This came up because I was dragged into a lighthearted argument between two work colleagues, where the person who’d learned Indian English used the word, and was met with surprise by the person who’d learned Australian English. I was called in to adjudicate, and sided with the former, to her great vindication.

I have a pretty large English vocabulary, and the only work colleague I knew who had a larger one was someone who learned English in India before migrating here. His downfall was that he didn’t know what words his coworkers didn’t know, naturally, and sometimes one would occasionally slip out. I found observing these occurrences and the subsequent reactions to be fascinating (and sometimes cringeworthy).

Indian English is the world’s most spoken English, and I think we could all stand to learn a bit of it and not make jokes about reverting and doing the necessary.