Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 2. On His Own and Others’ Poetry
Section 3. Practical Guidance for Aspiring Writers
Remarks on Bengali Usage

Laws and Caprices of Usage [1]

It is not very clear why the dictum about বত্সর [batsara] should not apply to হৃত্পাত্রে [hṛtpātre] and মৃত্পাত্রে [mṛtpātre]. My own feeling is against this extra syllable in such words (দিক্ প্রান্তে [dikprānte] seems to me different, because (দিক্ [dik] is a separate word in Bengali), but neither feeling nor logic can stand against usage. A language is like an absolute queen; you have to obey her laws, reasonable or unreasonable, and not only her laws, but her caprices — so long as they last,— unless you are one of her acknowledged favourites and then you can make hay of her laws and (sometimes) defy even her caprices provided you are quite sure of the favour. In this case, Tagore perhaps feels the absoluteness of some usage with regard to these particular words? But one can always break through law and usage and even pass over the judgment of an “arbiter of elegances”,— at one’s own risk.

26 January 1932