Comments on: Even I Am Enjoying Indian English

By: Narayanan

Narayanan — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:00:54 +0000

Funny, I just ended a conversation in which I was asked for my ‘good name’ – this was a young girl from an Indian charity looking for donation. She would seem right to any Indian, who would approve of her polite approach. Of course, ‘Even I am’ an Indian! Let me say something interesting – In my purely personal opinion and experience, the ‘good name’ thing has a whole lot of Indian psyche working behind it.’Good name’ is used only if the person is asking your name in English even amongst Indians. If they ask the other person’s name quite politely in Hindi or Tamil it gets translated as “May I know your name please or Could you please let me have your name”, quite polite but not somewhate funny like “Please tell me your Good Name”. To me, it seems this is part of the whole Indian confusion about how to use English words properly as ENGLISH IS NOT OUR NATIVE OR FIRST LANGUAGE. Besides, it is a language of the ‘western educated elite’ and draws its importance primarily from knowing a ‘foreign language’ and its use as the main business language. Language cannot be separated from customs and culture. Indians know how to use their native language to match cultural expectations. We fumble when it comes to English. In the hierarchical Indian society (yes it is), an Indian asking another ‘what is your name?’ is actually seeking permission (in most cases) from the other person (of more ‘power’) to know his or her name. In other words, the respondent (in this case usually someone higher than you or a potential customer) may very well say ‘you have no right to know my name, as you are lower than me in status’. This also explains why Indians write in over-polite language. Behind all that modern facade, India is still very much a hierarchical fuedal society. I think now the readers can put 2 + 2 together, that is, improperly understood British monarchy system of the early 20th century + Indian fuedalism = polite English usage in India.

By: Rajpriya

Rajpriya — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:25:39 +0000

Her good name is Heidi

She is the “vicemanager”
of the Beijing GOLDEN CELESTIAL Store.

Of course she doesn’t sell any vices in the store.
Assistant or Deputy Manager the Chinese way.
Chinglish is charming.

By: Anju

Anju — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:22:50 +0000

I think the whole concept of ‘good name’ is aptly explained in ‘The Namesake’. It has got something to do with the Indian tradition of giving a ‘pet-name’ and a formal-name(good-name is then, just a literal translation of the Indian term for it!).

I was reminded of the first time someone asked me my ‘good-name’, I was 5 or 6 years old at that time, and I got really upset that he would expect me to have a good name and a bad name. It took him roughly 5 minutes to glean out my name.

By: Rajpriya

Rajpriya — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:10:40 +0000

The problem is there only.

By: Micky Fernandez

Micky Fernandez — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:54:24 +0000

Do not forget: “at this point in time”.
Why can’t Indians simply say “now”?

By: shyam

shyam — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:55:14 +0000

From where did you get that cover page!!!
Telugu paragraph seems to be very funny!
Good choice.!!

By: Noopur

Noopur — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 11:50:52 +0000

Loved your post. Very funny. Waiting for more! “May you please write more like this type of articles?”

By: Rajesh

Rajesh — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 20:29:40 +0000

Could not agree more on all of them. Still hear a lot of Me Too’s and at times, I also… Or if totally lost (and this one never ceases to amaze me).. Ditto..

Regards good name..Ooh la la.. That is a blast.. Have been asked once and being cheesed off, replied, my bad name is Rajesh.. Parents never had anything good to say about me.