Oxford Press apologizes for howlers in dictionary, suspends its sale

Apologizing for its faux pas, the Oxford University Press (OUP) suspended the sale of its latest edition of Concise Dictionary of World Place Names, which had raised the hackles of historians in Karnataka and the State Government over erroneous references to Bangalore.

“We have frozen the stock of the book and stopped selling the same from our warehouses, and will be pulping the remaining copies. We sincerely apologize for the offence that this error has caused and we would like to assure all concerned that we will be putting this right as a matter of extreme urgency”, the publishers said in a statement.

The apology from Oxford University Press came within hours after an angry Karnataka Government wrote to the publishers, taking serious exception to the howlers in the dictionary’s 2005 edition.

The dictionary, edited by John Everett Heath, had referred to Bangalore as a City as a land of people speaking Bengali, who derived the name from a local chief called Banga. In fact, Bengali is spoken in Bangladesh and West Bengal, while Kannada happens to be the principal language of Karnataka of which Bangalore is the capital. A chronological error had also crept into the venerable dictionary, which had erroneously identified Kempe Gowda, who founded Bangalore, with the Hoysala dynasty.

The glaring errors in the dictionary did not leave Karnataka’s historians and the State Government amused. “We cannot tolerate the scant respect for Karnataka’s history. We had written a letter to them asking them to rectify the mistake and to withdraw the copies carrying wrong information”, said Secretary to Karnataka Government’s Department of Kannada and Culture I M Vittal Murthy.

After apologizing and withdrawing the dictionary, Oxford University Press has scheduled a meeting with officials from the Department of Kannada and Culture in Bangalore. During the meeting, Murthy said, the Government will give the corrections that have to be carried out. “The Government is also interested in knowing their (OUP’s) next course of action”, he said.

It has also been reliably learnt that Governor of Karnataka T N Chaturvedi had spotted the errors much before it was reported in the local media. The Government had sent a letter, dated May 11, to the State Government on the matter and expressed his strong displeasure at the errors in the dictionary. The letter addressed to the Chief Secretary P B Mahishi had urged the Government to take immediate steps to rectify the mistake.

Meanwhile, a host of Kannada organizations in Bangalore, including Kannada Gelayara Balaga, KSRTC Kannada Kriya Samithi and Kannada Jana Shakti have threatened to stage a protest in front of the local office of Oxford Press Union on Monday and burn copies of the dictionary.