“Be Cool !”

If I hear that phrase one more time I may murder the speaker! I have warned my friends already.

For one thing, it is so much overused that it makes me want to hit my head against the wall whenever I hear it. For another, some people use it at the most needless places, where “be cool” is the last thing one should be saying.

There are several words that have, over the years, crept into the English language to give birth to a new version called “Indian English”. Apart from them, there are phrases that are used to the point of exhaustion, whose existence cannot be justified even by the term ‘Indian’. “Be cool” is comparatively quite harmless except when the listener is someone like me who has an obvious aversion to being cool (or compares oneself already cool and cannot be cooler).

The following are some wrongly used phrases that have penetrated deep into the English speaking minds of India, that even the most educated of all are at the risk of getting infected.

1. “One of my friend” is a software engineer.
[One of my friends]

2. “I could not able to” locate the issue.
[‘I was not able to’
OR
‘I could not’]

These are just a few samples of the so-called Indian English. I will list more as and when I remember or encounter them! If you recall any, do share them here.