എത്രാമത്തെയുടെ ഇംഗ്ലിഷ് ...

Sir,

      I am a teacher of English in a Secondary School in Kerala, India.I am haunted by my students' question as how to frame a question so as to get the italicized word as answer in the following statement. " Jawaharlal Nehru is the first  Prime Minister of India".

                                                                                                  

                                               I would be much obliged if you could kindly help me frame a question in this regard.

Thanking you
Sijumon Devasia / Joby Joseph
H.S.A. English
St. Mary's H.S.
Mankulam Idukki

Dear Joby & Siju,

It is interesting how much we get asked this question! However, unlike in many Indian dialects, it is not possible to ask a question where you would get the first as an answer, unless you asked ‘what number Prime Minister is Nehru?’ which is not good English. Instead, we would probably ask ‘have there been any Prime Ministers before Nehru?’, to which the answer would be ‘no, he is the first’. Or, we would ask ‘is Nehru the first or second (third/fourth etc) Prime Minister?’, to which the answer would be ‘he is the first’.

Yours sincerely,

Aileen Thomson
English Faculty Office <english.office@ell.ox.ac.uk>
Oxford University