When a grammar Nazi poses as adman

On a new Insta account, creative director Sumanto Chattopadhyay offers grammar lessons as The English Nut, 'because English is nuts and I'm nuts about English'

At the end of our conversation, this writer mispronounces 'desert', and creative director Sumanto Chattopadhyay, a habitual proof-reader, immediately says, "That's a sweet dish." I tell him I made the mistake just knowing I was talking to the grammar police, and he consoles me with, "It's like when you're on a cycle and you see a pothole. You're so nervous that you go right into it."

Chattopadhyay has been an Ogilvy man for 25 years and is the in-house expert on grammar. "If there's something in English, even Piyush [Pandey] will check with me or send it to me to correct." Today, he's the chairman and CCO of 82.5 Communications, a sister concern. As a side hustle, he also runs The English Nut on Instagram, clarifying common mistakes Indians make in English. With a combination of videos and image tutorials, he shows how to say dengue (cut the goo), explains the difference between asterisk and Asterix, and spells out the existential crisis of 'preponed'. "The stuff that I'm [uploading] is not for people who don't know English. It's for people like you and me, who don't realise the mistakes we make. For example, 'I don't think so you are right,' the 'so' should not be there. I have a colleague, VR Rajesh, who makes all the typical mispronunciations. I tell him, 'You're my inspiration.'"

Chattopadhyay, born in Wales, UK, had a dispersed education, thanks to his father, a pioneer in the subject of organisational behaviour, who took up teaching positions across the world, including IIM Calcutta. He has studied in the UK, Tanzania, India, the US, Spain and Canada. "When I was six, we moved to Manchester. I was literally learning C-A-T-cat, B-A-T-bat in my school in Kolkata, and then I was suddenly put in this school in England. The first few weeks, I just sat staring. And then one fine day, I started talking. I sound like I'm showing off, but I would finish [reading my books] and go on to the next level, till finally my teacher told my mother that there is no level after this. If you talk about English and starting out in English, that's how it happened to me." His parents and two elder brothers are academics, and he says, "Teaching comes naturally to me. There's serious pressure on me to get a PhD, which is a very bhadralok trait."

As a copywriter, Chattopadhyay has had a hand in creating some of India's most recognisable brands, most notably from Unilever, and yet, the usage of English remains a pet peeve. "India has the second largest number of English speakers. But, of course, our English is not the Queen's English. It is its own kind. I've worked on a lot of beauty brands, and people write the word 'mnemonic' as 'pneumonic'. I have seen it in official mails, not only from the agency's side, but the clients' as well. It really gets my goat. Another thing colleagues say, 'Do one thing.' That's directly translated from Hindi: 'Ek kaam karna.' But in English, it sounds strange. People say, 'I got stuck up in traffic.' So, were you being really snooty in the traffic jam?"

While he sounds quite snooty himself, he freely admits that the account has taught an old dog new tricks. "I'm really, what you would call, a digital dinosaur. I created my LinkedIn account a month ago. Today, advertising has completely shifted to the digital space. So, we're coming up with ideas for digital, but somewhere it remains theoretic. After I started my social media channels, I suddenly understood the nuts and bolts of it. The first time I uploaded a video, [I learnt that] you need to use the AI function on Facebook and YouTube to create captions, because most people are watching on mute. It's a huge learning experience. Apart from the fact that it combines three passions of mine, it's also giving me dividends in terms of my work."

Like ideas for his clients, Chattopadhyay will never run out of material for the page. In the course of our hour-long chat, he also schools me on how to say 'praline' and 'baobabs'. "Every time the rest of us say incorrect things," I start, he finishes my sentence, "I say, 'Aha.'"

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