Ravi Mohan's Blog

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Indian "Journalists" strike again

SmartTechie (what a horrible name for a magazine !! ) has an article purportedly written by Roy Singham, CEO of Thoughtworks. Having worked at Thoughtworks and having met and interacted with Roy, I am very skeptical about the attributed authorship. The article has many examples of "Indian English" and is very tortured writing to boot. Roy is a very articulate speaker and writer and speaks perfect "American". So if you read the article and go "WTF?!!" do keep in mind that the writer is probably some Indian hack pretending to be Roy

Here is a sample " To over take other automobile companies and to reach at the helm, Toyota had devised a comprehensive action plan which included the Toyota Production System. " .

"reach at the helm"? WTF? You expect me to believe Roy writes or speaks like that?

I can only conclude that some half baked journalist essentially made up the article and attributed it to Roy.

Thoughtworks is an excellent company, with many world class writers in its ranks and this kind of ghostwriting goes against everything Thoughtworks stands for. And if the editors at the magazine must have someone pretending to be Roy, they magazine ought to get someone who understands how to write English well.

It amazes me that people whose profession is all about writing well don't know the rudiments of the language in which they write.

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