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Is this sentence is rightI lost my air ticket. so please do the needful.thanks

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

It needs to be one sentence:

I lost my air ticket, so please do the needful.

It should be noted that 'do the needful' is standard Indian English, but appears quaint or slightly impolite in AmE and BrE.

Yoong Liat · Answer

Mister MicawberIt needs to be one sentence:

I lost my air ticket, so please do the needful.

It should be noted that 'do the needful' is standard Indian English, but appears quaint or slightly impolite in AmE and BrE.

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do the needful

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http://thetis1.bl.uk/BNCbib/CL.html#CLD 831 The one who was born Greek and fluent, had lost his baggage, presumably in transit in London, and wanted action, and seemed to think that young Erlich would do the needful.

Yankee · Answer

The phrase "do the needful" is mentioned here:

Yoong Liat · Answer

YankeeThe phrase "do the needful" is mentioned here:

The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines 'needful' as follows:

noun (the needful) what is necessary: I call upon the authorities to do the needful.

It doesn't state that it is Indian English.

Yankee · Answer

Hi Yoong Liat

That's not the point. I gave the link as a confirmation of MM's comment. I can confirm that this phrase is definitely not a phrase that would be usual in American English. I think your BNC search confirms that it would also be highly unusual in BE. The point is that "do the needful" is apparently used in Indian English. Maybe Oxford should provide better usage information.

Nona the brit · Answer

True. But then lots of words have lots of definitions that pretty much no-one ever uses.

In reality it is mainly (I hesitate to say only, as it is possibly used in other versions, but I haven't heard it used elsewhere myself) Indian English that uses it in that way. It is certainly not used in that way in British or American English. No-one ever says 'kindly do the needful' in those versions of English.

So if you are using Indian English then go ahead and use it but if not, avoid it. MM's comment was just a warning that other people may not see it in quite the same way as the Indian writer does, so if you are writing to a company elsewhere in the world you may want to take that into consideration.

Yoong Liat · Answer

The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines 'needful' as follows:

noun (the needful) what is necessary: I call upon the authorities to do the needful.

It doesn't state that it is Indian English, and I see no reason why I should challenge the authority of the lexicographers.

Nona the brit · Answer

No-one is saying 'needful' as an individual word is only used in Indian English.

What we are saying that the idiomatic phrase 'do the needful' (the pretty-much standard phrase in Indian English meaning 'please do what is necesssary') is a feature of Indian English and is not used in other versions of English. Indian letters often seem to end 'Kindly do the needful'. That's fine but it is not a phrase used elsewhere in the world as a way of requesting action in letters or emails.

And there is no need to shout.

Believe whatever you want to believe. Use whatever words you want to use. Just be aware that if you put 'kindly do the needful' in a letter to someone using American or British English they will not see it as a standard phrase.

According to Wiki: 'do the needful' it is commonly used in and widely attributed as an , but the phrase may have its origins in instead, according to the http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Universal_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language&action=edit of 1932. Wiki also links to an American useage in 1949. I can find some modern uses of it on UK sites that are run by Indians and it also throws up a few uses in Scotland, so it may be clinging on there.

So, it may well have origins in British English. But I can assure you that it is no longer used in modern British English business letters to replicate the meaning of the Indian 'do the needful'.

Mister Micawber · Answer

I see no reason why I should challenge the authority of the lexicographers.
This is precisely what should be done at all times, Yoong Liat. You will lose 98% of the time, but all lexicons grow old, all lexicons make errors, and certainly all lexicons are unable to include all the information extant on the language-- and certainly what is said on the cover in self-advertisement should be trusted least!

Has anyone googled the phrase without domain limits? Ms Google gives me 126,000 English pages for "http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&oi=dict&q=http://www.answers.com/do%26r%3D67 the http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&oi=dict&q=http://www.answers.com/needful%26r%3D67". These include a range of sources which should leave all of us pondering the odd route the phrase has taken around world Englishes.

The first page is mainly Indian websites; on the second page is an American Time magazine quote from 1949-- but the very first page called up by Ms Google is a blog, with an entry entitled The Needful, and this postscript:

OK, obviously I need to explain what this essay is about. Dangit. Anyway, in the technical field you get a lot of "jargon". The latest jargon, predominantly in use by non-native-speakers, seems to be using the phrase "Please do the needful" instead of "Please take care of this", "Please help resolve this problem", or the more mundane "Dude, it's broken, fix it". I guess I assumed it was more widespread than it actually is, or that more people have experience working with non-native-English-speakers in technical fields who tend to use shortcuts when they talk. Hope that explains it a little.

I hope that explains this a little, Yoong Liat.

Yoong Liat · Answer

I'm also not saying that 'needful' is Indian English.

According to The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 'needful' means 'what is necessary'.

The example sentence provided is I call upon the authorities to do the needful.

So it would appear that the lexicographers of this dictionary do no think that it is necessary to say that 'do the needful' is now usually used in Indian English. Since Nona has produced what other authorities say that the phrase is an Indianism, I do not intend to question what has been said by them.

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