Save the whales... and Opal Mehta

The whole controversy around Kavya V and Opal Mehta which has been spreading through the blogosphere like a bad case of dysentery: leads one to ask - what exactly is plagiarism?

I used to read a lot of Enid Blyton back in the days when I had a waist: I used to really like the stuff. Maybe it was the subtly colonial, Rule Brittannia-esque undertones, or just the fact that you could go through reams on the Famous five without any mention of the fact that George was actually a girl and therefore might have breasts?

Maybe some of that comes out in what I write - the stuff that isn't mindless bilge, that is. Most of it is probably unconscious ... but could the critics care less? No.

A small example - and I'm not looking to stir up a controversy here: consider the following line from one of Kingsley Amis' works: ."His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum."

Then consider the following line from a novel (#1 bestseller back when it was published) by one of the most successful authors in recent times (sorry - no names): " His mouth felt like it had been used by a baby dragon as a potty chair."

Sound familiar? Is that plagiarism? This might be construed as a case of accidental plagiarism, ie "using the source too closely when paraphrasing." Chances are, the author of the second piece read Amis when HE had a waist (if he has similar eating habits to mine, that would be around 10), and it stuck somewhere in the recesses of his mind. So - does that take anything away from someone who has churned out more bestsellers (not to mention the movie adaptations) that anyone in recent times? My guess? - NO. But the owlish critics obviously have a different take on things.

Critics be damned. Let's remember that there is a subtle distinction between 'Freedom-to' and 'Freedom-from.' In laying down the ground rules for plagiarism, let's not blur that divide. Before we know it, there'll be a mad rush to copyright words like arse, paycheck and pepperoni. And then where would we be?