 | « Back to article | Print this article |
'Prurient', 'esurient', 'parturient' and everything in between.
Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters
It is now clear that no one in India can get more people to reach for a dictionary than Shashi Tharoor.
'A mischievous friend,' he tweeted today, 'challenged me to find a rhyme for the word 'prurient'. And Tharoor did.
In the early months of 2017, he taught India the word 'farrago' through a tweet and became the subject of countless jokes and memes -- the MP from Thiruvananthapuram did it again.
In December 2017, Tharoor attempted to explain why he uses the words he does.
He tweeted, 'To all the well-meaning folks who send me parodies of my supposed speaking/writing style: The purpose of speaking or writing is to communicate w/ precision. I choose my words because they are the best ones for the idea i want to convey, not the most obscure or rodomontade ones!'
Coming from someone as articulate as Tharoor -- and he has often proven on Twitter that he has a sense of humour -- it is safe to assume that he was also sniggering at himself.
But with a word like 'rodomontade' out there, matters escalated quickly.
As Tharoor continues to expand our vocabulary, we bring you a guide -- which we promise to update -- to Tharoor's English.
You are welcome :)
*All definitions, unless specified, sourced from Oxford Dictionary.
