Get the act together

Ratna Raman

LAST week I went into the college office to hand over a routine  letter, requesting the principal  to confirm that  I was a permanent  employee, thereby enabling me to travel overseas for a short period of time.

The young man at the desk informed me that as the principal was “out-of-station”, the letter would take a while to be issued. This endearing Indianism, “out-of-station” immediately generated images of rail engines and bogies moving out of railway stations, while all busy junctions remained unmanned. I explained that the letter was a procedural formality and could be signed by anyone in-charge, reiterating that I was required to submit it at short notice. 

Principals engage with work beyond the walls of their institutions and are seldom tied down to their desks. Hence, the accepted protocol is that vice-principals or senior faculty  members ‘officiate’ in their stead. I was eventually issued a letter stating that I was a ‘bona fide’ (genuine) employee.

My eyes fell upon the last section of the letter where ‘Ag. Principal’was typed out below a scrawl. This was a trifle puzzling. Yes, principals invariably tend to be older persons and the officiating principal was sufficiently grey-haired. It was apparent that ‘Ag’ was not being used as an abbreviation for ‘ageing’. Ag is also the chemical symbol for silver. I was informed that it stood  for ‘Acting Principal’. 

The occasion demanded a quick review of the rules of abbreviation, which remain mysterious in these days of truncated lives on Whatsapp. I pointed out that ‘Ag’ could be interpreted to indicate ‘against’ or ‘agitating’ or any number of untoward activities that officiating principals  could participate in, if they were so minded.  The letter was rescinded (cancelled), and a new version was handed over to me.

The designation ‘Acting Principal’  ended speculation on whether the principal on duty was made out  of silver alloy or was organising a coup against the permanent head of the institution, but it still left much to be desired. Would a letter signed by an ‘Acting Principal’ be taken seriously? What if the person acting as principal was merely ‘putting on an act?’ Inappropriate verbs, as you can see, leave behind dense clouds of doubt.

The letter was accepted, because the term ‘Acting Principal’ is a much used and rather familiar Indianism. One grammatical step towards stemming (preventing) such re-enactments of  confusion would be to use the expression “officiating principal”.  In this case, the verb correctly conveys that someone is ‘officiating’ or running the office in the principal’s absence, at least, on paper. The expression ‘officiating’ cannot be truncated into random abbreviations   such as, ‘Of, Off or Ofg’. While these may be useful as notes to refer to, they have no place in formal letter writing.

Meanwhile, a notice on a board in the foyer states that an “emergent meeting” of executive members is scheduled for the next day. Meetings can be urgent or extraordinary, depending on the circumstances that they emerge out of. ‘Emergent’ originally meant ‘to come into existence’, or ‘to rise into prominence’. Excessively used Americanisms such as ‘emergent’  and ‘momentarily’ (shortly) instead of comprehensible and pithy words such as ‘urgent’ and   ‘momentary’ (Middle English; short-lived) contribute neither to clarity of expression nor aesthetic quotient. We must put the zing back in the language by reverting to plain English.