Corrigendum की भाषा: चार अशुद्धियाँ, एक 90-शब्द की सीमा
You are the public relations officer of a state water board serving 42,000 consumers across four zones. A corrigendum to the supply schedule takes effect on 15 June, and the board's Hindi cell has capped the printed notice at 90 words. The chairman's office returns your draft with a two-line note: भाषा अशुद्ध है, अर्थ अस्पष्ट है - सुधार कर पुनः भेजें. The draft reads: सूचित किया जाता है कि जल आपूर्ति दिनांक 15 जून से प्रातः 6 बजे से 9 बजे तक उपलब्ध रहेंगी। जिन उपभोक्ताओं ने बिल जमा नहीं किया है, वह 20 जून तक जमा करें। कृपया इस निर्देश का पालन करना चाहिए। The legal adviser insists the notice must stay enforceable if a disconnection is challenged; the consumer cell insists it must not read as a threat; and the local press will carry the Hindi text verbatim. You have one revision cycle before the 15 June print deadline.
1. Diagnose every grammatical and register fault in the draft, naming the rule violated and the minimal correction for each.
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Four visible faults, each caught by a named rule:
- रहेंगी → रहेगी. आपूर्ति is feminine singular. The -ेंगी ending is plural/honorific and honorific plural is not available for inanimate nouns; a plural subject (आपूर्तियाँ) would be needed to license it.
- 15 जून से प्रातः 6 बजे से 9 बजे तक uses the से...तक pair on two different axes at once (calendar date and clock hour), so the reader cannot decide whether 15 June is a start date or the only date. Fix by separating the axes: 15 जून से प्रतिदिन प्रातः 6 से 9 बजे तक.
- जिन ... वह breaks the correlative pair. जिन उपभोक्ताओं is plural, so the main clause requires वे; वह points to one person and leaves the reference dangling, which in a legal notice is an ambiguity, not a style slip.
- कृपया ... पालन करना चाहिए fuses a request marker with an obligation marker. कृपया पालन करें and पालन करना चाहिए are two registers; keeping both gives neither politeness nor enforceability.
Two silent faults matter as much: there is no consequence clause (what happens after 20 June) and no issuing authority named, so the notice is neither enforceable nor attributable if challenged.
2. Recast the notice within 90 words so that it is polite but still enforceable, and defend two choices where a purist option competes with a consumer-friendly one.
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A defensible version, 62 words:
सूचित किया जाता है कि दिनांक 15 जून से प्रतिदिन प्रातः 6 से 9 बजे तक जल आपूर्ति उपलब्ध रहेगी। जिन उपभोक्ताओं ने बिल जमा नहीं किया है, वे 20 जून तक बिल जमा करें। निर्धारित तिथि के बाद बकाया पर विलंब शुल्क लागू होगा तथा संबंध विच्छेद की कार्रवाई की जा सकेगी। कृपया सहयोग दें।
Two contested choices, with reasoning:
- बिल vs देयक. देयक is the purist term and belongs in a demand notice served on one party. Here 42,000 readers must recognise the object in a single pass, so बिल stays; the legal weight is carried by विलंब शुल्क and संबंध विच्छेद, not by the noun. Substituting देयक raises the reading level without adding enforceability.
- करें vs चाहिए. The closing कृपया सहयोग दें keeps the courteous register, while the enforceable content is stated impersonally (लागू होगा, की जा सकेगी). Placing चाहिए next to कृपया would recreate the very clash the chairman flagged, because a request and a penalty cannot share one verb.
The notice now has exactly one announcement sentence and one consequence sentence, which is also why it fits the 90-word cap.
3. The chairman wants the opening changed to आम जनता को सूचित किया जाता है and wants the disconnection warning placed in the same sentence as कृपया. Advise him.
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Take the two suggestions separately, because they are not equally sound.
Opening. आम जनता को सूचित किया जाता है कि is grammatical but adds a receiver to a passive that deliberately has none. A notice displayed by the board is already addressed to the public; naming आम जनता makes the sentence longer inside a 90-word cap and implies some other audience exists. If he insists, make it the only opening formula and delete the redundant सूचित later, then cut कृपया सहयोग दें to stay within the cap.
Warning. Refuse the fusion. कृपया कनेक्शन काटा जाएगा reproduces the fault कृपया ... चाहिए: a request marker governing a penal act. Split it: the request closes the notice (कृपया सहयोग दें), the consequence is stated as an impersonal rule (संबंध विच्छेद की कार्रवाई की जा सकेगी). की जा सकेगी also preserves discretion, which the legal adviser needs, whereas काटा जाएगा promises an automatic act the board may not perform in every case.
So: keep the standard impersonal opening, and separate request from penalty - that pairing satisfies both the consumer cell and the legal adviser.