Know your English

“Mr. E. S. Chandrasekaran, Mahalingapuram, Madras, wants to know why ‘to’ is left out in ‘I went home.’”

“It is a matter of usage. He went home, not ‘he went to home’. ‘To’ is used with ‘house’.

I went to his house.

Go home and bring your books.

Go to his house and bring him here.

With verbs of motion, ‘to’ is not used before ‘home’.

I came home late in the night.

But ‘to’ is used when ‘home’ is preceded by a descriptive phrase.

She moved to her new home yesterday. They went to her brother’s home.”

“Prof. M. Sethuramakumar wants to know whether the sentence ‘Supper is cooking’ is correct.”

“It is correct. Here it means that supper is being cooked.

Rice is cooking.

‘Cooking’ here means ‘undergo the process of being cooked.’ By the way, one who bakes is a baker, one who mends is a mender. One who cooks is not a cooker, but a cook. A cooker is an appliance for cooking. ‘Cooker’ also means ‘type of fruit, especially apple, grown for cooking.’

These are cookers and not apples that are eaten raw.

A cookgeneral is a servant who performs the duties of a cook and housemaid.”

“Ms. Sheila Singh wants to know the difference between ‘inhibit’ and ‘prohibit’.”

“‘Prohibit’ means ‘to forbid, to prevent.’

Parking is prohibited in this area.

An outside authority is implied in ‘prohibit’. ‘Inhibit’ means ‘to prevent a process or an action.’

This medicine will inhibit further spread of the disease.

‘Inhibit’ also means ‘prevent somebody from doing something that should be natural or easy to do.’

She feels very inhibited in the presence of elders.

‘Inhibition’ is a psychological term which means ‘a restraint on the direct expression of an instinct.’ Informally, it is used to mean ‘an emotional resistance to a thought, an action.’

She has inhibitions about speaking in public.”

“Mr. J. L Monteith, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, writes: “Your definition of ‘watershed’ (April 23) is absolutely correct in terms of English as used in Britain and most of the Commonwealth. In American English, however, a watershed is the area that collects rainfall rather than its perimeter, so it is synonymous with ‘catchment’ in British English. For reasons that I have not been able to discover, all Indian scientists and government departments follow the American terminology, described as ‘erroneous’ in Chambers’s Dictionary and deplored by Fowler in Modern English Usage.”

“Thank you for your remarks on ‘watershed.’ It is true that in American English ‘watershed’ means ‘a drainage or catchment area.’ ‘Watershed’ as used in British English is known as ‘waterparting or divide’ in American English.

Published in The Hindu on May 21, 1991.