Questions tagged [subcontinental-english]
Questions related to the English language as it is spoken and written across the Indian Subcontinent in the South-Asian countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
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'Too good': Hyperbole, fossil, calque, quirk, something else?
I often hear the exclamation "too good" in Indian English. Sometimes it describes food, sometimes music, sometimes an event, anything really; it's rather versatile, common enough to have ...
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When was the term Godi Media coined?
When was the term Godi Media coined?
I know that godi means lap so, it kind of means 'lapdog media'.
It is been used very frequently in India to describe the media supporting the ruling government.
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What could be the origin of 'cherry-merry' in Indian English to mean 'baksheesh'?
I was looking through a book about Indian English (Sahibs, Nabobs, and Boxwallahs: A Dictionary of the Words of Anglo-India) and I noticed the following definition (edited lightly):
Cherry-merry: ...
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In Indian English, did the word 'griffin' ever mean newcomer or novice?
I recently came across a definition in the dictionary Hobson-Jobson. It's basically a big collection of English words and anglicizations used or found in India. The entry that's been stumping me is ...
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Why was the Sanskrit word "laksha" anglicized to "lakh"?
This is something that I have been wondering about for a while, and I thought that I could ask about it here. I am unsure about whether this is strictly "on-topic" because it may be only ...
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Etymology of the word 'cheatercock'
There's a word used in India, 'cheatercock.' Wiktionary defines a 'cheatercock' as
(India) Someone who violates rules in order to gain an advantage; a cheater.
There are a few hits online, mostly in ...
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Where does the subcontinental usage of 'one' to mean 'named' come from?
Sometimes, when reading texts published in India, written by authors of Indian origin, I notice a usage of the word one in the sense of 'named,' or 'is called.' For instance, it's present in this ...
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The meaning of "come home"
In India, when I ask a friend to "come home", it often means I am inviting the friend to my home. I am told that this is different in England or the US, where native speakers would use "...
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Why do South Indians call restaurants 'hotels'?
In South India, it's common to use the word 'hotel' when referring to what North Indians (and most of the rest of the world) know as a 'restaurant.' It's not just a phenomenon seen among small, micro-...
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What's the correct way to write our names? [closed]
Most people who live in my locality write their names with initials at the
end. Usually these initials are abbreviations of long family names, like
Joseph Alex TP, where TP stands for ...
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Indian English language prepositions [closed]
What is difference between preposition here (In and To)?
Why we use : Israel ambassador to India.
Why don't we use : Israel ambassador in India.
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Possible reading of a visually obscured word used in Indian newspaper from 1876
I am going through old English speaking newspapers and found the following from a newspaper called "THE PIONEER" that was published in Allahabad, India on August the 11th, 1876:
From what I ...
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Is there a term for when in Indian English stress is placed on the word "the" before a noun?
I often hear speakers of Indian English place stress-accent on the word "the", with a pause before finishing a sentence with a noun. There's a raised pitch and stress on the word "the&...
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Why do Indian people usually ask questions in English using the first-person-plural form?
I don't know much about the languages spoken in India, so I'm going to assume the speaker is speaking Hindi natively.
I've noticed that whenever a question is asked in an English forum, and it ...
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What's the American or British English equivalent to "take a download from", meaning get to know the information from someone?
In Indian English, we often use the phrase "take a download from" which isn't common outside India or at least South Asia. This phrase means to get to know the information from someone.
For ...
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