By Zulfiqar Ahmad
ISLAMABAD, July 15: One of the six papers which former principal Langlands School and College Major GD Langlands said he was made to sign makes an interesting grammatical read.
The letter written in an American format is signed by Langlands shows that he was forced to put his signature on it.
Interestingly, Langlands, who never studied in any US university preferred to write his name in American style with big comas between his name’s abbreviations ie G.D Langlands.
The form of English used in the United Kingdom is called British English, and the form of English used in the United States is called American English but the Englishman opted for American style without giving importance to his native language.
He has also completely forgotten the differences between the two forms, including spelling, punctuations and formatting of dates and numbers.
Above all he has also misspelled his name such as “Langland” instead of Langlands. The broken English with numerous mistakes both grammatical, spelling and format shows it was written by a kindergarten kid. Or, this must have been drafted by a so-called Pakistani English expert.
In the second paragraph, the letter reads: “I hereby take over the charge of the principal”. The correct English is: “I take charge of the principal” but the author (let’s say Langlands writes, “I TAKE OVER the charge of the principal”, which makes it crystal clear who had drafted the letter.
In the same sentence, there is another mistake as the hyphen between “patron-in-chief” is missing which is mandatory in British English. The author further writes, “Today on 13th June 2015”. “The word ‘on’ with 13th June shows how good he is at writing?
Major Langlands misspelled his name twice in the letter but he has also misspelled the name of Carey as “Carry”. The school which bears his name now was also wrong as he had written “Langland School” instead of Langlands School – a typical Chitrali style where people often pronounce Langlands as “Langland”.
After writing CC with big full stops, which is again not allowed in British English, the former British major has written, “Copy forwarded for information and necessary action to the…at the end they have put a big sign of :-
The unnecessary usage of comas in the letter also reflects that it is not written by a Briton. Peshawar was spelled as “Peshwar” again and again. The author of the letter has also written Scouts as “Scout”.