I’ve been taking the DNA (recently launched newspaper in Bangalore) for the past few months. These months, I’ve looked the other way even when it has thrown phrases such as ‘soopah’ and ‘hostess with the mostess’ at me. I’ve excused its adolescent giggliness (sic) with the thought that at least the DNA does not pretend to be something it is not. Moreover, what choice do I have? The TOI, which is DNA on steroids and without the hugely entertaining beauty makeover column? Or The Hindu, which despite its excellent Sunday supplement, has too much Chennai and China for my liking? (I’ve also tried the Deccan Herald and The New Indian Express – more on them another time.)
But I digress. Did I say the DNA had no pretensions? Until this morning, it didn’t. This morning, however, one of its senior editors decided to try a turn of the Greek phrase. Page 2 carries a single column titled ‘Cleaning the Aegean stables,’ referring to the heroic efforts by the former Lokayukta Santosh Hegde to clean up Karnataka.
My quarrel with this headline is not that it’s incorrect. It is that the DNA is pretending. Why use a phrase that your readers will struggle with, and worse still, one that your subs cannot understand enough to edit?
My second and secondary problem is that it is incorrect. The reference here is to the Augean (with a ‘u’) Stables, which Hercules was set as a challenge to clean. The stables were inordinately dirty and therefore, the task was thought to be impossible, much like the task that the Lokayukta faced.
Aegean could refer to either the sea or the islands, but not to stables that needed cleaning.
I realise this post sounds terribly pretentious. Who the heck cares about some remote Greek word? I wouldn’t either, if the DNA didn’t shove it in my face first thing in the morning.
C’mon, guys – get back to your soopahs, pahties, and dahlings. It’s all right – I will still read you, because I don’t have a choice.
