A storm in a v-cup — v for vocabulary — is how the latest controversy over Shashi Tharoor’s remarks ought to be described. For only someone with a very modest collection of words at his disposal, or a very large hatchet, or both, could possibly interpret the junior minister’s reference to Saudi Arabia being a “valuable interlocutor for [India]” as assigning Riyadh a mediatory role between New Delhi and Islamabad.It looks like politics is slowly becoming the interpretation, misinterpretation, quoting-out-of-context slugfest. Strangely, it is English and not any of the regional language that is involved. Legal eagles usually nitpick on the syntax of English used in India to the point that people are better off using regional language. To promote 'exclusivity', English is often praised as a language that helps in better 'wording of ideas/thoughts'. English-bred people are apparently better than Marathi-bred or Tamil-bred or Bengali-bred.
I am not sure of the intention in complicating issues with strange English usage. I noticed it first during Mumbai attack, when P Chidambaram, who apparently studied law in Harvard, acted like a legal eagle and mentioned '“It is a detailed dossier, supported by electronic evidence like transcripts and intercepts and interrogation reports...' I was amused by the choice of word 'dossier'. It served no other purpose but to keep journalists and critics guarded or in awe because 'unheard' word has been used.
Recently, with Marathi manoos ruling the roost in Maharashtra, Chidambaram chose “This is a pernicious thesis, and it will have to be rejected. Anyone can work and live in Mumbai.” Not surprisingly, newspapers in Maharashtra were not amused, definitely not Pune Mirror.
Sir, next time you want to trash the Shiv Sena or MNS on its Marathi manoos and Mumbai-for-Marathis stand, you should keep in mind that the rudimentary saffron mind does not carry a dictionary around (because the lathi and the flag occupy the hands). You must have the wisdom to see that they aren’t going to understand stuff like ‘pernicious thesis’. Forget, the average Sena or MNS worker, even most liberal capitalists would need a dictionary for something like that.Now Shashi Tharoor is spending hours in explaining what 'interlocutor' means. It probably indicates how far the politicians are detached from the public and talk only in Greek and Latin. The choice of vocabulary to indicate 'status' not just in politics. Almost entire 'desi' flock uses stupid adjectives which even more stupid Americans use. I remember getting some sort of shock in Jan 2000, when one senior person in Texas Instruments commented on a book - 'Awesome'. At that point of time, I was more used to 'awful' and 'awesome' was new to me. Since the book was written by Sainath and I too posessed one such copy, I assumed that the word was used in 'flattering' light. Later, I realized that Americans used that adjective for every 'godda thing' :o and Indians are using it to show they are 'American'. I was irritated during one recent conference by Mentor Graphics, when the 'anchor' kept repeating 'awesome' throughout the day :(
Similarly during one of my 'girl seeing' visits to Chennai, I noticed kids playing on the road saying 'pass it here, dude' :o Probably dude was either passed on from his father/mother (or) caught during a US trip. Another irritant is the usage of 'tonnes of' and even my sister from US was mentioning 'there are tonnes of buses to HAL' :o I remember one manager in one company during one of those interviews about 'tonnes of projects'.
It is awesome that I am having tonnes of patience seeing some dude talk ;)
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