Should officialese Trump interaction?

The retired school teacher from Atlanta who returned a letter from US President Donald Trump with its grammatical errors highlighted and corrected deserves to be commended for her punctiliousness. While Potus himself is not known for being a stickler for grammar — among other things — he probably just indicated the broad issues that the letter should cover rather than dictated it himself as he clearly prefers micro-blogging. But his office can certainly be expected to know better, or at least be aware of the benefits of spellcheck, so that its handiwork would not be called out for middle schoollevel errors such as using capital letters where not needed. However, Indians would appreciate one aspect of the letter from the White House: its straightforward language.

The Trump letter had no incomprehensible examples of bureaucratese or legalese that are the hallmarks of official communications in India — a feature we erroneously blame on our British colonisers. Words like ‘hereinunder’ and ‘whereof ’ barely find mention elsewhere but Indian government missives and orders cling to them almost as a badge of office. The conscientious retired English teacher in Atlanta should be sent some Indian letters for her expert blue-pencil comments. After all, not only US and Britain are “separated by a common language”.