The Right Way...

... to write the initials of a person is as follows:

M.K. Gandhi - Correct

M K Gandhi - Correct (or rather, considered acceptable these days; but remember, the space is necessary)

M.K Gandhi - Incorrect!

Remember, initials are after all abbreviations, and M.K doesn't really suggest anything. Nor does Vijitha.V!

Speaking of which, when you write JFK, it is fine to write it without the periods!

(Confused? English is confusing!)

English is a funny language… (II)

It’s estival time. I wake up to the tweedle I’m used to at this time of the year. I rub my eyes, remove the rheum, pandiculate, accompanied by the normal oscitance that goes with it. I get up and look out the window. The sight is pulchritudinous! I thrum on the window sill and look back at the bed. I see my hubby fast asleep. I feel the urge to wake him up. And what better way, than to osculate! He smiles…and I know he’s awake now, alright.

*****

Confused? That’s how English can be. There are pretty complex words for simple things/actions/words, you begin to imagine how difficult it’s gonna get if we all started speaking like this. The above para in ‘normal’ English would read something like this:

“It’s summer. I wake up to the chirping I’m used to at this time of the year. I rub my eyes, remove that dried thing near my eyes, stretch, accompanied by the normal yawn that goes with it. I get up and look out the window. The sight is beautiful! I drum idly on the window sill and look back at the bed. I see my hubby fast asleep. I feel the urge to wake him up. And what better way, than to kiss! He smiles…and I know he’s awake now, alright.”

(You be the judge…which one was better?)

Jokes apart, I’ve seen quite a few people write like this. And by ‘this’ I mean a “thesaurasized” version of what they had in mind. They feel that using high-funda English words in their narrative makes quite the ‘impression’. Frankly speaking, seeing such ‘attempts’ at seeming good at English disgusts me no end. These are the kind of people who (I believe) are ready with a thesaurus or MS Word at their disposal. Write a plain English word, “right click - synonyms - select”… and they think they’re good to go. Who are they trying to fool? I mean, especially when your friends/acquaintence know how good a vocab you actually have, or know your propensity towards books/reading…. I wonder. Anyways, seeing such articles/write-ups cracks me up and I have a good time reading those, especially when words have been used in contexts in which they are not usually used! (Sorry, can’t think of an example now!). Writing well is more than using complex/complicated words… it’s an art. Something that won’t stop at just knowing (or mugging up) diffcult words and their meanings. And yes, sometimes saadgi mein sundarta hai (there’s beauty in simplicity).

Another thing that amuses me is the Dictionary. Yes, it’s been a good friend of mine (and many more, I’m sure). We look up words we don’t know and it enlightens us. But on the flip side, the simplest of things appear most complicated. One of the things I occasionally do to amuse myself (when I’m bored) is to find the definitions of common English words (and yea, this began way before Aamir and Omi in ‘3 Idiots’ and the whole ‘machine’ definition thing). If you don’t believe me, sample a couple:

Eye - the organ of sight, in vertebrates typically one of a pair of spherical bodies contained in an orbit of the skull and in humans appearing externally as a dense, white, curved membrane, or sclera, surrounding a circular, colored portion, or iris, that is covered by a clear, curved membrane, or cornea, and in the center of which is an opening, or pupil, through which light passes to the retina.
Now you begin to wonder why poets and those in love sing praises of those pair of ‘organs’!


Walk - to advance or travel on foot at a moderate speed or pace; proceed by steps; move by advancing the feet alternately so that there is always one foot on the ground in bipedal locomotion and two or more feet on the ground in quadrupedal locomotion.
What an explanation! ;-) Kinda reminds me of manuals. Lol!

Try out more for yourself. There… one more thing you may do when you’re bored. :-P

English is a funny language… (I)

… and it gets funnier by the day! Most of us have come across forward e-mail messages or newpaper articles on why English is a funny language. Recently I happened to come across new words that have been coined, which only confirm that. Presenting to you a few words that are the result of man’s irresistable and insatiable tendency to make it ‘easier’ to communicate (read ‘coming up with new words that sound funny or are hard to remember’)!

Technology (and the internet, in specific) has forced Oxford Dictionary and the likes to come up with words for fairly regular technology-related occurences. Sample these (mostly conjugation of words):

Favicon – this is the small icon you see in the address bar of the browser while you’re accessing a site or while saving it in bookmarks/favouritizing it. The easiest means by which you can make out which site it is when you have a number of tabs open in a browser.

Freemium – anything from matrimonial sites to downloads (music/movies) and image/video hosting sites are based on it - basic features being free and advanced features being charged for!

Screenager – every household will probably have one now, i.e. a young person/teenager who spends a lot of time in front of the computer screen! (You and me included!)

Infomania – most common mania now - constantly checking and responding to email and text messages

Nonliner – someone who rarely or never uses the Internet, usually because they cannot access it (something we dread to be!)

Robocall – Tired of the pre-recorded messages you hear from Airtel, Vodafone and the others? This indicates an automated telephone call which delivers a recorded message. Next time you pick the phone and realize it’s one of “those” calls, you have a term for it now!

Blackburied – means being inundated and exhausted trying to be on top of all your email 24/7 with your handheld mobile device. For all you know, too much of this ‘berry’ could lead to the real ‘bury’!

In a totally unrelated context, check these other words out!

Baggravation - A feeling of annoyance and frustration at the airport when your baggage has not arrived but the other passengers' bags have. What about waiting for a delayed bus/train, I wonder....

Staycation and Daycation – if you guessed that it has something to do with a ‘vacation’, that’s right. In the first one you stay at home and relax (or maybe visit places close to home); the second one is a short one where the trip lasts one day (no overnight stay).

Decruitment – antonym of ‘recruitment’…yep, ‘laying off’.

Flexitarian - A vegetarian who sometimes eats meat or fish. Hmmmm…so how about non-vegetarians who sometimes eat veg. food? ;-D

Freemale – Though the word suggests something totally different (!), this one’s supposed to indicate a woman who is happy to stay single and independent so that she can do what she wants when she wants. (Who ever came up with this one!!... Some 'male' who didn't like it, I guess!)

Gastrosexuals – Move over metrosexuals and ubersexuals. Meet the gastrosexuals!... A new generation of men who see cooking more as a hobby than a household chore, and use their cooking skills to impress friends and potential partners. Who said that stomach is the way to a man’s heart only!

Sandwich generation - A generation of people who care for the needs of their children as well as those of their own elderly parents. Wonder why they even coined a term like this…it’s been the case, atleast in Asia, for a long while, but yea, this generation may soon be decreasing.

Noughties – If you were to say that World War I was in the 10s, World War II in the 40s, and so on and so forth… how would you talk about the Sept. 11 attacks? It was in the … Clueless? So this word! It refers to the years between 2000 and 2009 which contain a 'nought' (zero), in the same way as other decades are called the 'thirties', 'sixties', etc.

Care to coin more interesting words??