Dear Editor,
The spell checker seems to have been overzealous in the Sunday Stabroek report captioned, ‘Adaptation to climate change will cost billions,’ (Aug. 3, 2008) where ‘rip-rap’ was incorrectly rendered as ‘riff-raff,’ a design which we certainly won’t want our sea defences to have, though some might say there is much truth in such a description.
Then the GPL power interruptions notice incorrectly spells one of the place names in Port Mourant as ‘Bung Yard,’ whereas it should have been ‘Bound Yard,’ a name from the days of indentureship. Many locals do pronouce it as ‘Bung Yard,’ but the knowledgeable ones know the correct spelling and would not take kindly to a name likening their hometown to a bottle stopper.
Also, I want to believe that the name ‘Babu John’ should have been ‘Babu Jhan,’ but of this I am not certain. I do know that some Indian names have been anglicized: Jhan (or Jang) may have mutated to John, like Pal became Paul, and Ramsumir evolved to Ramsay Muir (Naipaul, Mystic Masseur).
Can we ever forget how the indigenous name for a Macushi village ‘Kulashe Wata,’ meaning ‘place of the kulashe bird’ (Guy Marco SN letter, June 10, 2008), was absurdly rendered as ‘Crash Water’? The original meaning of an ancestral name is usually lost in its anglicization.
Yours faithfully,
M. Xiu Quan-Balgobind-Hackett
Editor’s note
Sunday Stabroek apologizes for the
‘rip-rap’ spelling error.
