Steta Publishers
  • Home
  • About
  • Work
  • Twitbits
  • Blog
Steta Publishers was a writing and brand language consultancy that ran from 2012 to 2016. We are no longer available for projects. Our founders now work here and here. 

How should we address people?

27/10/2014

0 Comments

 
When was the last time you addressed someone as “sir” or “madam” at your workplace? Chances are pretty remote if you work in one of those MNCs. I found it extremely disconcerting when I first entered the corporate world and had to address a senior person (senior in age and position) by first name. This same senior person told me, “Here, everyone is called by first name - right till the CEO level”. I shook my head and did not know where to look. I found respite in the contours of my sandals. Earlier, I had worked in a small organization where addressing people as sir or madam was rather common. This move to the ‘proper’ corporate world was therefore something of a culture shock.

I remember my father’s phone conversations.  They were less conversation and filled with “Good Morning, sir”…“Yes, sir” … “Sure, sir” …. “No, sir” and “Right, sir”.  Whether it was someone from the office or a friend, I could never tell the difference.  I had sort of assumed that that’s the way things are. The social context and the official context were therefore rather blurred.

In the social context, an elderly lady in the neighborhood is always addressed as ‘akka’ or ‘didi’.  A more senior lady is safely addressed as ‘amma’ and a senior gentleman is ‘thata’. Here in Andhra Pradesh and in Telangana, there is the gender neutral “gaaru” that comes in handy in a slightly more formal context. So it can be, “Lakshmi gaaru, how are you?” and also, “Good morning, Lakshman gaaru.” We use the term ‘gaaru’ when we want to give the person some added respect while addressing them. In much of the northern parts of the country the ‘ji’ is equivalent to the ‘gaaru’. So it is, ‘Sharma ji’ or ‘Mathur ji’. The ubiquitous  ‘aunty’ and ‘uncle’ are always there in our Indian context – right from the vegetable vendor to the milk man. And more interestingly, the unique, ‘aunty ji’ and ‘uncle ji’. I wonder how an Englishman reacts to that! Did he hyperventilate on arrival to our shores? And there’s the unique twist of ‘madam ji’ and ‘sir ji’ to add to the heady mix by which we address people around us. I am pretty convinced that an Englishman would faint when he heard that for the first time. Then there’s always the kirana shop ‘bhaiyyas’ or the really young guys at tea stalls and cafes whom we address as ‘Chotu’. Usually, guards and gatekeepers, especially from Nepal are ‘Bahadur bhaiyya’ or simply ‘Bahadur’.

It is an interesting mixture of do’s and don’ts in the official context – one is advised to judge the context and make those subtle modifications to speech and writing. It can be rather jarring for a senior person from a more conservative organization who is used to being called ‘madam’ or ‘sir’ to be suddenly addressed by younger person as say, ‘Hey Uma’ or ‘Hi Ramesh’.  What is worse, you could be branded as rude, discourteous, headstrong, ill-mannered, extra-smart, or an upstart. One has to just quickly judge the culture of an organization and adapt. At a meeting with a potential corporate client recently, I realized as I walked into the office, that this is a place where people would like to be ‘sir’ed and ‘madam’ed’ and I was right. It was just the set-up of the office and the body language of the people that can give clues that you have to latch on to. Hopefully, we will get the project in hand. I did at least one thing right!

Urmilla Chandran
0 Comments

Working on an Art Book Part III – Writing The Book

8/10/2014

0 Comments

 
Previously, we talked about interviewing Himmat and crafting the content strategy. Here, we will share some thoughts on the actual writing process.

After you’ve created a piece of text, you’ve got to spend hours polishing it to perfection. It’s very helpful if someone else – ideally, a professional editor – does a thorough comb through it. Editors look at the overall flow and narrative of the text, and they also proofread.

Longer pieces of text need great attention spans. In this case we found that we had repeated certain ideas more than once across the text. This happens when you’re trying to make connections between the different aspects of a person’s life. But it’s annoying for a reader to get that ‘Didn’t I just read this somewhere?’ feeling. As with any piece of writing, a fresh pair of eyes notices a whole lot of new things.

Most text goes through several drafts before it is good enough to be shown to the world at large. Besides the crucial aspects of grammar, spelling, tense, consistency and so on, there are other more ambiguous issues at work, such as choice of words, active/passive voice, writing style, and sentence length and construction. Here are a few examples of things we mulled over.

High relief: Is it hyphenated or not? Since it was the title of the book, we had better be really sure!

Are walls ‘built’, ‘created’, or ‘constructed’? Since these were unique walls of art, we often used ‘created’.

An artist can conceptualise, imagine, dream, create, build, work, draw, paint and sculpt. Consider which is the most appropriate word for the context.

Each of the three high relief walls had a specific construction process. We had to understand this process in detail, and explain it to a reader. Technical processes have specific words that should not be replaced. For instance, cement is ‘cured’, bricks are ‘laid’, and wood is ‘seasoned’. A wall needs ‘reinforcement’ (not support).

The Acknowledgement section of the book looked deceptively simple to write. In fact, we agonized over it again and again. There is always the very real fear of leaving someone out. Then one has to consider the order in which to thank people. The main challenge is to make sure the acknowledgement is genuinely grateful, and not seemingly routine in any manner.

Though captions are just little sentences under images, they are very important. The caption has to make sense of the image. Vague captions are meaningless and useless. If a caption turns into a paragraph, it probably needs to move into the text itself.

There are countless issues when it comes to writing, but not to worry, we won’t go into all of them here! I can’t leave without saying one last thing. There is a certain thrill to see one’s writing in print. And when it is a book of this nature, the thrill is just so special. 

Armeen Kapadia
0 Comments

    Authors

    Steta's founders, Urmilla Chandran and Armeen Kapadia author this blog. 

    We love letting our thoughts (crazy, stupid or smart) out for some fresh air.


    Archives

    October 2016
    May 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012


    Categories

    All
    Awards
    Blogging
    Books
    Bookstore
    Business Writing
    Classical
    Content
    Corporate
    Culture
    Design
    Dictionary
    Editing
    Grammar
    Help Authoring Tools
    Image
    Language
    Life
    Literature
    Media
    News
    Newspaper
    Personal
    Press
    Printing
    Problem
    Professional
    Punctuation
    Reading
    Retrospective
    Review
    Solution
    Story
    Technical Writing
    Technology
    Thesaurus
    Tools
    Typewriter
    Vocabulary
    Writers
    Writing


Home

Work
Blog
About


Copyright © Steta Publishers 2012–16. All rights reserved.