Posts
Indianisms – New and Old
By Gopinath
Mavinkurve
Twitter Handle: @gopinathmm
If there is one word I use at
times, not knowing that purists of the English language may consider it incorrect, it is this: “Preponed”. If pushing the date of an event or
appointment is postponed, why pulling one to an earlier date would not be ‘preponed’,
one may argue? The fact remains that
“prepone” is a classic example of what is now being termed “Indianism” in English - an Indian way of communication in the English language, albeit
incorrect in the global perspective. The correct word apparently
is ‘advanced”. There are many incorrect
words or phrases doing the rounds in our enchanting land where a “cutting tea” means half a cup of the
stimulating brew and not tea produced using ‘cutting-edge’ technology by folks
who may ask you for your “good name”!
“What’s your good name?” perhaps
owes its popularity in the North, where one seeks to know your “Shubh Naam”, nothing
less. Thinking in our local languages
and translating it into English is perhaps one of the several reasons for most
of the Indianisms. Seeming to be just
fine to most of us, is perhaps what makes the wrong usage of English words or
phrases qualify to being termed as ‘Indianisms’.
“Revert to me at the
earliest on this subject” is just another common phrase that seems to be a
popular Indian request in emails signoffs.
Language connoisseurs would point out that “Reverting” means “returning
to a former state” and perhaps that is not what one is requesting in the
communication. “Reply to me…” might be the right thing to say, but hey, we’re
Indians aren’t we? And if you’re not,
revert to me please – or better still,
revert back to me please! We love to add
‘back’, when it is just not necessary.
“Reply back” we say right in front of people – and what we say “behind their
backside” could be as hilarious!
So then it is time to act upon
this and “do the needful”, when what we mean is “do what is needed”. But what’s
wrong with doing the needful, we ask. We
can “Order for a Sandwich” when we need to just “Order a Sandwich”; we
happen to “Discuss about corruption”
when we ought to just “Discuss corruption”, because ‘discuss’ means ‘talk
about’, doesn’t it? In a country where
PAN is PAN Number, it ought to be perfectly fine.
We insist on someone being our “real
brother” to stress that he is not a “cousin
brother”. Elsewhere ‘brother’ and
‘cousin’ would do just fine. Not in our
land, where we have coined the word “Co-brother”,
which happens to be just two unrelated gentlemen married to sisters. Real sisters, of course! But just in case the
alliance is yet to happen, one could be a “would-be
co-brother”, perhaps?! But at the
marriage ceremony, one is certain to have a “photo-take-outing session” with the real and not-so-real brothers
and sisters. We are also said to be “out of station”, but we’re never out
of ideas for newer and funnier Indianisms. For us, ‘sleep
comes’, ‘rain falls’ ‘problem-became’ and ‘what-all happens’ you’ll never imagine!
I could come up with many more
Indianisms if I ‘think hardly’. What
I am ‘sure about’, though is that this trend has begun many “years back” – not “years ago” as it
ought to. One never realized when even
the press reporters seem to be ok with ‘years back’ these days. Gone are the days when a stickler of a
teacher would correct us saying sternly, “‘Ago’ NOT ‘Back’.”, I guess.
Several years ‘back’…er… ago, when I was just
a child in early school, I seriously believed that the word “Zaa” existed in the English language.
I had learnt it from my teacher only,
No? “2, 2, ZAA 4 | 2, 3, ZAA 6|…..” . That’s how the mathematical tables went... So one was not surprised with the Bollywood
song “One Two Kaa Four” - just
another mathematical expression perhaps ‘KAA’ was just a higher multiplier at
play, one thought? Until later in life,
one learnt with shock, that what teacher taught us was “2 2s are 4/ 2 3s are 6”..! Schooling for us was more about “learning
by-heart” or in some parts of our country, “by-hearting” – an expression better
understood by the rest of the world by the expression “learning by rote”.
In India, where “anything
goes” [Sab chalta hai], we keep seeing
such Indianisms around us “with our own
eyes” and listen “with our own ears”, so if you do come across any interesting
ones going around, please write in to me at my email id “today only”, “without fail”. But if I don’t revert to you, don’t “eat my
head”! By the way, Fun came, no?
© Gopinath Mavinkurve 2014
