Hacker News Reader

Comment by ra7 | Hacker News Reader

> You'll never hear the words "do the needful" or "prepone" or, my most hated "kindly revert back"!

I hear your complaints. But does this really deserve a mention as a reason not to live in India? Are you really this upset over a few phrases that has no material impact on your life? Seems a bit pretentious.

View on HN

It's not the phrases themselves, it's (almost always) the context they are used in. They signify babudom at its worst.

It’s used by nearly everyone, not just babus. The memes in fact originate from engineers in India interacting with their international colleagues. In any case, it’s not something worth getting upset about.

It is if they are used abusively and sarcastically regularly.

You're missing the forest for the trees. Like I said, it's not about the phrases themselves; then again, perhaps we are talking past each other.

I'll just say that your notion of what is worth getting upset about (or not) _might not_ apply to everybody else, and leave it at that :)

I don’t think I’m missing the point, which is those phrases are used widely enough that they don’t signify babudom. It’s common workplace English and has no wider context than “it’s just Indian English”, not in this day at least.

Fair enough that what is worth getting upset about for me doesn’t apply to others.

it is only common workplace english in india coz of babudom tho...

I'm genuinely curious as to how do you determine what is something worth getting upset about, when you are not the one who is upset.

Not the poster, but when I actively think about it, I use common sense, ask for clarification, use some imagination, and a reasonable margin of error (imo). Then I try to judge the situation/reaction.

Without that, the word overreaction is meaningless.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com