after thought : Year 2009 Lingo...Lets look back

ALT:(Abbreviation) alternative, meaning substitute; as in keeping plan B ready
Plan A is for nincompoops.Trust us; statistics back it. Google, Starbucks, PayPal and even Pantaloons had to dump Plan A to rake in the moolah. So goes for boy/girlfriend, marriage and so on. Isn’t Tom Cruise looking happier with Katie? Gaiety is all over Angelina Jolie. They were saved by the ‘Alt’. Switch to Plan B — it is transcendence. C to D to E will be a cakewalk. Like Ike says, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” Why do you think Fastrack screams move on’, and people are listening?
AND: (Conjunction) to want more and

more; as in “Don’t say ‘either’ or ‘or’. Say ‘and’”
She says, “I want more.” He says, “I know about wanting more. I invented the concept. The question is how much more.” And she says, “I want the fairy tale.” Whoa! That was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Sums up just about everything, doesn’t it? Why can’t everyone want everything? Who says there’s an upper limit to wanting? Yeah, getting it isn’t cricket. But then, contentment, the word, has retired. So did either, or. It’s
the era of the ‘and’. Keep wanting.

ANTI: (Adjective) go against the flow; as in just say no, sometimes for the heck of it
Name the greatest unsolved problem in physics. Antimatter. Mix matter and its anti, and you get complete annihilation. The guessing game is on about a universe of antimatter, the ultimate fantasy of physicists being to spot it and tame it for energy. Well, sounds like the stereotypical chimera — bag the wild for the thrill. Domestication comes next, followed by boredom. After all, there’s only so much ‘yes-men’ can do. Try ‘no’ next time, and watch the fireworks. Pleasure guaranteed.

BITCH: (Noun) a malicious person, especially a woman; also a term of endearment
When the New York City Council in 2007 proposed a city-wide measure to ban the word ‘bitch’, a few eyebrows were raised. The message was clear; the word was ‘sexist and hateful’. A few protested. Half of our conversations would be gone, they said, illustrating how deeply the
word had become ingrained in common parlance. Over the years, the B-word has only become more, well, endearing. Samriti Sharma, a Mumbai-based journalist, who thought the word was “highly derogatory”, is now ‘everybody’s bitch’. Sick of calling your sweetheart, well, ‘sweetheart’? Now, here’s your option.

BUMF: (Noun) bum fodder, wasted paper; as in the Liberhan & Ranganath Misra reports
Think green, don’t generate bumf. Whoever said that the digital economy would reduce the use of paper as people would read soft copies must have been the most short-sighted forecaster in history. When all we had was just paper, people took great care of books, reports, journals. Paper was conserved. Now that you get everything in PDF, people not only keep the soft copy, but print it at the drop of a hat. Bumf is a word for the greener world we are about to enter. Documents that are printed just for convenience and one-time look-see are bumf — use and chuck. In India, we have never had a shortage of bumf, the government being the prime generator of it. Commissions of inquiry churn out bumf, as Liberhan did. He collected Rs8 crore of pocket money over 17 years, and created enough bumf to justify the effort.

CARBON: (Noun) an element; also carbon footprint, ie per capita greenhouse gas emissions
Believe it or not, your carbon footprint affects your ‘carma’. Here’s how: The average person in India releases about 1,300 kg of greenhouse gases per year; and we are a nation of one billion. Do the math. You could do your bit at home to ‘save the earth’. Switch off electrical appliances. Take cold showers. Carpool, or use energy efficient cars. Better still, carpool
in an energy efficient car. You can go veggie too. Unplug stereos, radios, TVs, and DVDs. Everything adds up.


CROW: (Verb) to blow one’s trumpet
Rakhi Sawant does it. So do all successful politicians. Crowing is an art that one should excel in, especially at work. But for the unskilled, here’s a crash course. Approach your desk like a tiger does his prey.Watch out for the boss. Sigh deeply and discuss your heavy workload whenever you see him. But the art of crowing is a twoheaded monster. While it might result
in good appraisals, you could also get extra work. So don’t overdo it.


DATE: (Noun) the day of the month or year; also a social engagement
Perhaps the most important four letter word in a man’s life. Many a married man has learnt this the hard way: the key to a happy marriage is to remember anniversaries. Behind every dead man is an angry wife who did not get flowers on her birthday. A date could be blind, but you must never be blind to the date. Your future often depends on how well your date goes. A happy date could mean wedding bells + a house in the suburbs + children. While on this, have you ever tried this pick-up line? ‘Would you like a raisin? No? How about a date?’


DUH:(Interjection) used to express annoyance at obviousness or stupidity
What Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson today.


EQ (Energy Quotient): (Noun) refers to work done while on Red Bull overdose. Conversely, has to do with your ability to look for and use alternative forms of energy, ie windmills, gasbags and such
No mathematical equations will work here — like, work 10 hours a day and smile at your boss six times an hour to get one promotion every 15 months. No, that’s bunkum. Here the measure is of the amount of energy expended on getting each job done, so that you get the promotion and lose weight at the same time. Walking about looking busy, juggling six presentations with a salsa class and an official dinner and then finishing your child’s homework is a good indication of a person with a high EQ. It must be made clear that lazy good-for-nothings have a better chance of succeeding than people who expend energy without anything to show for it. That would be wasteful expenditure. EQ is a fine measure where the calibrations and the goal posts keep changing. Tough luck.


EX: (Noun, archaic but still in use) love interest demoted to hate interest
If you are Tiger Woods, you might find it difficult to keep count of the number of Exes you might have but for others less fortunate, there is usually one Ex, which dominates your drunken moments. It is necessary to sit with close friends and many bottles of alcohol and work out ways to take revenge for being jilted. However, if you are a habitual jilter, you are safe until you reach the pearly gates and are confronted with rows of angry women or men. Then you can pray for the ‘X’ factor, without an ‘E’, which means an unknown entity to save you. If you are Tiger Woods, all bets are off.


F*@#: (Verb) to have sexual intercourse; also referred to as the ‘F’ word
Mistakenly thought to have come from ‘Fornication Under Consent of the King’, the ‘F’ word is perhaps the most versatile word in the English language. It can be used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, or interjection and can be used as virtually any word in a sentence. It can also be demonstrated with a gesture, something Greg Chappell learnt is a dangerous thing to do. It also transcends all language barriers. What’s more, Gen Y now juxtaposes it with other words to come up
with new profanities.



GAY: (Noun) homosexual. Important note: no longer means ‘happy’
To be gay is a high political statement in these times, especially in India where the ‘draconian’ (journalese for old and terrible) Section 377 criminalises homosexuality. Making fun of homosexuals is no longer acceptable and Indian cinema better watch its Ps and Qs. The queens won’t be amused. No, that was not a joke.We take being gay very seriously.


HYPE: (Verb) extravagant or intensive publicity or promotion; also a deception or hoax; also what you can expect when Obama comes calling
Clinton did it. Bush did it. And soon, if the ‘leaked’ news is to be believed, Obama will do it too. No, they are not declaring war. We’re talking about Obama’s supposed ‘gracious acceptance of Manmohan Singh’s invitation to visit India in 2010’. Much of the visit will be over-hyped, but here’s what will definitely happen. A gala state dinner at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and keeping with the grand Indian tradition of Atithi Devo Bhava, everyone will be invited. Reality TV stars, you needn’t gatecrash. Bilateral-talks will also find time. Obama may even promise ‘stern action against terrorists’. No, he won’t mention Pakistan.


I: (Pronoun) the pronoun used by a speaker while referring to himself or herself; also denotes the tendency of being self-Centred
It could probably rank as the biggest hoax in the world. Your mum says it. Your friends say it. Your husband/wife, teacher, almost all and sundry are saying it. And they are always ready with a quip or two from the good book. ‘Don’t be selfish’. Now the whole environment is conditioned in such a way that a kid is made to believe ‘selfish’ is bad, when all he really cares about is ‘his’ candy. While it’s not necessarily selfish that we ask you to be, we think its okay to be more ‘mefirst’. If you don’t, then the ‘jerk’ gets ahead of you. ‘I, me, myself ’ isn’t all that bad. You may displease your moral science teacher, but hey, you’ll be a whole lot happier. So whom would you rather have happy, yourself or the moral police?

INDIE: (Noun) an independent approach, not banking on anyone
Going indie doesn’t necessarily require tying a bandanna across your forehead and starting a music band (or a recording label). You don’t need to quit your job or invest in a start-up. Simply put, it is a frame of mind, and the world has never been this conducive for it. Why wait for Moses to lead the way when you’ve got all the boats and ships to get you across the
Red Sea? So, if you want to write a book (even if no one is willing to read it), go ‘e-publish’ it. If you want to sing,
go sing in a bar. (If they don’t allow you, there are always karaoke nights.) If you want to live in a stranger’s house, go ‘couchsurfing’ (the website allows you to meet people who are willing to share their house with travellers). Think of something, and there’s always an indie way of doing it.


JERK: (Slang) a foolish, rude, or contemptible person
See ‘Ex’


JUMP: (Verb) to spring clear of the ground; also a way to induce some adrenaline rush
To put some science into it, an adrenaline rush is caused when the adrenal glands release (what else but) adrenaline
in the body. And this happens during what is called the ‘fight-or-flight’ situation. But such are the times these
days, where your bottom is foreverglued to your armchair, that flight only means flying to some destination, and fights restricted to telephone conversations with your wife/husband. So now people actually pay for such adrenaline-inducing situations. There are tons of things one can do: jump off a cliff, bungee jumping that is, or go water-rafting, rock-climbing, paragliding, catapulting, etc.


KARMA: (Noun) action that sets in motion the cycle of cause and effect
When Ravi Kishan creepily asks you on TV if you’ve ever wondered why your junior supersedes you on Raaz Pichhle Janam Ka teasers, he is referring to karma. Loose usage of the term in the context of a sensitive State, as Sharon Stone found out, is a bad idea. Remember when she blamed China’s bad karma for the loss of 65,000 as the result of an earthquake? Exasperated
as karma police is with its misuse, it’s always cropping up in all the wrong contexts. Karma is not destiny; it’s a bit like what Earl from My Name is Earl sets out to do, when he decides to set right every bad and start a positive karmic cycle. Like he’d say, ‘Karma is a funny thing.’ How about working your karma this year, then.


KISS: (Verb) first base in American culture; a form of public display of affection (PDA)
While anthropologists suggest that India is actually the birthplace of kissing, it’s only lately that we have allowed it on screen, even though every American movie is literally sealed with a kiss. Now, if you try a Mika on a semi-celebrity in a pub, you make it to breaking news on Indian TV. If you, a man, hold hands with another man in the US, you’d be called gay; if you do that on Indian roads, you’d be seen as langotia yaars. But if you try that at a Delhi park, four unacquainted men will
converge from four different corners and plant four slaps on your face.

LINK: (Noun) a connection between someone and someone or something, or at least two things; also a uniform resource locater (url, geddit?)
For gossips, links are the meeting points between illicit lovers and so on. Often used by film gossip writers — this star has been linked with that starlet, this starlet wants to get linked with that star. These links can be linear but will most likely be triangular as that is the preferred shape for celebrity relationships. But in today’s world, it is the second meaning of link — the url — that is more significant. Online gossip is impossible without links to Tiger Woods’s newest girlfriend. Our emails will be much emptier minus links.

LIVE: (Verb) to broadcast events as they happen; also referred to as ‘deferred live’ — events as happened a short while ago
Live is a metaphor for our lives as lived online and through television. Reality TV gives us life as it happens around us, that is the lives of people who are placed in impossible situations (eating worms, running all over the world, stuck in a house with fellow weirdos), so that we can marvel and amuse ourselves at their expense. There is no script and therefore no story. This is life. Then, there is live as interpreted by TV news — the occurrence of an event that has the anchor screeching away, even if the event happened a few hours ago. TV, it must be emphasised, has little to do with life or live in the archaic or traditional sense of the word.


MCP: (Abbreviation) male chauvinist pig; a slur on every woman’s mouth
If being called a man wasn’t enough, they now call him an MCP. In these troubling days,where every man is paying for his cave man ancestor, MCP is a dreaded word. It’s on every woman’s mouth, let alone the feminist, an acronym more popular than ‘SMS’, a word more quickly uttered than Clint Eastwood would have drawn his gun. Truth be told, every man is a chauvinist (many
will disagree), varying in degrees. The society conditions him to believe he is superior. Then he joins work, and meets the ‘women’,who are now armed with the word. How unfair? In these heady times, where MCP is a tag no man wants to bear, he is in a fix. How can he not be called an MCP,when he is actually one? (Mind you his next cubicle female colleague is waiting to
pounce and declare him… yes, the deathly word… MCP.) No wonder the rise of the timid man is on the up.


MOJO: (Noun) a magic charm; also socks in Gujarati
It’s what gives Austin Powers his legendary sexual prowess and energy. A hard-to-come by substance, mojo can rock your relationship/marriage. Alternately, it may even be what makes the above mentioned relationship rocking. Unfortunately, mojo has a way of getting lost. But fear not. There’s always a way out. Unlike Austin Powers, who had to steal his mojo back, all you need to do is find a Gujarati and ask him, ‘Where’s my mojo, baby?’ And he will hand you not one but two mojos. A pair of socks. One of the most ignored men’s fashion accessories, the comic-book mojo, with Tom chasing Jerry from heel to toe, is what worked for Sid, aka Ranbir Kapoor, from Wake Up Sid. So pull up your mojo. And make sure it’s not smelly.


NEXT: (Adjective) immediately following in time, order, importance, etc
We’d like to tell you how bright and chirpy 2010 will be. But then not all is always well. The next biggest problem facing the country and the world is not any explosion — either by terrorists or the population. It will be fought on a daily basis; it will involve everyone and will be fought equally in the streets and in high-rise residential societies. And the weapons of choice will be jerkins, buckets or pipes. This war will be over fresh water. Water may cover more than 70% of the earth’s surface, but as studies project, by 2025, 40% of the human population will suffer from a serious lack of fresh water. It will be a time when water will have replaced oil as the most expensive substance on earth.

OM: (Noun) sacred syllable; here used as a metaphor for chanting
In 1967, French psychologist, Alfred Tomatis set out to study some Benedictine monks in a monastery and how chanting affected them. (They used to chant from six to eight hours a day). When a new abbot cut the chanting out, the monks became lethargic. On reintroducing chanting, the monks soon found the lost energy. Chants have been around for centuries across cultures. It has also been a practice among witches, neo-pagans, shamans and soccer fans. While some would tell you the words used have specific energies, others would say that any words continuously repeated in a certain rhythm serve the same purpose — of de-cluttering the mind of worded thoughts and taking emotions to an intense level. But there’s consensus on the fact that whether it is the chanting of mantras, syllables, vowel sounds, or harmonic overtones, the effects of chanting are powerful, especially when done in a group.


PAUSE: (Verb) a temporary stop in action or speech; also to take a gap year or a year off
Prince William made the ‘gap year’ fashionable. He took a year off before going to university, and travelled to Belize and Chile, working on a farm and volunteering for a charity that teaches English. Whether you are a student, overwhelmed by the Indian education system, or a corporate slave burned out by the long hours, or a ‘mature traveller, looking for early retirement’, as gap-year.com politely puts it, you too have a plethora of options to choose from. So what are you waiting for. Make 2010 a gap year. You will have plenty of stories to tell your grandchildren.

POKE: (Verb) jab or prod with a finger or a sharp object; also to contact somebody you have lost touch with for a long time
So you’ve lost touch with your best friend. Time and distance have torn you apart. Fear not. Just poke your friend. No, don’t go about jabbing people in the ribs. Don’t poke fun at them. And no, don’t poke your nose into their business either. Poke your friend on Facebook instead. It’s friendly, easy-todo and less intrusive. And a poke’s as easy to ignore as well, just in case you want to avoid the friend who pokes you.

QUEEN: (Noun) female ruler of a kingdom; also a metaphorical queen as of high society and a grande dame homosexual
Now that we no longer have queens in India of the first variety and very few in the rest of the world either, the battle for the throne is between society divas and homosexual queens. The latter are more likely to win because society queens are normally boring, dull social climbers largely invented by the glamour press and usually have nothing or little to say. Gay queens on the other hand are flamboyant, larger than life, outrageous, delightful, and a must at every party. May their tribe and power increase.


QUEUE: (Noun) a line of people waiting their turn; as in list of things to queue up for in 2010
In these times, one hardly ever gets the chance to queue up. You either do the needful online (where else) or on the phone. However, that doesn’t stop us from offering you a list of things worth queuing up for in 010:
Makaan: If want to own a makaan in Mumbai, you should consider the 3,770 houses that MHADA will give away via lottery.
The gPhone: Google’s own handset.
The FIFA World Cup in South Africa.


REDUX: (Adjective) brought back; as in things we’d like to bring back from the past
Chayageet/Binaca Geetmala
Buniyad/Hum Log
Jeera Goli
Polson’s butter
Ovaltine
Soviet magazines and books
Original Coke


RETRO: (Adjective) of or designating the style of an earlier time; also means going back to the simple life
We aren’t talking kitsch. No nostalgia-laced declarations either. Retro is just true, simple life — the Gaul way. Dare not dismiss it as utopian. Look at the 30-year-old Scottish businessman Mark Boyle. He lived money-free for a year, and is much
happier after the experience. He just validated the economics of Asterix and Obelix — the meaninglessness of sestertii (or money). Sceptics, didn’t Abraham Maslow tell you decades ago that on top of the hierarchy-of-needs ladder is self-actualisation — roughly translated — happiness? If you can reach there bypassing the cash-route, why not try it? With the recession blues still on, and the fault lines of world economy exposed, times beg for a system overhaul. Game?


SEE: (Verb) to look; also the culture of spying
Peep culture is what determines our lives. We now have the Internetgiven right to pry, poke, peek (and even peep) anywhere
we choose. The paparazzi are the obvious symbol of this but then they are just tools to satisfy our peeping Tom ways. Of course, this is a sociological phenomenon and we can fill this up with any kind of mumbo-jumbo we want. Post- Neolithic societal survival techniques, anyone? On the other hand, we just want to dish the dirt


TABOO: (Noun) a prohibition; as in a list of things that ought to be disallowed
Presenting a list of all the things that should be prohibited: Spit into the sink, not below it. Don’t pick your nose; pick on someone your own size. For men: don’t reach for your willy when not required. It is very much there. Cellphone conversations should be restricted to the two speakers, not the people sitting around the two.

UNFRIEND: (Noun) a former friend; also an unintentional one
Hands up, those of you who think of our western neighbour as an unspeakable terror-mongering fiend. Well, Pakistan is not an enemy, merely an unfriend — an unintentional friend. For one, they have made such a hash of running their country, they make our own ramshackle democracy look like a shining example in South Asia. They do the dirty work, we get the kudos. But that’s not the only reason we seem so ungrateful to them. Look at what they are doing to revive our economy. Pranab Mukherjee says he’s printed lots of rupees by running a budget deficit to revive the economy. He calls it a stimulus package. But Pakistan has been running one for us all these years without us even acknowledging it. They print fake rupee notes and we try and catch their hapless couriers and jail them. When it comes to stimulating a recessionary economy, it does not matter whether you print genuine notes or fake ones. Both give the economy a boost in terms of demand. So the next time you think of Pakistan as a snake in the neighbourhood, think of the yeoman service they rendered our economy last year by printing fake notes. We should at least send them a fake thank you note along with all the dossiers.

VAMPIRE: (Noun) a bloodsucking fictional character
Even Bram Stroker, who created Count Dracula, could not have foreseen this; the vampire in popular imagination today (think Twilight) is no blood-thirsty creature who lived atop a hill in Transylvania. He is, in fact, acollege-going hunk, who’s turned vegetarian — that is one who sucks only the blood of animals — and is in love with a human. The Twilight series has so turned the vampire genre around its head that girls now pine for a vampire (unheard of if one thinks of the trangelyaccented Count, who tied his hair in a bun). Over 85 million copies of the four books have been sold and the two movies in the series collected in excess of $1 billion. With Twilight Saga: Eclipse to release in 2010, this new vampire is only going to mbite deeper.


Walk: (Verb) to travel on foot; also an activity that burns calories and could eventually save the planet
Walk regularly. That’s what the doc preaches. And with good reason too. The benefits of walking are plenty (reduced risk of disease, improved sleep, less stress, increased energy, and so on). And now there’s also power-walking, speed-walking, bushwalking, racewalking and weight-walking. And for those, who don’t want to reach anywhere while walking, there’s the treadmill. And with all the bumper-tobumper traffic, your legs will probably take you quicker to a destination than any of those fancy cars. You could probably claim carbon credits for it too.


XXL: (Noun) extra extra large; also to think large and make big plans
Ok let us not get into the debate. Yes, size does matter. Large is good; extra large better. But extra extra large… wooah! There is a certain aura when you ask for XXL at a retail store. The salesman, the other shoppers... everyone looks up at you, not down at you. (You are either muscular or a little fat. Either ways they will look up at you.) So why not replicate this in your everyday life. Just think of it. Don’t ask for chocolates or flowers from your date. Ask for both. So what if he dumps you. From your boss, don’t ask for a vacation only; ask for a vacation and a salaryhike. So what if you’re
fired. You would probably do better without the job. But don’t go adding an extra ‘X’ in the XXL, and ask for salary hike, vacation, chocolates and flowers. You don’t want to be dumped and jobless.

YIN AND YANG: (Noun) Phrase to describe nature’s dualities, as in male-female, light-dark and work-life balance; used here as
as a metaphor for work-life balance
Work-life balance is in the mind. Can life ever be balanced? Can you stay balanced on a static bicycle? It can be done, but real balance happens only in movement. The minute you try to balance by standing still, you are more likely to fall. You will spend more time trying to stay in saddle than achieve anything. It’s the same with work and life, yin and yang. You can move forward in one direction or the other. But not both together. What you can do is treat work as life and life as work — that’s a mind thing. You can also manage the balance by concentrating work in one part of the week, or month or year — or even over a lifetime — but daily balance is tough in the new-age economy. The pressure for performance in a competitive economy is intense. If something’s gotta be done, it had better be done, or you may lose customers or profits or both. Even in government service, there’s little balance; it may be less work, but babus don’t necessarily get more of a life. A perfect
work-life balance exists only in the mind.


ZOMBIE: Refer to zzzz


ZOOZOO: (Noun) adorable white creatures on TV that have you cracking up; also brand mascots of a mobile service provider
First Vodafone gave us the cute and adorable ‘Hutch’ pug that followed a kid wherever he chose to go. Then came the attack of the Zoozoos. Commercials, 30 in all, featuring the ghost-like creatures were aired during the IPL Season 2. The ads are still a rage, with Zoozoos even having ‘friends’ on Facebook and ‘followers’ on Twitter. If 2010 is going to see a new zoozoo, we suggest the cops, albeit in a friendly avatar. Not the paan-chewing havaldar, with a paunch, but ones as adorable as the Zoozoos.


ZZZZZ: (Verb) to sleep; also the new elixir of life
A recent survey found that 93% of young urban middle class professionals suffer from sleep disorders. ‘Sleeping’ (no, not with your spouse) is soon going to be big business. Philip Healthcare is to set up 130 sleep labs in various hospitals in the country by the end of 2010; 30 of them in Mumbai and Delhi. Mumbai already boasts of a newly-opened sleep lounge, where
sleep therapists mess around with your brain when you are in sleep mode. Nowadays one can even nap while shopping. Many mattress companies, in fact, allow potential customers to catch up on some nap-time before they decide whether to buy a particular mattress or not.


On Malivika's suggestion I would like to give credits to origianl writer from DNA. I had really copied it because it was worth sharing :)