by F R Chowdhury
The history of development of 4-wheel vehicle is not very clear, perhaps by Porsche of Germany during the First World War. However the “jeep” was developed by American Bantam and mass produced by Willys during the Second World War. Kaiser Jeep, the successor of Willys was eventually purchased by the American Motor Corporation (AMC) who developed a fully reliable technology of four-wheel drive. It was basically developed for military use so that even if one or two wheels are stuck in the mud or sand, the motive force available on other wheels can bring the vehicle out and moving again. They registered their version of four-wheel drive as “Jeep”. At a later stage, the Chrysler Corporation purchased the business losing concern AMC with all its name, fame and trade-marks. Chrysler still manufactures jeeps.
Jeep is a trade name and no other automobile manufacturer can call their vehicles by that name. Many other automobile manufacturers have developed their own versions of similar technology but have given different brand names. British Land Rovers (now owned by Tata Motors of India) also produce excellent four-wheel drive vehicles and call them Land Rover and Range rover, the latter being the luxury version. Toyota produces similar vehicles and refers to them by their own brand names Land Cruiser and Rav4; Nissan call theirs as Patrol and X-trail. Mitsubishi makes these jeep-like vehicles and refer to them as Pajero and Shogun. The industry has found a common name for this category of vehicles and that is SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle). German manufacturers Mercedes, Volks-Wagen, Audi and Porsche also make SUVs. But none of them can be referred to as jeep except those manufactured by Chrysler.
I do not know why in Bangladesh people refer to all 4-wheel drive SUVs as Jeep irrespective of their origin. Even educated people and government officials make the same mistake. I understand that even government printed forms have the word “jeep” printed as a category of vehicle (instead of 4-wheel drive or SUV). Only the other day I saw in the TV screen one police official was explaining to journalists that the muggers ran away in a Toyota jeep. I have been watching this for many years and finally decided to write about it. In a country with such good percentage of education, time has come that we get to know about it and refrain from saying the wrong thing.
Similar misconception has been noticed in respect of motor-bike or motor-cycle. The bulk of motor-bikes we see in Bangladesh are manufactured by Honda. But there are other manufacturers like Yamaha, Suzuki, Triumph and Kawasaki. They all go by their own names. It is not appropriate to add the word Honda after their name because “Honda” is not a generic name. It is a brand name and a trade mark.
Another common mistake that I have come across frequently. Our newspapers often bring news item such as “the passenger launch hit a cargo and capsized”. It is wrong because the launch could not have collided with floating cargo. It must have collided with a cargo ship or cargo vessel or a cargo barge. Cargo means the commodity carried on board for transportation. Cargo could not have been floating on its own.
I shall now discuss about death or injury caused to passengers travelling on any type of water borne vehicle other than a licensed/ certified passenger vessel. There is a common tendency to refer to all of them as trawlers. This is wrong. Trawler is a specially designed and equipped boat/ craft that drag its trawl over a large area. Bangladesh does not have many trawlers. I am not denying the fact that some trawlers may engage in such unlawful carriage of passengers but most of these boats are mere power driven boats or ordinary fishing boats. I shall request the journalist community to find more about each and every incident and then report them correctly.
I shall discuss about another common misconception in Bangladesh which sometime may give rise to embarrassing situation. One time during my trip to Bangladesh I was staying in a 4-star hotel. In the morning breakfast table I ordered for pouched eggs and what I got was fried eggs. When I asked the waiter about it, he repeatedly kept on explaining me that they only used pure butter. Finally after lot of difficulty I explained him that they should not use oil or butter as pouched eggs are prepared on hot water and then removed from water when it is sufficiently solidified.
Finally, I shall talk about something interesting. A marine officer came to UK for competency examination. He telephoned MCA (Maritime & Coastguard Agency) and the examination clerk asked for his Christian name. He immediately replied that He was not a Christian and that he was a Muslim from Bangladesh. The clerk passed the call to me and I recognized the problem. In the Western world a person’s name normally comprise of two parts. The first part is referred to as First name or Given name or Christian name. One does not have to be a Christian. It only indicates the name given at the time of christening (naming) ceremony. The second part of the name is normally known as Surname or Family name or last name. This part of the name is the one inherited from father/ family. In Britain we address someone as Mr. Surname/ family name unless within friends and colleagues he will be simply called by his first name. Calling somebody by first name carries a sense of intimacy. We will normally not address someone with his first name and also use prefix mister.
Before I close this article I shall request everyone staying in Dhaka to kindly write their phone number as +880-2-123 4567 and not as +88-02-123 4567. The country code of Bangladesh is 880 and not 88. If you give the wrong number you may never receive a call.
<fazlu.chowdhury@btinternet.com>
