Clarifying ambiguity

May I comment on D. Chandramouli's letter of March 6, 2003? The problem may be one of misunderstanding the English.

Nehra gives England six of the best actually does not imply that Nehra did England any favor whatsoever! Any educated (British) native speaker knows that "six of the best" is an old English public school term for "six strokes of the cane" (applied by old headmasters to the bottoms of naughty schoolboys). I say "old" because corporal punishment is of course now banned in British schools. Obviously, the expression does not slight India, or its cricketers, but means that Nehra punished England by meting out defeat.

The second problem We are shattered, Waqar admits after India defeat is a different sort of problem. The sentence can only make sense if you know both who Waqar is and the result of the game. Presumably he is a player, but which side does he play for? Shattered and admits clearly tell us that Waqar lost the game, but the word India here is ambiguous if you don't know who Waqar plays for.

One of my pet hates of The Jakarta Post is its practice of using the names of countries instead of the adjectival forms. I know it is done to save space, but it is very poor English and does lead to problems. Here is an example of that. If the sentence had said "defeat by India", or alternatively "Indian defeat", it would have been clear and would indeed have itself told us who won the match without knowing who Waqar is.

I hope I have clarified the matter to Chandramouli's and others' satisfaction.

ROD LIVESEY, Tangerang, Banten