The quirks of Indian English

What's wrong with that? Isn't that standard English?

-- Merriam-Webster's dictionary.

Sarcasm or tongue in cheek.

I'm sure the rubber/eraser problem is well known here. It's been done to death in comedy routines, films (American Desi) etc.
Another one which Salman Rushdie incorporated into one of his stories in East, West was

Indian English: nipple for British English: teat (as on an infant's feeding bottle).

A man recently arrived from India goes into a London chemists and asks the lady behind the counter if she could show him her nipples. Of course he gets a smack on his face for his efforts.

You have to focus more on the tone cum facial expression to detect any potential acerbity lurking.

Please... do not bring nipples into the conversation!

Expired: no not usual English for death. Licences, leases and the like expire; people not so often.

And this is how we experienced 'expired' in our neck of the woods in the lands downunder, Nick.

Suricate - there is nothing 'wrong' with the use of the word, just that I had never heard it used for someone dying until I came to India, and this is a discussion of English and how it is used in India after all.

In NZ and Oz we would say bluntly, so and so 'died', or he's gone now, or he passed away. Never - X expired.

Here's another one:

In most buses, there are a few seats reserved for women & handicapped people.
Notice the spellings of the signs : "Ladeis" "Handicraft"

I am going to my native!

I am going to my native place...

The place where I was born, my family home. It makes perfect sense when one thinks about the literal meaning of the full expression, but I am going to my native must confuse when heard for the first time!

Hehe, I thought the gentleman had a Man Friday who he was going to!

Congratulations! That's one step short of going native.

In analogy I could say I'm going to my ancestral! It isn't my native as I wasn't born there.

In my native place they speak my mothertongue.

Have we done cousin-brother and cousin-sister yet?


And here is an interesting link I've just found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English

I still say cousin-brother and cousin-sister, just makes sense to me.

Oh cool, "Indian English" has its very own Wiki! It was nice to read it, found so many I had forgotten about e.g. mugging for studying hard, and long-cut as opposite of short-cut.

How about crib as in complain? In the U.S. I know it's used for "cot" but the other day I slipped & said it just the other day to a teacher who was complaining a bit too much about students.

My boss (who is also Indian) got it but another teacher asked if I was accusing the person of stealing or plagiarizing. True, that is a meaning for "cribbing", but I could have sworn crib also means to complain/whine. Or is that another Indian-Englishism?

Actually, licenses, leases and the like expire by analogy with death, i.e. that's the secondary meaning.

In "Pickwick Papers", there is an poem (or part of one) called "Ode to an expiring frog":

Can I view thee panting, lying
On thy stomach, without sighing;
Can I unmoved see thee dying
On a log
Expiring frog!

Say, have fiends in shape of boys,
With wild halloo, and brutal noise,
Hunted thee from marshy joys,
With a dog,
Expiring frog!

etc.