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The ablution is part of a daily religious ritual where you are situated Nick. It's the culture and the religion and the people.
I would not be brave enough to generalize ANY tradition across India.

Well, except for the tendency to spit on the road. That one seems fairly well-rounded across all states I've been to.\
Uhh.. take your time Pavan. You should read it again at leisure.

Indeed... from the one family that I had stayed with some years back, both in London and in Chennai, I had assumed that everyone in India started the day with a bath! Of course it is not the case...

When I was a small child in the British 1950s, I used to bath (vb ;)) once a week --- barring having rolled in mud that day or something. That was in a respectable, middle-class family, too.

We call it 'urinate', here in the north! Indeed it is a very common sight. :)

That is perhaps 51 more baths per year than many mountain folk take in India. Most of them have the one annual bath when summer has truly set in.
Things are changing everywhere and this quaint tradition is also fast disappearing!

Hah! That's funny.

"The United States and England, two countries separated by a common language." -George Bernard Shaw

Sorry to jump from first post of this wonderful topic to last but can't help being nit picky about the usage of "between". Maybe it has become accepted usage, but my understanding (and the way I use it) is that "between" is used with reference to two parties, e.g.
"...as the means of communication between Sam and other TeamBHP members".

When required to refer to a group exceeding two parties, the key word is "among" or "amongst", e.g.
"...as the means of communication among it's members."

In my original sentence the word it's is wrong. A mistake you have repeated too. It's can ONLY be used as a shortened form of it is or it has. Belongs to it is used simply as its.

About the use of between and among. I am 100% sure of this as there was a time I was unsure myself and had to do a little research.

AMONG is used when the parameters are undefined. As the dictionary puts it "Collective and undefined relations of usually three or more"

Again as the dictionary puts it "Between may be used to express one-to-one relationships of pairs within the group or the sense 'shared by' : For example there is close friendship between the members of the club"Given all the above reasoning it would then be correct to say that English was the official means of communication between the members of Team-BHP.

Between can also be used in cases with more than 2 parties, provided the parties are well-defined. There is great friendship between Tom, Dick, Peter and Harry.

Your Yetiship,
Because of laziness I concede this point!
Not wanting to do the research, the easiest way out is to accept authority! :)

Also, from Guite's post, shouldn't it be "nitpicky" instead of "nit picky"? or am i just a nit who is being picky about the whole nitty-picky thingy? Is there any word like "nitpicky" anyway? Should it not be "can't help being a nitpicker"?

Sam, I think there's a difference between the first example and the second. In the first case, you can't really be friends with a group of people collectively - you are friends with each of its members, so "between" makes sense.

In the second example however, we use a bulletin-board format where communication is one-to-many rather than a set of one-to-one conversations, so I think "among" is more appropriate.

I agree with the viewpoint that 'between' is used when there are two parties, and 'among' when there are more than two. At least that is what we were taught in school by our 'angrez' teacher, Mr Saunders.

I suppose you would be right in this context.

I guess it is how you look at the sentence. I meant it as communication between people. Not among people.
So then would you say that there is great friendship among Tom, Dick, Peter and Harry? There are definitely more than two parties there.
I disagree. Among would be very wrong here. Between can indeed be used with more than 2 parties provided there is a clear definition of who the parties are.

There can be great friendship among men. This implies that many men can be great friends.

There can be great friendship between men. Even though there is only one party, between is used - here the sense implies that 2 men can be great friends.

There can be great friendship between tall men, short men and fat men. Even though there are clearly 3 parties here, between is still correct as the parties are defined.

In any case my original sentence
seems very wrong to me when I read it now. It was written in haste.

I would re-write that sentence in all cases.

This discussion is relevant here because English is the official language of communication at Team-BHP.

A sweet, short and clear English sentence, free of any complex and potentially erroneous grammar.

Okay, you do have a point here. But I was having something else in mind, like :-
'They divided the cake between themselves' (denoting two parties) Vs 'They divided the cake amont themselves' (more than two).

Maybe I'm old fashioned but I'd rather wish they would divide the cake amongst themselves rather than among themselves.

But it IS correct English. Even from the old fashioned point of view.

And there is 'redundancy' in that sentence. Should read, " I'd rather that they would divide the cake....".

If the meeting is on Tuesday and I advanced it by a day, did I reschedule the meeting on Monday or on Wednesday?