Good Noon, Mr. Close

I started studying English 73 years ago when I was in 5th grade. While I have learned to love the language, alas, I have not mastered it. If someone masters Urdu language in all its intricacies, it is said that the language has become his hand maiden. While there have been notable desis who have excelled in English, for most of us, English remains an untameable shrew.

In early classes, we learned English by rote and if that did not work, a slap or a stick did the trick. However, questions and doubts about the proper use of English persisted. When I was in 7th grade my brother Sardar, an honours graduate of Islamia College, took upon himself to help me in reading English. Within a week the archaic, erratic and illogical nature of the language presented itself.

As I was reading aloud, I came across the word “know”. I read it kanow. My brother interrupted me and said the word is pronounced as no. The K in the beginning of the word was silent. So, the logical question was that if the K is supposed to make no sound, why was it is put there? By this time my brother had lost patience with me. He slapped me across the nape and said that God had put it there! That day I learned that when elders do not know the answers, they always invoke the higher authority and also a slap to reinforce the faith. And as we all know, one does not challenge that wisdom.

When I entered college, I could speak English that was a mixture of Victorian formality and street lingo. I tried, however, to speak as correctly as I could. I was polite when I came across teachers and greeted them in English. One day it was a few minutes after 12 noon when I saw my English teacher Professor H M Close. I said, “Good noon, sir.” He smiled and replied, “Good afternoon, Amjad.” I thought since I had missed the noon hour by a few minutes, he was right in greeting me the way he did. The Brits are fastidious about time as we all know. So, I needed to greet him as the bell tower struck the hour of twelve. So, one day as the college’s tower clock was in the middle of striking 12, I saw Mr. Close and again greeted him, “Good Noon, Mr. Close.” He smiled and said, “Good afternoon, Amjad.” After trying a few more times, I gave up but still wondered why the morning slides into afternoon and skips the noon hour altogether.

After making the case or the request, we were taught to end the application with the customary ‘I beg to remain sir, your most obedient and faithful servant’. I don’t know why we had to enter some one’s servitude to get a day off or to get a gun license

In Urdu we have a whole body of literature devoted to the noon hour. For example: Sooraj Sawa Naize per kharha thaa (the sun was at its zenith in the sky). Translated into English it would read “the sun was standing at one-and-a-quarter javelin.” Just imagine how much gets lost in translation. In eastern societies, the day lingers on so that there is not a precise cut off between different times of the day. It takes a while for do-pehar to slide into seh-pehar. Not to mention shaam and raat. We desis tend not to conform to the movement of the hands on a clock.

But there is definitely high noon in English. We don’t call it high afternoon, do we? If that were true, then the famous western movie High Noon would have to be named differently.

I have often wondered, and I am sure others have to, that we pronounce but as in the rear-end but we pronounce put as in short put. When I get an urge to question the illogical pronunciation, I am reminded of the not-too-gentle slap and my brother’s profound saying that the silent k in know was put there by God. Such are the vagaries of the English language as anointed by the higher authority.

Having been taught in the British system of education in Pakistan, it was difficult to adjust to the free-flowing American English. In high school, formality was taught in reading and writing. In an application for anything from a leave of absence to the issuance of a gun license, the authority had to be addressed properly.

After making the case or the request, we were taught to end the application with the customary ‘I beg to remain sir, your most obedient and faithful servant’. I don’t know why we had to enter some one’s servitude to get a day off or to get a gun license.

This story was shared with me by the late Mohsin Ali, onetime Diplomatic Editor of Reuters and later Times of London’s correspondent to the White House. There was this man who took pride in using correct English and English metaphors. When his mother died, he applied for leave and keeping with his habit of proper English he wrote:

Sir, it is with extreme sadness that I report that the lady who used to rock my cradle has now kicked the bucket. I request three days leave so I could properly say goodbye to my dear departed mother and properly send her on her journey to the hereafter.

I have read and re-read many times William Strunk and E B White’s small book The Elements of Style. While it is a time-tested and time-honored little book, I always get bogged down with the exceptions to the rules.



It is a well-known fact that for languages to survive and flourish they have to remain relevant. They imbibe Influences from other languages and become rich in the process. Just look at the influence of the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent on the English language. A whole lexicon of words from the Subcontinent have entered the English language. While Shakespeare was totally unaware of samosa, dhosa or curry, his present-day relatives are quiet at ease with those culinary indulgences.

Having been taught in the British system of education in Pakistan, it was difficult to adjust to the free-flowing American English

Amish people are farmers originally from Germany who now reside in closely-knit communities in Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania. They shun modern conveniences such as electricity, radios and cars, have their own schools where education up to 8th grade is mandatory. They farm using ploughs and horses and they travel in horse pulled buggies. They practice an orthodox Christian religion that resembles Catholicism. They speak an archaic German language that is hard for even Germans to understand. Languages left in the petri dish of closed communities with little or no interaction with outsiders remain static and fossilized. An Amish man would be totally lost in Germany. Just as I would be in Scotland or Ireland.

Many years ago, while hiking on the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire, our small group came across a number of Scotsmen on the trail. We struck up a conversation about hiking. One of them was curious about our background. “Are you a niitive?”, he asked. I asked him to repeat and after few times I got it. He wondered if we were natives. He must have thought we were American Indians. He was annoyed that we had problem understanding him. To illustrate the point, I told him a WWII story of an unconscious American soldier who was brought to a British field hospital. After a day or so he woke up in totally unfamiliar surroundings. He was scared and was sure he was going to die. He asked the nurse if he was brought there to die. To that, the English nurse replied in her clipped accent,” No sir, you came here yesterdaiiy.”

In the stage play (and also movie) My Fair Lady, Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is exasperated when the Cockney girl Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) has difficulty using proper English. He cries out:

There even are places where English completely disappears.

Well, in America, they haven’t used it for years!

The refrain in that song is telling:

Why can’t the English,

Why can’t the English learn to speak?

And here are we desis, trying to imitate the English.

Dr. Sayed Amjad Hussain is an emeritus professor of surgery and an emeritus professor of humanities at the University of Toledo, USA. His is also an op-ed columnist for the daily Toledo Blade and daily Aaj of Peshawar