Sidharth Bhatia sends these fresh (stale?) from the Asian Subcontinent:<\/p>\n
I chanced upon your excellent site and enjoyed all the cliches. In
\nIndia, we suffer from the hangovers of the archaic English left back
\nby our erstwhile colonial masters, the Brits. While they have moved
\non, we stick to Ye Olde hackneyed English. And of course, our hacks
\nhave also developed their own peculiar phrases. Some examples:<\/p>\nThe detenus flew the coop<\/li>\n Ministers air-dashed to the capital (they never fly, always airdash)<\/li>\n A favourite with ponderous edit writers: Needless to say (then don’t
\nsay it)<\/li>\nIt ill behoves us<\/li>\n Culprits nabbed (a very common headline)There are many more, but let me conclude with this story of the editorial
\nwriter who was summoned by his boss and told to write 600 words on some
\nmatter of grave importance. At about 5 p.m., when there was no sign
\nof the editorial, the Big man himself went to his junior’s cabin and
\nfound him lying slumped on his typewriter (those were the days before
\nPCs), quite dead. On the sheet in the typewriter there was just one
\nword:<\/li>\n“Notwithstanding… “<\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sidharth Bhatia sends these fresh (stale?) from the Asian Subcontinent: I chanced upon your excellent site and enjoyed all the cliches. In India, we suffer from the hangovers of the archaic English left back by our erstwhile colonial masters, the … Continue reading