“Do the needful” is a phrase commonly heard from people in India working in tech support. Though it’s fallen out of fashion in British dialects, it’s still common in India to mean “do what you must.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Do the Needful”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is William from Thousand Oaks, California.
Hi, William. Welcome to the show.
How can we help? What’s going on?
Well, around the office, we’ve been dealing with a lot of tech support. That does kind of this fall of the sun thing that ends up in India most of the time. And we have been seeing the phrase, do the needful, a lot. And it’s almost become sort of an inside joke around the office. And I want to know, where’s it from? Do the needful.
So what’s happening when you see that phrase? What has led up to it? Like, we’ll take a support request. And we get all the other stuff that happens internally. And it’s being used from someone to tell someone else, hey, here’s this thing, just get it done. But they use do the needful.
Yeah, I learned this from Indians as well. I was working on a giant dictionary project with some partners in India, and they would say the same thing to me in email. And I had to look it up. There’s an entry for it, fortunately, in the Oxford English Dictionary. And then I talked to some other dictionary colleagues. They’re like, yeah, I learned that from the Indians, too, because it’s a standard part of business jargon in India. It used to be more common in English in all the varieties, and it just kind of faded away in the U.K. and the U.S., but it hung around in India.
Now it comes out. And what’s strange about it is that needful, it’s only got this one use basically, and it’s a noun, the needful. And so it just sounds not quite right. We think of words ending in F-U-L as being adjectives rather than nouns. So that’s the other thing. So not only is it outside of our dialect, but it strikes us as being the wrong part of speech too.
What do you take it to mean? Go ahead with your own knowledge and judgment and just get back to me when it’s done. So do what you must, basically.
Yeah. I work at a small consulting firm, and every time we do a project or we find something that wasn’t done properly, the joker at the office is, well, I guess they didn’t do the needful.
Exactly. It’s exactly what it is. Everyone knows about the needful. The needful is an obvious thing, right? Of course. The needful has to be done. You don’t do the needful. I can’t say it on the air, but it’s like the acronym for read the manual that they pass around in tech circles, right? That has an F in it.
Yeah. Yes, that one. Well, you know what I think is really interesting about this fact that it’s become such jargon to the point where you all are laughing at it is that it’s an expression that goes way, way back. I mean, it goes back to at least the 1680s, do the needful.
Yeah, it’s got a long history, but it just fell out of fashion. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, that’s the thing with the dialects of English. They hang on to things that the other dialects abandon.
Oh, that’s really interesting. So have you ever had to pre-pone anything yet with your Indian friends?
Yes, I have. I’ve also had to revert.
Oh, yeah. Revert meaning to reply.
Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. So you have to pre-pone the needful?
Right. I mean, do it before you were going to do it. And then revert to me about it?
Yes.
Oh, that’s fascinating.
It is. It’s truly fascinating. But yeah, so this is the multicultural global world we live in, where the dialects collide.
That’s right. And they’re colliding on your desk, dude.
That’s right. Two more countries separated by common language, right?
Yeah. All right. Well, I hope that helped make you feel a little bit better about it. You sound just a little bit like, oh, not again. I’m going to have to do the needful later. So that’s how you get your paycheck every week. You do the needful every day, right?
Yeah, I guess it’s my job now.
Well, William, thank you so much for calling.
Take care now.
Thank you. Bye bye.
All right. Bye bye.
We want you to do the needful and you know what that is. Call us 877-929-9673 or send your comments about workplace jargon to words@waywordradio.org. And there are always lively discussions going on on our Facebook page or find us on Twitter.
