September 24, 2007

Indifference of a different sort

The prefix in- does not always make words antonyms. People of different sorts can be equally indifferent and there can be indifference of different sorts. The prefix does not negate the meaning. The draft of a report on electoral reforms dialogues between the election authorities and some political parties, who have entered into an alliance, should have said the parties would put forth identical proposals on reforms. But the writer came up with the word 'indifferent' [in the sense of not being different] to mean 'identical': 'The party on Friday decided to submit indifferent proposals for electoral reforms with all the components of the alliance during the dialogue scheduled for November 4.' One of the editors burdened with load beyond his capacity suggested the word 'indifferent' when the writer asked for the English word of the Bangla expression.

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