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Update: (Originally this was a comment, but I thought it was worth sharing here at the top.)

In the original question, I asked if there was a polite, socially-acceptable way to ask an Indian co-worker not to use the phrase "do the needful", as I didn't care for it.

In the years since I asked this question I've asked many people about the phrase. To the Indians I've asked in-person, it's not rude in any way. To Americans I've asked it varies anywhere from "I don't like it, but I don't mind it" to "It's very rude and makes me angry when I see it".

Through a long series of edits the question morphed and I wasn’t able to delete it because it had upvoted answers. The question, as it stands now, has no other answer.

I guess, though, if you're non-Indian and you find it rude, or if you're Indian and you've never realized someone might find it rude, this post may still have merit. Hopefully it does. It certainly has gotten a lot of views. Best wishes, folks.

End Update. See below for what's left of the actual question.

"Do the needful."

It's a phrase that I've only seen used in email, and I find it . . . presumptuous (maybe even rude). Regardless of prefacing with "please", one is commanding rather than asking for assistance.

I've only seen it used by those of Indian origin, so I've simply not mentioned it at all rather than worry about any cross-cultural offense that may come of bringing it up.

But still, I don't understand why it's used. Why not request rather than make two statements, one factual, one imperative?

For example, why would one use:

  1. I'm told you have Jane's email address. Please do the needful.

instead of,

  1. Would you send me Jane's email address?
ColleenV
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inanutshellus
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    You might mention that you've just found this Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_the_needful. :) Here is our ELL question that introduced me to that page: http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/17278/whats-a-preferred-alternative-to-the-phrase-do-the-needful. – Damkerng T. Feb 17 '14 at 21:15
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    re: "the question morphed and I wasn’t able to delete it" -- I encountered this phrase for the first time today and initially found it a mix of ungrammatical and presumptuous. I am glad this question was not deleted because it gave me (as an American English speaker) much-needed context for what I had read. – Alex Reinking Mar 28 '21 at 02:00

9 Answers9

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Do the needful is Indian English, which has been covered on ELU.

If you're only interacting with other speakers of Indian English then feel free to use it, but avoid it in any other contexts (most Americans and Brits will think it's quaint/uneducated).

In general, the "standard" form is do what[ever] is necessary, but in OP's specific context most likely nothing like that would be used anyway. If you've just asked for an email address, it goes without saying that you want the other person to do whatever is necessary to give you that information.

I may be wrong, but I have the impression that for many Indian English speakers, "Please do the needful" carries a subtext of "This problem is too complex for me to understand or resolve myself, but I have complete faith that you will be able to deal with it, because you are very skilled in such matters"

As I said, Brits and Americans wouldn't normally use any equivalent for such a trivial problem as finding someone's email address. But if the request was for something more challenging (and crucially, if it was from a manager to a more junior worker), "Do what[ever] [you think] is necessary [to solve this problem]" might be perfectly normal. The implication there is that the manager is authorising the junior to do things he might otherwise not be "permitted" to do (in effect, the junior is being temporarily "promoted" for the duration of the problem-solving).

In that context, it should be clear that (to Americans or Brits, at least) any such phrase would probably be considered offensive/cheeky if addressed to an equal in the workplace (if the person asking isn't senior enough to confer temporary authority on you, they shouldn't be speaking to you that way).

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FumbleFingers
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  • A well-written explanation. As you inadvertently pointed out, my example was contrived. I've adjusted it, now that I think I understand the motivation for the phrasing... but actually, this begs the question: Among Indian english speakers, would it make sense for me to say "do the needful" to, say, my boss? – inanutshellus Feb 18 '14 at 05:20
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    @Gabriel: If you're not already familiar with Indian English, why on earth would you want to learn when to use such an expression? Anyway, obviously I didn't explain my "impression" about the IE subtext very well. I think it would be an extremely bad idea to say that to your boss - what I meant was the office junior might feel flattered if his boss told/asked him to "do the needful". By association, he might therefore accept it from an "equal". I don't think anyone (IE or not) would be happy to hear it from a junior. Also, I'm sure it's not a "translation" - just a Raj hangover. – FumbleFingers Feb 18 '14 at 12:51
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    Actually, I'm happy to have learned when an Indian english speaker would find it appropriate to use as a mechanism for learning how I'm being thought of. – inanutshellus Feb 18 '14 at 14:06
  • @Gabriel: Bear in mind that as far as IE speakers are concerned, I did say I may be wrong, but I have the impression... I can be pretty certain about how speakers of "standard" English would react (the IE version sounds at best "quaint", and the Anglicised version only works for "manager to underling" contexts). Don't rely on me to know how actual speakers of IE would see things. – FumbleFingers Feb 18 '14 at 16:09
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    This is probably why when "do the needful" crops up in SE questions, as it does occasionally, users of Standard English might bridle a bit. The question is not merely not addressed to an equal, but addressed by someone who is asking for a solution to someone who is better-equipped to provide it. – Andrew Leach Sep 04 '14 at 21:32
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    "If you're not already familiar with Indian English, why on earth would you want to learn when to use such an expression?" For the same reason someone working in a US-dominated environment may want to learn to use AmE idiom in order to more clearly communicate with their colleagues? Why would someone not want to learn the idiom employed by their working environment? When I worked with Indian colleagues for a while, I did my best to pick up on the use of things like as per you request, do the needful, thrice and the idiosyncratic InE usage of until. – oerkelens May 26 '15 at 08:05
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    @oerkelens: My understanding is that Indian English has relatively low status, even in India. The syntactic differences that commonly occur don't normally present any problem with comprehension for native Anglophones, but they are noticeable. If an Indian (or any other nationality, come to that) doesn't already speak "standard" English, I don't think they'd normally want to deliberately learn IE in contexts where they've no obvious way of knowing which elements are peculiar to that "dialect". – FumbleFingers May 26 '15 at 17:12
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    @FumbleFingers: I think you are confusing Hinglish, the Hindi/English mixture that is indeed not very highly regarded, with Indian English, the "proper" English as it is spoken in the Indian subcontinent. This English dialect is in many ways very close to British English, and certainly in India opens doors to better jobs and better lives. Many typical Indian English idioms are either archaic BrE (e.g. thrice) or indeed borrowed from local languages (in a similar way that BrE borrowed half the French vocabulary...). – oerkelens May 26 '15 at 17:24
  • @oerkelens: I don't know where you draw the line. Take, for example, the tendency of (IE?, Hinglish?) speakers to say things like I am wanting to ask you about this thing which is confusing me. I'm sure there are schools in India where that usage is actually taught, but probably only because the teacher is NNS anyway. I only have first-hand experience of Indians who've emigrated to the UK or Zambia, but it seems to me they mostly want to switch to British norms wherever they become aware of differences. – FumbleFingers May 26 '15 at 17:40
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    @FumbleFingers: Schools that teach that won't be the high-level ones that parents aspire to send their kids to. Ability to speak correct English is very highly prized, and as naturally as AmE came to be, the correct English that is spoken in India is Indian English. Grammar mistakes as the one you mention are frowned upon by those that speak the language well, but that doesn't preclude the use of idiom that Brits would consider archaic (as per your request) or the use of locally influenced vocabulary ("bottom" meaning any piece of clothing that covers the lower part of the body). – oerkelens May 26 '15 at 17:48
  • Here is a pdf of a lecture by David Crystal on Indian English. He also mentions the difference between Hinglish and InE. And he's much better at explaining it than I am :) (The link doesn't become a link... copy paste should do it...) – oerkelens May 26 '15 at 17:52
  • @oerkelens: A couple of key points I took from Crystal there are 1) he says there are only "a laht or so" (a hundred thousand, admittedly not a term I was familiar with) *native* Indian speakers of English, and 2) British people are familiar with Indian English as a result of several generations of immigration. – FumbleFingers May 26 '15 at 18:12
  • @FumbleFingers: there were in 2005 only a lakh or so native speakers of InE. He expects that number to grow rapidly. He has described the 19th century as the century of BrE, the 20th was AmE and the 21st will, according to him be the century of InE. We may be witnessing the birth of a language, the most common dialect of English, in our lifetime :) – oerkelens May 27 '15 at 06:45
  • @oerkelens: I think you're conflating rapid growth in the number of Indians who learn English as a second language with those who are born into it. Things are different in the UK, where immigrants who already speak passable English themselves are both strongly motivated and assisted by society at large to strongly favour it in the home, but that's not so easy in India (where the extended family, neighbours, etc., don't all speak English naturally). Native Anglophones in India won't increase in numbers anywhere near as fast as second-language speakers. – FumbleFingers May 27 '15 at 12:05
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    @FumbleFingers: It's hard to find more recent data than the 2001 census or the 2005 estimate by Crystal. In a society where speaking "proper" English can even break the old caste-barriers, the socio-economic pressure of raising children in English (with the parents' first language(s) as second / third languages) is high. We'll just have to wait and see, but in the mean time, there is no reason to assume that Indian English is "wrong" English in any sense, or to wonder why one would want to get acquainted with it — that's like wondering why some people would want to learn AmE idiom. – oerkelens May 27 '15 at 13:40
  • @oerkelens: Well, introducing concepts of right/wrong is fraught with danger in this matter. I just found this list of of US/Indian English "differences", for example, where it turns out the supposedly "IE" usages are on average more familiar to me (as a BrE speaker) than the AmE ones. Anyway, we obviously have different perspectives on this matter, and neither of us seem likely to change our minds. It's probably time to heed the auto-generated "Please avoid extended discussions" nags! :) – FumbleFingers May 27 '15 at 20:13
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These are not excerpts but complete examples:

"My webserver is not working customers can not complete tasks. Please do the needful"
"The generated report is incorrect, please do the needful."
"We can not access our email. Some computer tasks work but our other office has not. Please do the needful."

To directly answer the OP's question, it is exceptionally rude. It is presumptuous in telling rather than asking, and carries a condescending tone. "My time is more valuable than yours. I'm so high above this task, I won't bother explaining it. Just do the needful!" Early on I considered it no less abrasive than than seeing "ASAP" in the subject line. Today I just shake my head, roll my eyes, and move to the next email.

Root Problem: What really exacerbates this, per the OP's example: usually one is lacking any (coherent) problem description, context, steps to reproduce, solutions already tried, or desired outcome/end-goal. There are never clearly defined action items and no question asked! If I don't know what the needful is, I probably won't do it. This is what I would explain to your friend.

for many Indian English speakers, "Please do the needful" carries a subtext of "This problem is too complex for me to understand or resolve myself, but I have complete faith that you will be able to deal with it, because you are very skilled in such matters"

@FumbleFingers nails it! That's what we presume was intended; actually this is an overly formal conclusion sentence, as written. Unfortunately, without surrounding details this can easily be re-interpreted as "I'm too ignorant to understand, to learn, or to learn to ask in English." In IT, and Professional Services Support, I have often seen this from customers. I've even received it as the answer to my follow-up questions, or in response to support requests I've opened. I apologize to the OP if this response seems harsh but it is a blunt honest answer to the question asked.

ColleenV
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Garrick
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An 'IE' speaker here, and I actually made an account just to share my views about this topic.

Over the 2 past years, I have worked at a multinational audit firm and also a reputed research institution in India where I have seen common use of the phrase "Please do the needful". It is usually a good closing sentence after explanation of the context has been given in the rest of the mail, and is honestly just a polite request. I was genuinely surprised to find that people seemed to have a problem with the phrase and that it is labelled as an 'Indian-English' term. Initially I thought that there might be something wrong with the word 'needful', but when I looked it up, I got the usual meaning 'necessary/requisite'. There are no grammatical errors with the phrase in question, and really, no indication of arrogance at all! I see people suggesting the usage of "Please do what is necessary", and I don't see any difference between the two phrases. So is the problem with the word 'needful'? Is it not used often enough by English language speakers abroad? Also, if the same was used as part of a question like "Could you please do the needful?", would it still seem rude/commanding to you? In business emails, people try to be as concise as possible, no one has time to write elaborately worded emails or read them; succinct responses are appreciated, and this is probably the most succinct way to communicate the thought! So I quote R Clews here, "If it isn't 'broken', why try and 'fix' it?". Different doesn't always mean wrong does it?

To answer your question, if you find the phrase 'rude', then you can be straightforward and tell them that it isn't a phrase you are comfortable/familiar with, and would prefer an alternate phrase (although such a request could possibly make you seem arrogant/rude depending on how you phrase it). There's no real reason for your friend to be offended, it is certainly a commonly used phrase, but not something that an Indian would be offended about if they are requested not to use it because the other person does not appreciate it. But I still do not understand why its usage seems to be such an issue.

Akanksha
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    First, welcome to StackExchange! There's no difference in rudeness between "necessary" and "needful", it's just a more-natural phrasing for us Yankees. It boils down to this: You're giving a command. "IE" usage of it treats it as though you've simply wrapped up a discussion, but factually you're giving a command. "Go do as I've instructed." In the original example, instead of saying "I need Jane's email address. Do the needful." We would say "Would you send me Jane's email?" One is a command, the other is a request. That's the difference that's lost in translation. – inanutshellus May 20 '15 at 18:14
  • I'm curious. How'd you find the question if you didn't have/run into the issue? – inanutshellus May 20 '15 at 18:16
  • Thanks for the welcome. Haha there was actually a post about 'Indian Terms' that are supposedly grammatically wrong. I saw 'Do the needful' there so I started looking it up because it didn't seem like a grammatically wrong phrase to me at all. But yes, I do understand how you say it seems like a command rather than a request, although that's why I would like to know, what if someone puts it forward like a request, for eg., "Could you please do the needful?", would it still seem absurd to a non-IE speaker? I think the issue with the term is that it is colloquial rather than a translation issue. – Akanksha May 20 '15 at 22:59
  • Also, it's really cool that someone edited my typos! – Akanksha May 20 '15 at 23:01
  • Frankly, although I definitely consider this an Indian English idiom, and would only use it myself ironically, I can't see anything "rude" about it and some of the other answers here are sensational in their hatred for it. – Lightness Races in Orbit Mar 16 '18 at 20:26
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    I'm a 50-year native U.S. speaker, and I come at this phrase for correctness in common English speech vs. liking/disliking how it makes me feel. If I dislike it, it is only because I disagree with the assertion that, "there are no grammatical errors with the phrase in question." A breakdown (from American listener's POV): "Do" -- do what? "The" -- OK, the ... a noun is coming. "Needful" ... wait, not only is that an uncommon word today in any usage, but that's not even a noun (which "the" can precede). ✔Please do the dishes. ✔Do "The Twist." ✔Do the homework, son! ✖Do the needful = incorrect. – wiigame Jun 30 '20 at 08:03
  • The first time I saw Do The Needful I had no idea what was being asked. The old 70's song Do The Hustle just played over and over in my mind (which I found enjoyable). When I asked the co-worker who wrote it what it mean, I was immediately enamored of the whole concept and use it wherever possible. – EllieK Dec 11 '20 at 20:20
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    @wiigame - I agree this particular phrase doesn't quite parse, but consider this related example: "fix the broken". It also follows the verb-article-adjective form, and it kind of works as a motto, though it still expects a noun (like "things") to follow. I think the idiomatic awkwardness here has a lot to do with the word "do", but I'm not expert enough to analyze this further. – Alex Reinking Mar 28 '21 at 01:56
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    I believe @wiigame is right with the gut feel of "that's wrong" because "needful" is an adjective, which is applied to a noun. In common american vernacular, this phrase simply feels incomplete. It would perhaps be "Do the needful thing(s)." It feels potentially rude to me because it's a command and because it's ambiguously inclusive. It is telling you to do an unknown number of things. It could instead be said "Please do whatever you can" which is a request and limits the request to only what the addressee can accomplish. – OneHoopyFrood Aug 13 '21 at 19:09
  • Agreed that it seems incorrect in English for some reasons. To me the most significant being that "needful" is extremely archaic (at least in Am.E where I am) and the only time I (or perhaps most people) have heard it is in the title of Stephen King's "Needful Things" (cementing the word's [apparently only] status as an adjective preceding "things", as other commenters expect). – Darren Ringer Nov 30 '21 at 14:11
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It was a common saying in the times of British colonization in India. It has since become antiquated outside of India, but is still in use amongst English speaking Indians. I work for a large worldwide tech company and it is very common with our India counterparts.

NursultanTulyakbay
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I'm a QA Manager, and I just used this phrase after signing off on a build. QA has signed off and a few other things need to be done and I have no idea what that list of things is. I use "Please do the needful" instead of "Please merge, build and deploy the code" as I'm not sure what all needs to be done, nor do I need to know.

If I'm specific and wrong (we don't deploy till this evening or I miss getting the release notes together) then at best I'll get questions about my mistakes that lengthen the process or a step is missed or done too early which causes actual problems.

"DO the needful" abstracts the "ask" so I don't need to know what actually needs to be done. And to answer the questions about higher ups, I still use this phrase and for the exact same reasons, for asks where I don't know the details of the process, most recently firing a contractor and hiring a new one.

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"Please do the needful" is a request which we use not only with our Indian English speaking clients, but are using more and more with other customers from around the world. The usual context is with regard to submitting some document, paying an outstanding invoice, or completing some task, or completing some other necessary action. Personally, I would use different phrases for each eventuality, but "Please do the needful" works! And if it isn't 'broken', why try and 'fix' it? The English language is incorporating new words and meanings every day. I therefore think that "Please do the needful* is a very polite, 'workable' and generally acceptable way of asking, or requesting, someone to do the task at hand.

R Clews
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    It is accepted by everyone I work with as well. We politely react accordingly (paying an invoice, etc) and say nothing, because to do otherwise would be impolite. Ask a non-Indian that you trust in these matters, and ask them which is more polite (using Garrick's example): "The generated report is incorrect, please do the needful." or "The generated report is incorrect, would you look into it?" When they tell you it's the latter, perhaps you'll believe that while it is intended by Indian speakers to be polite (and is to you), it is not to others. – inanutshellus Oct 17 '14 at 15:21
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I havef encountered this phrase from time to time, and I never found it offensive. I am a speaker of US English, with no cultural heritage from India. I don't understand why anyone considers this offensive. In some cases it is in my view too vague, leaving it up the the listener to decide just what "the needful" is, and that can lead to misunderstandings.

i hve more often encountered this in fiction, not in dialog but in a character describing his or her own actions. For example in the "Share" series by Nathan Lowell (Quarter Share, Half Share, Full Share, Double Share, Captain's Share, and Owner's Share) the first person narrator and main character on a number of occasions writes "I awoke, got up and did the needful." or something similar, apparently meaning that he excreted. In that usage, I don't find this different from any other euphemism. In the same series, that character sometimes uses the phrase to mean "did some essential task" such as cleaning or cooking a meal.

David Siegel
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I think people accept and understands this phrase world wide although, majority I believe would associate it as being commonly used by Indian speakers.. Specifically Indian speakers IN India or who still have a strong connection to their Indian work ethic or practices. I've never heard this spoken by Indians OUTSIDE India specially the ones who've been working on a multinational or cross country businesses.

Personally though, I often interpret it more as "I'm not really sure what to do or how you plan to do it so I'll sound professional here and use 'do the needful' to pass the ball to you."

shilo
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  • Updating: For what it's worth, I didn't down-vote you. Your answer was anecdotal just like everyone else's and more polite than many. Please don't be discouraged from using StackOverflow because your first post was not well-received. We don't all bite. :-D – inanutshellus Jan 04 '17 at 14:19
  • And don't get discouraged from using Stack Overflow because your first post on a totally different site was not well-received! – Lightness Races in Orbit Mar 16 '18 at 20:28
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Would you ask you boss to "Please do the needful"? Why not? We see this in the IT world and roll ouu eyes when we see it coming from our IE friends. We don't find it offensive, but see i,t at times, as the requester not actually being knowledgeable of the issue. If you wouldn't use the phrase with you supervisors just don't use it.

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