Indian English

This idea for this post/rant came from HawkEye's inspired post on the latest Indian fad of saying 'Pls revert back to me if there are any questions', and that too in official mails. My initial reaction upon receiving an email with the 'revert' clause was much the same. Gawd knows who began this nonsense.

Some other typical Indian English, or Indian-isms, if you please!!

• Say me, no !! This roughly means, "please tell me".
• He is knowing the answer, ma'am. This usage of the present continuous is one I find most irrittating, personally.
  
• Convey her my greetings. Wrong, but acceptable.
• She is my cousin-sister. Now, what the heck is a cousin-sister? Does this expression pass on the message that the cousin is especially close, or that the cousin is of female gender, or both - would somebody please tell me this ?
• This is my co-brother. AAAAGHHHH !!
• She is carrying. A bag of potatoes?
  
• My son got cent percent in English. Talk of irony.
• Country-Fellow !! Unforgiveable abuse !!
• This is my would-be. I hate this usage too. Would-be what, for chrissakes ?
• Off the light, no. Reminds me of the Queen in 'Alice in Wonderland' everytime, somehow !

I am sure you can think of plenty more. Of course, there are valid reasons for the origin of these expressions in the first place. In many of our schools, English is taught only from the IIIrd of IVth standard, which essentially means that the student is already rooted in the grammar of his or her regional language. Faced with a new language obeying an entirely different set of rules, the student opts for the easy way out - compose the sentence in the language (s)he knows, and then translate. I'd guess 'country-fellow' and 'off the light' (and many more expressions) originated this way. Doesn't explain 'revert' though !!

What gets to me most is not the incorrect usage, but rather, people defending it: 'even people in North America use English this way'. They might, but not in idiotic ways like this - they use it the way we say 'tell me, yaar'. Accept it - it's wrong English, just like its wrong Hindi, Malayalam or Tamil if somebody murders the language.