September 08, 2007

Opertationalize... conditionalities

One on the desk with commendable ability at editing business stories, asked by another, with little understanding of financial matters, about the meaning of a phrase that was in the story, said 'classified loans' meant 'bad debts.' That's that. The writer should have changed the phrase in the first place, at least for common newspaper readers. Loans that are substandard, doubtful or loss are collectively known as 'classified loans.' But why should common readers bother about such perfect definitions?

Such pretentious stand-ins, out of social development and financial harangues, keep coming in news reports, which, despite insistence by writers and permissiveness by editors, are best avoided. A report the other day said some funds for flood victims were 'operationalized.' Other such words most frequently used in reports are 'conditionalities,' 'modaliites' and 'utilize,' which should have long been funeralized.

Simple, easy words for 'operationalize' are 'to carry out,' 'to work on,' 'to arrange' or even 'to do.' 'The plan will be operationalized in 18 months' time' could easily be rephrased as 'the plan will be carried out in a year and a half.' Development organisations define 'conditionality' as the principle that access to new loans, aid and debt relief should be conditioned on meeting certain conditions, which is nothing but a condition. The Tribune of India in an editorial in August 1998 wrote 'The World Bank and the IMF gladly offered to help, but with conditions -- or conditionalities in their jargon -- attached.'

Similar is the case with the word 'modality.' 'The programme will operationalize its objectives through two primary modalities' means nothing but 'the programme will work in two ways.' 'The government is planning expansion in the modalities of shelter for flood victims' in effect means nothing but 'the government will offer more kinds of shelter for flood victims.'

Another word that has been consistently abused is 'utilize' which means 'to make use of.' This over-used word is used in place of 'use' in most cases. 'To utilize,' which means to make do with something not normally used for the purpose, is not a synonym of 'to use' with classy cachet --- 'he used the laptop to write the report as his desktop is out of order' and 'he utilised the laptop in the library as a pillow.' The difference is clear.

2 comments:

Eduardo Waghorn said...

Are you living in Dhaka?
What is your native language?
I have curiosity...
Greetings from Chile!

Abu Jar M Akkas said...

Dhaka, yes. Bengali with an MA degree in English from the Univ of Dhaka.