Avoid these Indianisms

As it is very difficult to master the native idioms of a language, Indian users of English find it hard to escape typical Indianisms. A number of Indianisms have crept into the language unaware. It would be well to be on our guard against such abusage.

For example, the word ‘foolscap’ (size of writing or printing paper, usually 17 inches x 13.1/2 inches. unfolded) is generally written or spoken as ‘fullscape’. Another word is ‘firstly’ which is wrongly used for ‘first’. The sentence “You are dishonest, secondly you are a shirker” is wrong. The correct usage is “First you are dishonest, secondly you are a shirker”.

There are other Indianisms like ‘above’ used for ‘foregoing’ or ‘preceding’. The sentence “The above remarks apply all students” should be correctly written as “The preceding remarks (or the remarks above) apply to all students”. It must be remembered that “above is not an adjective.

Likewise, a typical Indianism is the use of ‘family members’ for the ‘member of the family’. It is also wrong to say ‘Senate members’, ‘Council members’, and ‘Parliament members’. Instead, use ‘members of the Senate’, ‘members of the Council’, ‘members of parliament’.

The expression “The thing is this” should be replaced by “the point” is ‘or “the fact” is ‘or’, as “a matter of fact”, etc.

Similarly ‘what to speak of’ is commonly used by Indians in place of ‘not to mention ‘or ‘not to speak of’.

The sentence ‘what to speak of fruit and vegetables, I have no bread even’ must be correctly written as “Not to speak of fruit and vegetables, I have no bread even”.

Words like ‘moneybag’, ‘bed sheet’ and ‘foot path’ are peculiar instances of translation of vernacular terms into English. A native speaker of English would simply say ‘purse’, ‘sheet’ and ‘pavement’ for these words.

 The expression ‘keeping good health’ is not good English. Instead of saying ‘I hope you are keeping good health’ we should say “I hope you are well or keeping fit”. ‘Comparatively ‘better’ should be correctly used as ‘comparatively good’ or only ‘better’. A sentence like “You are kindly requested to help me” can mean only that the request is kindly made by the person who made it, but he probably meant “Will you be kind enough to help me?” It will be seen that the speaker attributes to himself the kindness he intends to attribute to the listener.