‘I don’t care because I am in gobbling mode.’
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It’s true that only dictionaries typically come out with ‘Word of the Year’. But that makes no sense. Milan Kundera, in The Unbearable Lightness of Being — a novel that ruined an entire generation of literature students by propelling them into ill-advised romantic liaisons by making them believe they are Tomaz/ Franz or Tereza/ Sabina — talks about how the same word could mean different things to different people.
For instance, Kundera explains how for some people, the word ‘demonetisation’ could mean ‘withdrawal of a coin or note as legal tender’, while for others, it could mean ‘inflict sadistic pain’, and for another set of people, it could mean ‘legalised loot and plunder’.
My point, which flows logically from Kundera’s point, is that everyone should make up their own lists of ‘words of the year’ instead of swallowing something put out by a random dictionary. So what if all of you want the same thing (moolah, Hindu Rashtra, and children ‘settled’ outside Hindu Rashtra), consume the same junk (WhatsApp, Insta, news, OTT), and have the same medley of ailments awaiting you (as Bryan Adams sang, ‘ Look into your heart, look into your kidneys, there is nothing you will not find’).
This column is a satirical take on life and society.
What matters is that each one of you is a unique individual with a unique vocabulary and patterns of usage and therefore deserving of a unique ‘words of the year’ which no one but you yourself should put together. Therefore, to inspire you, I am sharing my own personal list of words that defined the year for me lexically.
Gobbling mode
Originally used to describe crony capitalists but now also applicable to gluttons, it is when you are so hungry for something — be it natural resources, PSUs, government assets or food — that you want to gobble up everything on offer. Last week, for instance, I was at a book launch when I suddenly felt so famished I scooped up five samosas and all the Jim Jam biscuits I could grab. Everyone stared. But I didn’t care because I was in gobbling mode.
Vaandhify
English, as we know, borrows words from other languages all the time. Vaandhify comes from the Tamil word vaandhi which means ‘vomit’. Vaandhify means ‘to do or say something that could make the other person puke or feel like puking’ or ‘desperately wish to puke’. I am told it was coined by the same person who designed the green puke emoji for WhatsApp and is meant to be used when you are communicating offline and don’t want to physically act out the emoji.
It’s typically used when someone shares content so morally horrifying that its horror crosses over into disgust, leaving you marvelling at its ‘vaandhifying’ power. Example: A vulgar propaganda movie gets accepted into the competition section of a prestigious film festival. That’s disgusting, right? But it still doesn’t qualify. Now imagine that film winning the festival’s most coveted prize. That’s vaandhifying.
Musk-melon
Not to be confused with cantaloupes, which are also known as muskmelons. Unlike cantaloupes, which are native to Iran, Afghanistan, and parts of India, the musk-melon is native to Twitter. The term, a transliteration of the Tamil word gnanapazham, which means ‘fruit of knowledge’, refers to right-wing know-it-alls on the social media platform who have benefited from the changes wrought by Elon Musk. They used up their last $8 buying a blue tick and spend their days hunting ‘wokes’ and busting ‘woke news’.
Woke
Past tense of the verb ‘wake’ that means ‘to stop sleeping’. It also apparently means something — I don’t know what exactly — that makes free market evangelists, robber barons, wife-beaters, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, technophiles, centrists, personality-cult followers, and caste system-defenders feel angry, aggravated, and victim-like.
Validation
A word I’ve heard a lot this year but in bizarre contexts. Unless I’m a ticket checking machine or a parking attendant, I don’t see how I can be in the validation business. But I’ve been schooled repeatedly, especially on social media, that X or Y is seeking not a solution to their problems but a validation of their feelings. Apparently it’s a thing now — to go out and seek ‘validation’ from strangers, as if you are a boarding pass. I don’t claim to understand this.
Urban excel
A close cousin of the dreaded urban naxal, the urban excel attacks innocent people with data and numbers loaded into nuclear-tipped Excel sheets. Thankfully, you can avoid being attacked using the same survival strategy as with a grizzly bear: if you spot them lurking nearby, stay still and keep your mouth shut.
The author of this satire, is Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
sampath.g@thehindu.co.in
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