Necessary spend is 'splurge'?

One spends on something necessary, something appropriate, and it is as it should be. But can it be a "splurge" if that is done?

Like, for instance, when a civic body "swings into action to upgrade the Dadoji Konddev stadium" which the the newspaper reports was "dilapidated"? 

Especially, when the stadium "will be prepared for holding competitions and providing better amenities to young athletes to undergo training with less hassles at the stadium. Questions are being raised about the poor maintenance of the sprawling playing arena, which is the only such facility in the city".

And this necessary spending becomes a splurge? Splurge is when the spending is extravagant.

The Times of India, guilty of this misunderstanding, both in the headline and the text, should be careful.

Odd words explained

Newspapers often use words which send the readers looking for a dictionary.

Hardly ever do they help you understand them - meanings, origin, pronunciation - for the arcane (understood by few) and archaic (very old fashioned) word that are used. In this case, in the judicial order in the Arushi-Hemraj Murder Case.

The Wall Street Journal's India Realtime, picked five arcane words and dealt with them in a simple manner.

The words are: 1) decarcinating,2) beaut damsel, 3) jugulated, 4) flagitious, and 5) fortiori.

You would notice that the spell check does not recognise four of the five!

Read about it here.

Thank you, WSJ.

Timepass for chilling

Each part of the world has contributed words to English language from their repository of their own languages. Indian contribution includes use of some English words differently even if they do not yet find a place in the dictionaries like bandh, cummerbund etc have.

India Real Time of the Wall Street Journal has this interesting but small list of words used in India.

Read it here. It does not include words like backside for back of, for instance, saying 'backside of the building inside of back of building'. Backside is mostly to be used for a person's buttocks.

Words from Chicago

Dictionaries, both printed and online, provide the etymology of words. They are often interesting.

Here is a list of 40 words which originated in Chicago and remain in use.

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/July-2010/Top-40-Chicago-Words-Our-Contributions-to-the-English-Language/

Generally the etymology mentions the language from where it emerged, for instance, French, Latin etc. Here, it is location specific, as close to as a city.

Shooting from the hat

The Indian Express and Financial Express quoted a go-by-rule official, Ashok Khema (IAS, Haryana, often transferred for doing his duty) as saying there are honest politicians and he can name them off the hat. That is a mixed up idiom.

Probably he intended to say off the cuff, meaning straight away, without much effort, impromptu, extemporaneously. But yes, there is something one does by pulling something out of the hat, as if magically. Spring a surprise, as it were.

We may as well recall another expression: shooting from the hip when something is said quickly, instantaneously, as if you are pulling the gun from the holster at the hip and shoot, quickly. 

Brits to shed jargon in official communications

I recall an IAS officer telling me that a road would be 'safe-staged' before traffic was allowed on it. What he meant was that once all tests were done, and the road was declared safe for use, it would be opened to public.

Probably, 'safe-staged' saved words, but to many, it meant  nothing, being new. Fortunately, it did not gain currency.

The civil service of all countries have their own jargon which is aimed more at confusing than providing clarity. Hence, the British Government, it seems, according to a blog, decided to ask its officials to cease and desist from using jargon.

My friend Kiran Thakur, who runs a blog http://mediasceneindia.blogspot.in/ drew attention to the helpful British decision publicized by the newspaper, The Independent, of UK.

Read about it here and have fun.

If you feel up to it, please let us know of the jargon you find in Indian media.

'Grill' when a few question are asked?

Whenever investigating agencies - police, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Enforcement - Bureau, question a person, the preferred word for a headline in the media is "grill", like predictably it would be after Naveen Jindal has a session with the CBI about the coal supplies and alleged bribes to a minister.

"Grill" is to broil on a toaster, inflict torture or question intensely. It is a transitive verb which implies some action which makes the person being questioned at leas wince at the physical pain.

Is use of such a verb appropriate when it comes to big-shots being asked questions? These agencies are known to be polite to this class of people, that is, the politicians. They are known to have acted at the behest of this class of people. Is it to indicate that they have done something more than that the spokespersons tell the media of the grilling when they asked a few question?

Is grill a word like a police and judicial custody is made to appear to be a punishment in themselves?

Any views? Please post a comment.