The Notice With Two Spellings
You are the secretary of the Literary Club at a HSC school. The club will observe Library Week from 14 to 18 August. You must write a notice for the notice board, not exceeding 50 words, to be issued on 5 August. The facts you have are: the inauguration is at 9:30 a.m. in the assembly hall; the chief guest is the retired librarian, whose name appears as 'Smt. K. Patnaik' on the principal's email but as 'Smt. K. Pattnaik' on the printed invitation; students must register with their class teacher by 12 August; and the club has no budget for decorations, so no decoration details are to be mentioned. The principal says, 'Do not guess a spelling. A notice with a wrong name is worse than a notice without a name.' You have 10 minutes and 5 marks. A classmate drafts: 'Come one, come all! We are celebrating Library Week. The famous retired librarian will inaugurate it. Register fast!'
1. Decide how to handle the chief guest's name in the notice. Give two acceptable options and the reason for rejecting a guess.
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Option 1: verify before writing. Check the printed invitation card or ask the principal's office which spelling is correct. The printed card is not automatically right, but it is a better source than memory; the safest method is to confirm with the person or the office that issued the invitation.
Option 2: omit the name if verification is impossible before the deadline. Write 'the retired librarian' or 'our chief guest' and give the role and time. The notice still informs readers without risking a public error.
Why not guess: the two sources conflict, so neither spelling is self-validating. A notice is a public document; a misspelled name is both a factual error and a discourtesy. The principal's rule is sound: omission is safer than invention.
2. Rewrite the classmate's draft as a 50-word notice that includes the mandatory details and follows the principal's rule. Count the words and explain what you cut.
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Draft:
NOTICE 5 August Library Week will be observed from 14 to 18 August. The inauguration is at 9:30 a.m. in the assembly hall. Students must register with their class teacher by 12 August. Secretary, Literary Club
Word count: 36 words (including 'NOTICE', the date and the signature).
What I cut and why:
- 'Come one, come all!' - informal advertising language, and it uses words without giving information.
- 'famous' - unverifiable and unnecessary.
- 'Register fast!' - vague; the actual deadline and the person to register with are more useful.
- The chief guest's name - omitted because the spelling is unverified. The role could be added only after verification.
3. The classmate says 'Register fast!' is fine because it is short. Evaluate it for register and for the notice's purpose.
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Register: 'Register fast!' belongs to sales or announcement language. A school notice is formal and informative; it should not sound like an advertisement.
Purpose: A notice gives complete information so that readers can act correctly. 'Fast' creates urgency but does not tell students where or by when to register. The deadline 'by 12 August' and the instruction 'with their class teacher' do that job. Shortness is not a virtue if it removes the information the reader needs.
Better: 'Students must register with their class teacher by 12 August.' It is formal, complete and no longer than necessary.