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Showing posts with label Indianisms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indianisms. Show all posts

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Babu English, anyone?

Look what I found in my e-mail archives recently:

------- Forwarded message ----------
From:
                                                       @gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 24
             at 1:11 PM
Subject:
To: admissions@commits.edu.in

Respected Sir,

I have the honour to invite your kind attention to the submission of mine for favour of your kind perusal and necessary action. This is no doubt quite un-called-for and I am fully concious that I am intruding upon your much valuable time and patience too, requesting you to go through the following ,but my only excuse is that neccessity knows no law::

That Sir, I have applied for admission in your August institution for Masters in Marketing and Management communication which is a two years course.

That Sir, the date of entrance examination has been fixed on          &             as I have informed.

That Sir, on                     I got an appointment with my attending physician and I have to undergo some specific test which may take at least ten days time.

That Sir, in view of the above, as I am very much interested to be a student of Commits,Banglore and consider it as my honour, I appeal to your kind honour to allow me a different date either prior to                 or after                  which can only meet my dream.

I hope my August Authority will favour me with the appeal.

Faithfully Yours,

                                     ,


                                                            college,


Tel:                                                 

*
POST-SCRIPT:
WHOSE FAULT IS IT? Why do so many people, especially youngsters, write in this fashion? Is it their fault entirely? No, the real culprit is our education system. Read my post on the subject here.


Thursday, June 16, 2011

Are you guilty of using these Indianisms?

1. 'Passing out'
2. 'Kindly revert'
3. 'Years back'
4. 'Doing the needful'
5. 'Discuss about'
6. 'Order for'
7. 'Do one thing'
8. 'Out of station'
9. 'Sleep is coming'
10. 'Prepone'

Okay, not all 10 are a problem 'prepone' was included in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary last year, for instance. But the other nine phrases are used often in our everyday conversation (if not in our writing) without our realising that they sound bizarre to native speakers of English.

And what's so wrong about using these Indianisms? Daniel D'Mello explains in an entertaining post on the CNN-Go website: '10 classic Indianisms'.

After you're done reading and discussing about the post, you'll know when to do the needful. So kindly revert at the earliest. Unless, of course, you're out of station. In which case, it just may be a case of "sleep is coming". In other words, you have probably passed out. Capiche?

Also read:
My thanks to Pallabi Mitra (Class of 2012) and Sanchari Sinha (Class of 2011) for alerting me to Daniel D'Mello's post. 

  • Commits alumnus SHIVRAM SUJIR (Class of 2011) came up with a clever riposte in his comment on Facebook about this post: 
Two years back when we joined we had no idea we would pass out so soon. Though some of us had to go out of station immediately after exams, we ordered for a pizza and then discussed about how fast the year went. The juniors' exams were preponed but they did the needful by giving us a farewell treat. Could you do one thing for me sir? Please revert if there are any Indianisms in my English. ;)

Also read: "10 English phrases that make perfect sense to Indians" (including "only", "but", and "felicitate")