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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33253 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023

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"Cantonment" is one that also appears in African English dialects (e.g. Zimbabwe), "do the needful" is stereotypically Indian but originally from older UK English, "passed out" for graduating, "felicitated" for congratulated, things like that.

What does this have to do with the letter?

I may have mistaken his question for one regarding archaic/unusual word choices used in colonial English. In any case "You are a dreg of the multicultural society" and "We will be following you as you walk around your area" sound pretty bizarre. Of course, if I were writing a death threat to a foreigner, I would try to make it sound like the threat was written by a foreigner so that everyone online would think it was a hoax.

Agree they sound bizarre, but I'm not aware that those phrasings are dialectical (but I'm not really familiar with African dialects).

Those seem fairly normal? 'A dreg' is not as common as 'the dregs' but I don't think it especially unusual, same with the second example, maybe slightly stilted but nonetheless not remarkable.

In any case, what I don't get is why people think Dr Shola (who is an educated woman and can clearly write properly) would, if she were trying to create a hoax, deliberately write the letter with poor grammar.

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