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June 22, 2005
Vishy's Indian English Dictionary: timepass
timepass. /tAIm·pAHs/. Any activity undertaken to pass time. Also seen in an adverbial form.
Some people in India think substituting 'pastime' for this word makes sense, but it really doesn't because pastimes occasionally have connotations of being gainful, such as say, doing woodwork in your garage. Doing something for timepass, in contrast, is rarely gainful. People munch on junk food for timepass. People watch TV for timepass. People sit around on street corners and pass rude comments at girls for timepass.
There is no direct noun equivalent to timepass in U.S. English that I know of, but you could plausibly substitute 'for timepass' with 'to kill time' in any Indian English sentence to get its U.S. English equivalent. For example, 'I injected this lab rat with a lethal dose of nicotine for timepass' can be transformed to yield 'I injected this lab rat with a lethal dose of nicotine to kill the time'.
Timepass is also the most common reason given by people in India when they have no better answer for why they are doing something. As in
"Rahul, why you are picking your nose?"
"Timepass, mummy!"
"Stop it right now, or else mummy's going to tell daddy Rahul's been a very bad boy."
Posted by Vishy at June 22, 2005 10:17 PM