Changing Vocabulary.

          In a world of awesomeness, some things perish. Simple words, for example.

          From newspaper reports I gather that police no longer go anywhere. They don’t even run. They ‘rush’ to the sites (of murder, suicide, whatever).

From the same newspapers I gather that all murders are gruesome/shocking. Why type in an extra word is my point. One can just say there was a murder on the beach. Why say it was gruesome? All murders are horrific, no? Just asking.

Now that Goa’s on the terror radar, the state’s on high alert. Mere alertness won’t do, it has to be high.

Rows at gram-panchayat sabhas are always major and members don’t debate, argue or quarrel, they get embroiled in disputes. Courts don’t chide or punish, they ‘slam’ the guilty. Just as the Reserve Bank of India doesn’t lower the interest rates, it slashes them: even it’s by .25 %. Slash and slam, awesome words.

These days, no one drinks liquor or anything at all, they consume it. Vendors no longer request or ask for space in the market. They demand it. Or so my newspaper says.

If I said the Naval Band entertained or amused an audience, it would sound so… so… childish. Regale sounds professional and so it’s used even for kindergarten annual day functions. Jr KG children of YZ Prabhu school regaled parents with their talent, etc. Sounds grand? And misleading.

“Such big words,” I said to Shri Husband, “these reporters use. I wonder whether they know what the differences in meaning are.”

Shri Husband’s response was typically unkind: “What difference will it make if someone says you’re bad at housework versus you’re housework challenged?”

I had a feeling he was referring to me and not to a virtual/imaginary ‘you’, so I sat quietly for some time, not wanting to stir up a -- you know—‘discussion’.

Turning to a sports’ page, I discovered that cricket or other teams don’t lose, they suffer losses. Suffer, ah, much used. People don’t get fever, they suffer from it.

“Some families,” quoth Shri Husband in a sombre tone, “don’t suffer from insanity. They enjoy it.” I’m surprised at his wit at times. Don’t know whether I should refer to it as amazing, fantastic or super.

Some people refer to all women of any age as ‘girls’. Others call them ladies. (Pronounced lay-diss). Somehow the words women and woman are extinct. Doesn’t apply to men. Someone, somewhere should be screaming (not saying) ‘discrimination’.

We don’t repair or mend our clothes/footwear any longer. We either buy (sorry, purchase) new stuff after discarding the old, or restore it. Reusing with the help of imagination and skill is called up-cycling. And giving it to younger siblings/cousins… is just not done. (Ref the word ‘buy’: not many know when to use it. And claim to purchase a box of matches. Who knows the difference in meaning; who cares, eh?

‘I don’t know’ has been replaced with ‘I have no personal knowledge of’.

I, who love languages, have forgotten the difference between ailing, ill and sick. May peace in restfulness be upon my English-Miss.

BTW, students nowadays aren’t clever, intelligent or bright, they’re academically endowed.

“Like,” Shri Husband said unwelcomly for the second time in a couple of minutes. “You’re housework challenged. And unwelcomly is not a word.”

Who asked you, I thought to myself, to read what I’m typing.

“Just saying,” he said. Uncanny, or should I say fantastic, his knack of reading my mind.

I saw a hoarding with the picture of a deluxe/luxury two-wheeler. Dirt-bikes I can understand, but a calling a little city-dwelling scooter a deluxe/luxury vehicle is downright sarcastic. But people who believe in fantastic and amazing vocabulary fall for such advertisements.

Pokey-little flats or small bungalows (another dead word, replaced by villas) are also described as luxury homes. The word flat is nearly dead, substituted by apartment.

          With icons and emoticons making their way into computer-generated communication, describing feelings no longer needs words. So the exaggerations of the written word themselves maybe getting extinct.

Placement of eyebrows to show a scowl, the colour crimson to indicate anger, various shapes of lips and sizes of eyes emphasize various expressions. A tongue coming out at one end means the ‘writer’ is saying something he shouldn’t be, out of turn, so pardon him. These icons are just the opposite of the exaggerations that have entered the lexicon of the 2000s. Like sms.

Sms is evolving into a new language, call it textese or chatspeak. LOL (laugh out loud or lots of love) is a simple example of it. An exaggerated, more common version of the same ‘act’ (of laughing) is ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing). Smiling, in spite of the emoticon showing various kinds of smiles, isn’t part of sms vocabulary. Including numericals into words is a gr8 change. Not just nice, not just practical, but 1deful (wonderful). Nowhere in conventional language is ‘ha ha’ just a laugh and ‘muahaha’ an evil laugh. But you need to know that a plain ‘muah’ is a platonic peck on the cheek.

No amount of words can give the effect of tone and accent. Just how fulfilling a meal was can be described, in India, as good, very good, verry good, verrrry good, very-very good or super. You could loudly add ‘excellent’ for effect. Films can be horrible, terrible, flops, but the word ‘bad’ is no longer in use. Not in the recent past have I read any review that mentions a film as plain ‘bad’. What was considered bad/foul language in my youth is now called abusive/obscene. Changing times, change in words.

IMO (in my opinion), if you won’t change, YOYO (you’re on your own). Viva evolution.

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