'Kindly Adjust' to Our English

'Kindly Adjust' to Our English by Shashi Tharoor

Read the original essay here: https://www.theweek.in/columns/shashi-tharoor/2018/05/25/kindly-adjust-to-our-english.html

Educational use only: this page is a study guide for English II students at ReadMe. It links to the original essay and does not reproduce it. The essay was first published in Shashi Tharoor's "Last Word" column in The Week (26 May 2018; issue dated 3 June 2018), and all rights remain with the author and the publisher. Read the original first, then use the summary below.

Paragraph-by-Paragraph Summary

Paragraph 1: The birth of "prepone". Tharoor opens on a light, personal note, claiming with mock immodesty that he coined "prepone" as a student at St Stephen's College in 1972. He built it from "postpone": one neat word for moving something earlier. He is pleased the word spread across India and jokingly asks whether anyone used it before him. The anecdote prepares the argument: new words are made by ordinary speakers solving ordinary problems.

Paragraph 2: The thesis. Indian English is often mocked as a poor copy of England's "proper" English, but Tharoor calls it a vigorous language with Indian roots. His key comparison is America: Americans keep "fall" and "gotten", words England has dropped, and nobody calls them wrong. Indians may likewise keep "fortnight" or "do the needful". His standard is time and usage: if enough people find a word useful, it is legitimate.

Paragraph 3: Everyday Indianisms. Calling older people "auntie" or "uncle", or saying "non-veg" for eating meat, sounds odd to outsiders. Tharoor's point is that unfamiliar does not mean incorrect: such phrases are simply Indian, as other phrases are simply American or Australian.

Paragraph 4: Words from newspapers and campuses. The press created "airdash" (to rush somewhere by plane) and "history sheeter" (someone with a long police record). Campuses created "prepone" and "mugging", Indian slang for cramming for an exam. Abroad, mugging means a street robbery or pulling faces, so an Indian student's remark about mugging confuses foreigners. The same word can mean different things in different varieties of English.

Paragraph 5: Words translated from Indian languages. "What is your good name?" comes from the Bengali habit of having a pet name used at home (daak naam) and a formal name for the record (bhalo naam, the good name). Tharoor defends it as a polite way to ask any interlocutor who they are.

Paragraph 6: Plain English, Indian meanings. Some phrases bend ordinary English to Indian life. "Kindly adjust" is the apology of the extra person squeezing onto a full bench, a phrase that captures the patience of a crowded country. Matrimonial advertisements add their own tropes, such as "wheatish complexion" and partners who are traditional yet modern.

Paragraph 7: Where Tharoor draws the line. The essay turns: defending Indian English does not mean anything goes. "Return back" is a redundancy; "till" is misused for "as long as"; fines are waived, not "waived off"; and "back side" for "rear" makes readers laugh for the wrong reason. These fall under no rubric of Indian English; they are simply bad English. The concession strengthens his case, because it shows he is not excusing every error.

Paragraph 8: The conclusion. For everything else, Indians owe no apology and should use their English proudly. Tharoor closes with two famous Indianisms: Indians are "like that only", and anyone who objects can kindly adjust. The title phrase returns as a witty challenge to critics.