Welcome to the Wordlady blog!

This blog is about the fascinating, fun, and challenging things about the English language. I hope to entertain you and to help you with problems or just questions you might have with spelling and usage. I go beyond just stating what is right and what is wrong, and provide some history or some tips to help you remember. Is something puzzling you? Feel free to email me at wordlady.barber@gmail.com.
You can also order my best-selling books, Six Words You Never Knew Had Something to do With Pigs and Only in Canada You Say. Fun and informative!

Subscribe!

Subscribe! Fun facts about English delivered weekly right to your inbox. IT'S FREE! Fill in your email address below.
Privacy policy: we will not sell, rent, or give your name or address to anyone. You can unsubscribe at any point.

Search This Blog

Thursday, September 1, 2016

Doing the needful

A Wordlady reader has inquired whether the phrase "do the needful" is of Indian English origin, saying this:
I only started hearing/reading "do the needful" when IT off-shoring started happening on a big scale and I began interacting with folks based in or originally from India.
The corpus evidence suggests that this is indeed a very common phrase in Indian English, much more common than in other parts of the English-speaking world, and it seems to have achieved the status of a catchphrase, judging from this statement:
 The many dialects of Indian English are as varied as the country itself...there are other relatives of mine who are verbose and unfailingly flowery in their emails, generally ending with “Kindly do the needful”,
The other South Asian countries -- Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka -- are also fond of this phrase, as are, to a somewhat lesser extent, the English-speaking countries of West Africa.
In this article, it is described as "the granddaddy of all Indianisms"

Do the needful

The granddaddy of all Indianisms, a clunky phrase mostly used only by bureaucrats and people forced to plead with the bureaucracy. And yet so apt when you don’t want to type out, “Please send me the five forms I need to file my taxes” or “Please fix the road in front of my house that I have written three letters about already”. “Do the needful” covers a multitude of requirements, and avoids repetition. Should it be revived, old fashioned though it is?
 
But it is neither unique to, nor originally from, the Indian subcontinent. There is plenty of British English evidence in the Oxford English Dictionary:
1710   J. Lovett Let. 1 Apr. in M. M. Verney Verney Lett. (1930) I. xii. 210   Waiting on proper persons and doing the needful in all places.
1831   Sir Walter Scott Jrnl. 24 Apr. (1946) 164   Young Clarkson had already done the needful—that is, had bled & blisterd severely, and placed me on a very restrictd [sic] diet.
1865   F. Locker-Lampson Select. from Wks. 155   This cloth will dip, And make a famous pair—get Snip To do the needful.
1929   I. Colvin Life of Dyer xvii. 167   The conspirators at Delhi..sent orders..‘to look out and do the needful at once’.
1992   J. Torrington Swing Hammer Swing! xiii. 118,   I went over to the drinks cabinet to do the needful.
and likewise in online corpora, although it is certainly not as frequent as in South Asian English.

Furthermore, it is fairly absent from North American sources historically, so this might lead North Americans to think it is an invention of Indian English. What is in fact happening is a not infrequent phenomenon in post-colonial Englishes:  Indian English has taken a phrase that existed in British English and run with it, so to speak. It will be interesting to see if this brings about a revival of the phrase in other varieties of English.


COMING THIS FALL! My ever-popular Rollicking Story of the English Language course. REGISTRATION NOW OPEN AND SPACE IS LIMITED. More info here: http://katherinebarber.blogspot.ca/p/history-of-english-language-courses.html
 
Would you enjoy talking about words with Wordlady over many, many glasses of wine? Why not check out my trip to Bordeaux and Toulouse in July 2017. Unlike most of my Tours en l'air trips, this is more about food, wine, and sightseeing than about ballet (though there is some of that too). BOOKING NOW, SIGNUP DEADLINE SEPTEMBER 20. More info here:
http://toursenlair.blogspot.ca/2016/08/toulouse-bordeaux-ballet-trip-july-2017.html

P.S. If you find the English language fascinating, you might enjoy regular updates about English usage and word origins from Wordlady. Receive every new post delivered right to your inbox! SUBSCRIPTION IS FREE! You can either:
use the subscribe window at the top of this page  
OR
(if you are reading this on a mobile device): send me an email with the subject line SUBSCRIBE at wordlady.barber@gmail.com

Privacy policy: we will not sell, rent, or give your name or address to anyone. You can unsubscribe at any point.



No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

My photo
Canada's Word Lady, Katherine Barber is an expert on the English language and a frequent guest on radio and television. She was Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Her witty and informative talks on the stories behind our words are very popular. Contact her at wordlady.barber@gmail.com to book her for speaking engagements; she can tailor her talks to almost any subject. She is also available as an expert witness for lawsuits.