The Hindu Business Line : Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms

Villain of the week is a reformed form, which we have to come to terms with. It is fresh from the taxman's stable, and in full form, numbered 2F, much like a menacing bus hurtling towards us, a second floor of a metaphorical nowhere, or simply the dreaded `fail' miserably doubled on a grouchy taxpayer's grade sheet.

Sense of behaviour

Yet, for all the bile that 2F has generated, the word form owes its origin to Latin forma meaning `mould, shape, or beauty,' as Encarta explains. "Circa 1225, from Old French forme," informs Online Etymology Dictionary. "Sense of `behaviour' is first recorded circa 1386. The verb is from 1297."

As if to suit our mood, `form' appears after `forlorn' in Concise Oxford English Dictionary. `Pitifully sad and lonely' the salaried are, as you know, seeing the `visible shape or configuration' that has been shot at them by the tax department.

"Style, design, and arrangement in an artistic work as distinct from its content," is form. A piece of art, shall we say, therefore, rather than despising it as an artifice? "Now a time is come to mock at form," is an apt line from King Henry IV.

"Someone who does something true to form behaves the way other people expect them to, based on previous experience," is education from Cambridge Dictionary of American English. "True to form, he tried to get out of his share of the work," reads an example.

Suits, because there are complaints that the new form is trying to get people supply data that the officials in the Tax Department are unable to find. True to their form, perhaps.

Spaces marked on form

Form is "something, usually paper, that has spaces marked where you fill in information," defines http://dictionary.cambridge.org. "Fill out an application form and we will let you know if a job opens up."

The problem, though, with the new tax form is whether after you fill it up, a Pandora's box will be the one that opens up.

Form is "a subdivision within a species or variety," defines Pest Management Glossary. The latest one from the CBDT looks like a virulent one, you'd agree.

Form is a bookbinder's term, remember those who are in a bind, worrying about the form. Form, for sportspersons, is `standard of play based on past performance,' as www.worldgolf.com explains.

But remember that filling up 2F is no child's play. It is `your honour with your form,' as says Menenius in Coriolanus, especially when providing the details about your dependents and `outgoings'.

FORM stands for `Family Occupation Recreation Money,' on www.acronymfinder.com, apart from Feature-Oriented Reuse Method and First Order Reliability Method.

"No form delivers to the heart," rues the Bard in a sonnet, but these days forms are so complex that they don't deliver even to the head.

"Some other horrible form, which might deprive your sovereignty of reason and draw you into madness?" is an appropriate poser from Horatio, in Hamlet. It may help to know that the entry immediately following form, in Dorlands Medical Dictionary, is formaldehyde, something that can kill most bacteria.

What guides the auditor

"Form is usually put in contradistinction to substance," says www.lectlaw.com.

The concept of substance over form is what guides the auditor to consider "whether the financial statements reflect the financial reality of the entity rather than the legal form of the transactions and events which underlie them," explains www.abrema.net. The opposite should be `formalism'; a word, which in art refers to the notion that a work's artistic value, is entirely determined by its form, as www.chicagoschoolmediatheory.net explains.

Each industry has forms to facilitate different functions internally, and often to frighten externally. Thus, www.insweb.com defines form as `an insurance document which, when attached to a policy, makes it complete.' For example, "a Standard Fire policy would have to have a Business Interruption form attached to it."

The next entry in the glossary is `Fortuitous Event,' with a cross-reference to `Accident'. It seems no accident that 2F got thrust on when we were already reeling under a bear hug. Face many forms, such as Canonical Form, Cusp Form, Differential k-Form, Geometric Form, Modular Form, Normal Form, Pfaffian Form, Polynomial Form and Quadratic Form on http://mathworld.wolfram.com.

"A form is a visual `filter' for the underlying data it is presenting, generally offering the advantages of better data organisation and greater ease of viewing," states http://support.microsoft.com.

Form is "a Web page that accepts user input," notes www.netlingo.com. "Once you hit submit, the form is sent to the server, which processes the information and adds you to its database." The new form offers the facility to file electronically, and dangerously, there appears to be no check whether somebody else might `file' your return, showing a higher income!

Tax and form

Tax and form are often considered jarring words, but how does www.essentialsofmusic.com define form? In an entry that appears after `folk rock', form is defined as "the structure or shape of a musical work, based on repetition, contrast and variation." Form is the organising principle in music, it adds. "Binary and ternary are basic forms, while more complex forms include sonata-allegro, rondo, minuet and trio, theme and variations, ritornello, and fugue."

Form is the way-it-is-said, reads a simple explanation on www.poeticbyway.com. The word means "arrangement or method used to convey the content, such as free verse, ballad, haiku, and so on."

Shakespeare sings, "Thy beauty's form in table of my heart." What a heart-rending irony that the form on your table and top of your mind has its origin in beauty! You can't be faulted for remembering from King Henry VIII: "Vicious forms, ten times more ugly." Or, "Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms," from Romeo and Juliet.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

D. Murali

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