Don't get BANGALORED!

Even before the Global Economic Crunch hit America badly, many of the American companies started outsourcing their work to various cities in India. Most of such works are in the field of customer care, insurance, tele-marketing etc. The reason why such companies chose Indian cities is simple – plenty of man power with untapped professional skills, and of course cheap labour.

This new trend of offshoring work to a city in India gave birth to a new English word – Bangalore (as a verb). So, when an American says that he/she has been Bangalored, you can be sure that his company has moved its operations to Bangalore. Originally this word was used only to refer to a job which was offshored to Bangalore but now it is used as a general term for any job outsourced to any city in India such Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and many more.

Although this word was coined by the Americans, an increasing number of multinationals and media across the world are lapping up this Americanism. Earlier too many American words have gained worldwide acceptance, to name a few – beautician, hospitalize, backpack etc. It is expected that the verb Bangalore too will creep into major English dictionaries very soon. The past and past participle form of the verb is ‘Bangalored’.

Here are some sentences to demonstrate how to use the verb ‘Bangalore’ accurately:

1. Bangaloring is one of the reasons some Americans don’t like Indians.

2. A US magazine reports that an estimated 70,000 Americans will be Bangalored by the end of this year.

'Unfriending' and 10 interesting facts about Facebook.

UNFRIEND is a verb which was coined by the worldwide users of Facebook. It means 'to remove a person from your friend-list on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc'. Some people argue that the correct term should be DEFRIEND. Anyway, the term has already made its way into some of the well-known English dictionaries in the world!


And here are a 10 interesting facts about FACEBOOK that I googled today:
1. Over 500 million people use Facebook!

2. If Facebook were a country, it would be the fifth largest country in the world, after China, India, the U.S., and Indonesia!

3. 85%+ of all college students use Facebook and 70% of them log in everyday!

4. Facemash (first name of Facebook) attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours online!

5. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook was once expelled from Harvard University for breach of security, violating copyrights and individual privacy!

6. Facebook removes approximately 20,000 profiles from the site every day for various kinds of violations, including spam, inappropriate content, underage use etc!

7. John Watson, a father who had been seeking his daughter for 20 years reunited with her after seeing her profile on Facebook – An excellent example of the positive social impact of Facebook!

8. An Egyptian man, Gamal Ibrahim, named his recently-born daughter ‘Facebook’. He did it because he thinks that the protests that were largely organized on social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc played a crucial role in the success of 2011 Egyptian Revolution!

9. Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world who shot to meteoric success in a short span of time! He is also called an ‘accidental billionaire’ by a few. He literally proved that ‘an idea can change your life’!

10. Google is the only website which gets more web traffic than Facebook!

SHOULD or SHOULD HAVE TO is correct?

Many speakers of English in non-English speaking countries often use 'SHOULD HAVE TO' in speaking and writing. Among them, sentences like the following are very common.
1) “I SHOULD HAVE TO complete my assignment within three days”
2) “You SHOULD HAVE TO pass this test”

But, according to English grammar, this is a wrong use. Instead of using SHOULD HAVETO, you must use either SHOULD or HAVE TO. The reason is SHOULD is almost equal to HAVE TO although there is a slight difference in detailed grammatical analysis.

So, the previous wrong sentences can be rewritten as follows:
1) “I SHOULD complete my assignment within three days”
OR
“I HAVE TO complete my assignment within three days”

2) “You SHOULD pass this test”
OR
“You HAVE TO pass this test”

You can also express the same idea by using ‘WILL HAVE TO’ as in,
“I WILL HAVE TO complete my assignment within three days”, “I WILL HAVE TO pass this test” etc.

CAN or MAY? Which is correct?

There are a number of simple but confusing aspects of grammar that many speakers of English are worried about. Unprofessional advice from teachers and peers with little or outdated knowledge in English further worsens the situation.


Let's take an example of such two controversial grammatical terms: CAN and MAY. Most of the speakers of English are, of course, familiar with the meanings and basic usage of these two words.


But the confusing question is, are CAN and MAY interchangeable when it comes to asking or granting permission?


The answer is 'YES'!
Many people think that CAN is used only to show 'ability/capability', and they argue that it is wrong to replace MAY with CAN in a request like,
'May I ask you a few personal questions?'.


In fact the majority of modern grammarians and successful writers are nowadays use both CAN and MAY to ask or grant permission though a damned few still oppose it! So, you may use either "May I ask you a few personal questions?" or "Can I ask you a few personal questions?" as both have exactly the same meaning and are acceptable in modern English.


The only difference between them in this context (permission/request) is that MAY is a little more polite than CAN. Therefore, try to use CAN in informal situations (at home, with friends etc.) and MAY in formal ones (in an interview, an official discussion etc.)

ONE OF MY FRIEND or FRIENDS

Hi Buddies!
Today I'm posting one of the most common grammatical mistakes that many learners of English make.

Quite often, I've heard and read many people use such sentences as 'Sam is one of my best friend.' , 'India is one of most populated country', 'Maths is one of her favourite subject' etc.

Although these sentences look okay at first sight, they are ungrammatical. As a rule ONE OF must be followed by a PLURAL NOUN. e.g. One of the boys, one of my brothers, one of the problems etc.

Therefore, the wrong sentences in the introductory paragraphs must be rewritten as: (Carefully see the plural subjects after 'one of')

'Sam is one of my best friends.' , India is one of most populated countries', 'Maths is one of her favourite subjects' etc.

The explanation:
In sentence 1, the speaker means to say that they have many best friends, and Sam is one of them.

In sentence 2, the speaker means to say that there are many most populated countries, and India is one of them.

In sentence 3, the speaker means to say that she has many favourite subjects, and Maths is one of them.

                                                                                                                    
Jacob (Nova English Campus)