting a past which is passing immediately before our eyes. I do not see how else the translator is to keep this suggestion. One could use more correctly the historic present: “It is winter and the dusk has fallen a couple of hours ago”; but that would be to falsify the original.

All right of passage is refused to a humorous use of the phrase “give voice”, nor can one “retort” instead of merely replying. There is perhaps a syntactical objection to the use of “desperate” at the beginning of the sentence, on p. 6, but the objection is itself incorrect. One says “Pale and haggard, he rose from his bed”. One is not allowed to speak humorously of a “portion” instead of a “part” of a big bed so as to emphasise its bigness and the dividing of it into occupied regions by the “gang”. A heart is not allowed to “pound away”, still less to pound “dismally”. The objector seems to damn everything vividly descriptive, everything new in turn, phrase or image, everything in fact not said before by everyone else. A man lying down is not allowed to “start up”, though the dictionary meaning of the word is just that, “to rise up quickly or suddenly”, e.g. “he started up from his bed” or “from his chair”. What again is meant by the objection to such recognised locutions as “to take away the (bad) taste” or “much she cares”, and why should there not be an “implacable pressure” or why is one forbidden to “get out money” from a box? These red marks are terribly mysterious.

The criticism of the sentences “How could you etc.” and the use of “today” is intelligible and to a certain extent tenable. I have tried to explain on the proof itself why the ordinary tense-sequence can be disregarded here. In the latter case it is not so much a question of grammar as of the use of the word “today” for a past time. If it can be so used in order to express more vividly the actual thought in the mind of a person at the time, the unusual tense-sequence follows as a matter of course. I have, however, yielded the point for the sake of Sarat Chatterji’s reputation which, we are told, is imperilled by our audacities of language.

Chapter III. The objector begins with a queer missing of the obvious sense in the use of “my” and “us”. He goes on to challenge the possibility of “entering into” explanations, discussions etc. though it is commonly done, e.g. “He entered into a long discussion” or “You needn’t enter into tedious explanations; a few words will be enough.”

Chapter IV continues the inexplicable chain and “implacable” series of red objections. I have written “a discussion was in process”, which is a quite permissible phrase, but alter it to “progress” just to soften the redness of the red mark. But why cannot Atul “hold forth” as every orator does and what is the matter with the “cut” of a coat, a phrase sacred to every tailor? People in England do, after all, “blurt out” things every day and they “laugh in the face” of others, though of course it may be considered rude; but “to laugh in the face” is not considered as bad grammar — or bad English. “To give the order” is wrong in the opinion of the objector; but since the purchase of particular things like coats or suits has just been talked about, it is quite correct to say “the order” instead of “an order”.

One can’t “speak out”, apparently, (or perhaps “speak up” either, one can only just speak?), nor can one “see to the making of coats” for a family. Also it is wrong to ask “what is wrong”. It is wrong, it seems, to say “All in the room”; so an Englishman is mistaken when he says “Tell all at home that I am not coming”! So too you can’t speak “once more” or “seek {{0}}for”[[{{SA}}“For” and “after” can be used with “seek”. One can say “He sought for an excuse but found none”; one would not usually say “He sought an excuse”. So too you can say “He has long been seeking for spiritual light but in vain.”]] anything! The use of the plural of “devotion”, common in {{0}}English,[[E.g. “She was still at her devotions”.]] is red marked as an error!

Chapter V. One can’t “labour” to get a result, or “cover up” anything in the sense of “hiding” or even try to do it; one can’t put somebody {{0}}up[[Cf., in kindred but slightly different senses, “He has not acted on his own initiative, I know by whom he has been put up to do this”; “A straw candidate put up for the occasion by a small secret clique”; “This is a put up job; there is nothing sincere or spontaneous in the whole affair”.]] to do something, though in English it is constantly done. There is an objection to such perfectly natural figures as “could not summon up any reply” or “the sharp edge of your tongue” or “smouldering secretly within herself”. The objector seems indeed to cherish a deadly grudge against figures and images; he is opposed also to colloquial expressions (e.g. “get” out money, “give it here”) even in dialogue. He objects to my putting straight into English the Bengali figure of “falling from the sky”. There is an almost identical phrase in French with exactly the same sense, “to fall from on high” or “to fall from the {{0}}clouds”:[[“tomber d’en haut”, “tomber des nuages”.]] so I do not see why it should not be done, since it ought to be at once intelligible to an English reader. I note also that words cannot “jump” to the tongue, but why not? they manage to do it every day. Poor Shaila cannot “need” a {{0}}cup.[[One can say, “she needs help and sympathy in her trouble”, or “you need rest and a change of air”, or “for this I need scissors and paste, get them”. Then why not “I need the cup”?]] Then what is wrong with the sentence “Do you think everybody is your sister” i.e. the speaker herself? It is simply a vivid way of saying “Do you think everybody will be as patient with you as myself”, or, “Do you think you can speak to everybody as you do to me”.

I have written at length because the publisher and perhaps others seem to have been upset by the vicious red jabs of this high authority. In most cases they seem to me to have no meaning whatever. If they have, we should be informed to some extent at least of their why and wherefore.

There are, too, a few doubtful points in half a dozen sentences, points on which Englishmen themselves differ or might differ. I am ready to go through the whole book if the proofs are sent here. But I cannot revise or alter phrases, locutions or figures which, so far as I know English, are either current or natural or permissible,— unless I am told why these are thought to be incorrect or improper.

I cannot altogether understand Professor Maniyar’s criticism. What does he mean by irregular language? If he refers to the style and means that it is bad, unchaste, too full of familiar or colloquial terms, not sufficiently dignified, bookish, conventional in phrase, not according to precedent, he is entitled to his view, of course. If he and the objector represent the Indian English-reading public, then Dilip must consider the matter. For in that case it is clear the book will not be understood by that public, may be banged and bashed by the reviewers, or may for kindred reasons be a failure. The suggestion that Sarat Chandra’s high reputation will be tarnished and lowered by Dilip’s deplorable style and my bad English and horrible grammar, not from any fault of his own, is very alarming. In that case Dilip ought to have the book corrected by some University professor who knows what to write and what not to write and its style chastened, made correct, common and unnoticeable. I don’t think Amal will do. He is too brilliant and might make the hair of the correct and timid reader rise on his head in horror; besides Amal does not know Bengali.

The question also arises whether an English reader (an English Englishman, not made in India) would equally fail to appreciate the book; he might find it too Bengali in character and substance and — who knows? — agree that the style of the translation is unorthodox and “irregular”. But here we are helpless — we cannot make the experiment, for the war is on and England is far away and paper scarce there as here.

5 August 1944