Monday, July 30, 2007

Language, language!

"Chairing the meeting, the PCCF-cum-Secretary, Environment & Forests, Shri S S Choudhury urged upon the PRI members to decimate the information divulged in this meeting to the people of their respective constituencies to get their support and cooperation for sustainable development along with conservation of forest resources of the islands for future generations."
(emphasis mine)

Yes, of course.

This is from an article in 'THE DAILY TELEGRAMS, July 30, 2007', headlined "Greater involvement of PRIs in conservation of isles natural resources stressed".

Now, I have no idea whether the reporter was only truthfully reporting what he heard, or whether, his fingers slipped a bit on the keyboard. But, in either case, the slip appears Freudian. When it comes to information, this country does seem to do a good job of decimation.

But, sub-editor, where wert thou?

7 comments:

dipali said...

LOL!Good one.

J. Alfred Prufrock said...

My colleagues 'decimate' this kind of gobbledygook EVERY day.
I think I should hold classes, quiz them on Strunk & White.

J.A.P.

SR said...

maybe the chap said disseminate and was misheard. funny, still!

~nm said...

Hahahaha...this was hilarious!! :D

I'm sure as Shrutified said, the orator must have said disseminate :D

WillOTheWisp said...

Blame MS Word's Auto-correct feature for this ...
:)

Jay Sun said...

LOL :)

Deepak Krishnan said...

nice one!!!

one more i heard @ a stage show recently - "this band COMPROMISES of....." :D

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