Random Rant : Degraded English!

First of all, I’m not trying to a grammar police or anything, but this post is about something that was irritating me for the past few days. My English is not the strongest but I am sure my basic English and Grammar is perfect, so when some one frames a very weird grammatical incorrect sentence, it irks me! I am not against SMS language but I am against incorrect sentence formation!

When should you use “said” and “told” in indirect speech?

These days my problem is people don’t seem to know that a word called “told” exists. I know I can’t expect people to be fluent in English like an Englishman, but when you have done your schooling in English and now are doing your post graduation, it is expected that your basic sentence formations are correct.

So when people try to speak English or chat in English, I have heard people say things like “He said me.” instead of “He told me.” or “He said me to go ” instead of “He asked/told me to go”.

Basically , “said” is used when you’re changing a statement in directed speech to indirect speech and it is usually followed by “that”.

“told” on the other hand is used when you change a request to indirect speech.

It is very irritating to read such sentences, though I know it is not a big thing but I feel tomorrow when we go out in the world to work and earn a spot, the most important thing that will matter is how you communicate. When English is considered to be a global language and you want to flaunt it, I think everyone should have a proper command over it.

What happens in India is, everyone tries to incorporate English words with their own mother tongue or with Hindi. The problem is, neither will your English improve nor will your mother tongue. I think every Indian should speak Hindi perfectly, should know their mother tongue properly (for me it is Marathi) and should be able to flaunt their English! 😀

This one more post in my Random Rant category, hope you like it! 😀





  1. I agree.
    It was weird just reading ‘i said u’.
    I still remember someone saying the word ‘sended’ in a conversation recently.

    • I think if I start talking about past tense, it will make a new blog post!

  2. Nice i said u that u write very well.keep writing:p

    • Why such horrible English, Suraj? :/

  3. Aloha Bhairavi,

    I came across your blog, “The Dramatic Soul”, today and enjoyed it. I will be following.

    The post, “Random Rant: Degraded English!”, brought a story involving a dolphin trainer and a tourist to mind. Briefly it goes as follows.

    After a show where the dolphins entertained a large crown, one of the tourist spectators approached the trainer.
    Tourist: “Nice show. How many commands do the dolphins understand?”
    Trainer: “Forty eight.”
    Tourist: “So these stupid fish only understand forty eight words of English?”
    Trainer: “Yes, just forty eight words of English. How many words of dolphin do you understand?”

    Bhairavi, to my knowledge I know not one word of either Hindi or Marathi – you have my admiration young lady.

    A Hui Hou (until next time),

  4. I share your sentiments Bhairavee.. And you know the worst part about such people? Spend too much time with them and you might catch their flu.. 😛
    Worry is I am about that.. 😀
    Good choice for this rant. (Y) Waiting for the next!

  5. Haha…. SMS language sucks!
    I do agree that being fluent in English is really important in today’s world as people tend to look up to you!

  6. I think it might be a slang, actually? Not sure if it’s in AAVE, although I know that that has a habit of shortening things – which is fine, because AAVE’s just an English dialect! I think people’s control over English definitely depends on the culture they were raised in, though. A lot of people who grow up around AAVE (not necessarily all black, though significantly) speak and consider English differently because of that culture. The typical idea of “Basic” English and grammar is extremely westernized in that sense, haha.

  7. As someone who neither has English as their first language, I can relate easily to this post 🙂
    It is funny but in English (I speak on several languages) I go by the feelings but it is not something you can advice to someone, right?!

    The simple way to think of say and tell is:
    You say something
    You tell someone something.

    I have found a link and thought was funny but was unable to paste it in? let me know.
    But I am IN for similar discussions 🙂 so will check back! Kind regards


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