Some Misused Words.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 8

Some Misused Words.

“ WHAT IS BABU ENGLISH?” a juvenile correspondent asks. Well, Babu is a Hindu word for gentleman, but it has been applied to any Indian who professes to be a gentleman, but is not, and in process of time it has come to be applied to the attempt to write the formal language of the governing classes. Perhaps the best way to define Babu English is to give some samples of it. A very amusing sample comes from a man who applied for an increase in salary largely for the reason that he was required to support many of his relatives. He had, he said, to provide for a wife, four children, a father, a mother and a mother-in-law. “ And I have great difficulty,” he concluded, “ in making both ends of my grandmother meet.”

Another letter ran: The Manager of the British Army. Sir, I desire ten days’ leave or more. I have word from my home that wife has run away with other man. My God, I am annoyed. Babu English, of course, is written by men with a smattering of English, and some of them will proudly add to their signatures, “ Failed 8.A.” An applicant for work wrote:—Formerly also I was the first-born child of Mr S B D , of Nagpur, who since the days of Noah and Joans of Ark was employed in Government service. Sir, one very bad and unmoral fellow did obtain acquisition to the papers of the examination whereby he passed 8.A., .... but, sir, I failed 8.A., though, no doubt, I had endeavoured by fair means and fowl to catch one floating glance at the papers, but the professor who had misconduct of the examination sought for too much bucksheesh before I could take one peep, for, sir, I am a family man and How can I afford * such big money and therefore I failed B.A. TOUCHSTONE.