Thursday April 28, 2011

What’s a bovid?

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED by FADZILAH AMIN

I HAVE two questions for you.

1. During “English Week”, my school held a crossword puzzle. One of the clues was “Large shaggy bovid”. Can you kindly explain the meaning of the phrase and how to use it? What’s the best word to describe it?

2. In this newspaper headline and subhead, whyis “it” used instead of “he”?

It’s not Anwar, says Wan Azizah

PKR President certain it is a different man after watching online teaser – Amira

1. I had to look up the word “bovid” to find out its meaning, and in a bigger dictionary than an advanced learner’s one. “Bovid” means an animal of the cattle family, whose scientific family name is “bovidae”. Cows, sheep, antelopes, buffaloes, bison and yaks are among the members of this family of animals. “Shaggy” means “having long thick untidy hair or fur”.

“A large shaggy bovid” therefore means a large animal of the cattle family with long thick untidy hair. How to use the phrase in a sentence? Not many people use the word “bovid” in ordinary conversation, but someone who knows what it means could say, for example: “I was walking at a National Park somewhere in America, when I saw this large shaggy bovid running towards me! I climbed the nearest tree as quickly as I could.” (I don’t think bovids can climb trees!)

I have a feeling the answer to your crossword clue may be “bison” or “yak”. A sheep is not large enough.

2. One of the functions of “it” is to identify a person, positively or negatively (meaning 4 in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). Here it is used in negative identification, i.e. saying that what is seen “is not Anwar” but “a different man”.

Here are more examples of the use of “it” in identification:

a) If you phone a friend and she does not recognise your voice and asks, “Who’s that on the line?” you say “It’s me, Amira, your old friend.” and NOT “I’m Amira, your old friend.”

b) A pair of identical twins play football for the same club. One of them was injured in a tackle and couldn’t play for some time. A few weeks later, a fan asked the other twin: “Was it you who got injured a few weeks ago?” The twin replied: “No, it wasn’t me; it was my twin brother Rafael.”

Unclear pronoun

I noticed that The Star has been less than careful when using pronouns he and she in its news reports, causing confusion among its readers and forcing them to read sentences twice. Using the same pronoun twice in a single sentence can best be fixed by a proper noun to make the subject clearer. Let me give you an example.

“Ali claimed that he and Husin used to go to the same school and that he was not a good student.”

In the above sentence, readers may have problems identifying who he refers to. Is it Ali or Husin?

In my opinion, the sentence should be written as:

“Ali claimed that he and Husin used to go to the same school and that Husin was not a good student.”

Often I hear excuses from some writers who say that this type of sentence does not sound “nice”, but in truth, it actually avoids confusion effectively. I have found many similar mistakes that appeared in your newspaper. What’s your opinion? – Nasir

I agree with you completely. In certain kinds of writing, e.g. reports, exam questions, etc. clarity should come before style (sounding “nice”). If repetition can avoid ambiguity, there’s no harm in repeating a word or a phrase.

Tenses in headlines

1. Do we say “I hadn’t realised it until I found it” or “I didn’t realise it until I found it”?

2. In The Star of Feb 9, there was the headline, “Student dies in school”. Shouldn’t it be, “A student died in school”? Shouldn’t we use the past tense? – Ahmad

1. We can say both, but “I didn’t realise it until I found it” (using the simple past tense of “realise”) is more common than ““I hadn’t realised it until I found it” (using the past perfect tense of “realise”). Although two different times in the past are mentioned, the word “until” makes it clear that the state of not realising something came before the action of finding something. It is therefore unnecessary to use the past perfect tense to distinguish between the two times. But it is not wrong to use it. Below are some examples of usage from the Internet:

“Of course, I didn’t realise it until I got home ...”

“I left my iPod in my other coat pocket this morning, and didn’t realise it until I was well out the door.”

“I hadn’t realised it until I looked on Google, but he has a website ...”

“I hadn’t realised it until I saw a figure in the grassy patch ahead.”

2. Newspaper headlines usually use the present tense even to say that someone has died. The present tense has more immediacy and draws one’s attention more. Here are two examples of headlines from British newspapers reporting two deaths:

Folk singer Kate McGarrigle dies (guardian.co.uk, Jan 19, 2010)

David Cameron’s father, Ian Cameron, dies (telegraph.co.uk, Sept 8, 2010)

Mind Our English

Thursday April 28, 2011

What’s a bovid?

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