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Monday, October 08, 2012

എത്രാമത്തെയുടെ ഇംഗ്ലിഷ് ...

Sir,
      I am a teacher of English in a Secondary School in Kerala, India.I am haunted by my students' question as how to frame a question so as to get the italicized word as answer in the following statement. " Jawaharlal Nehru is the first  Prime Minister of India".
                                                                                                  
                                               I would be much obliged if you could kindly help me frame a question in this regard.

Thanking you
Sijumon Devasia / Joby Joseph
H.S.A. English
St. Mary's H.S.
Mankulam Idukki


Dear Joby & Siju,
It is interesting how much we get asked this question! However, unlike in many Indian dialects, it is not possible to ask a question where you would get the first as an answer, unless you asked ‘what number Prime Minister is Nehru?’ which is not good English. Instead, we would probably ask ‘have there been any Prime Ministers before Nehru?’, to which the answer would be ‘no, he is the first’. Or, we would ask ‘is Nehru the first or second (third/fourth etc) Prime Minister?’, to which the answer would be ‘he is the first’.
Yours sincerely,
Aileen Thomson
English Faculty Office <english.office@ell.ox.ac.uk>
Oxford University 

11 comments:

  1. Which is the ordinal representing Nehru's position in the chronology of Indian Prime Ministers?
    (Though it is a quite unnatural construction)

    ReplyDelete
  2. What is the ordinal status of Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister of India ?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Rajeev Joseph, I've noticed your reply to Jobi & Siju, regarding how to frame a question so as to get the answer Jawaharlal Nehru is the first PM of India'. Is there anything wrong in asking the question as: 'What is the order of Jawaharlal Nehru among the Prime Ministers of India?'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Radhakrishnan,
      It is not my reply but the one from Oxford University.

      Delete
  4. What is the chronological order of Jawahar Lal Nehru among the prime ministers of India?

    ReplyDelete
  5. what is the ordinal position of Nehru among the prime ministers of India?

    ReplyDelete
  6. What is the ordinal status of Nehru among the prime ministers of India?

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
  8. What is the ordinal position of Nehru as prime minister of India?

    ReplyDelete
  9. a new question word "howmanieth"is gaining acceptablity now a days. lets start using it to make it popular..
    english lovers need not worry for not having exact word for that..many international languages including Arabic, one of the oldest languages, don't have exact traslation for "ethramathe?".

    ReplyDelete