Tristful Argentina!

The finals of the FIFA World Cup saw Germany compete against Argentina. The Argentinians played football in their typical Latin American style and created a couple of chances too only to give it all away in that one moment in extra time. For all the entertainment, thrill, excitement and hope...in the end it was a tristful finish for Messi's boys. That's our word of the week - Tristful. It means 'full of sadness; sorrowful'. 

Malady of Selfie-age: Bovarism

Its so commonplace these days. We normally confuse it to be a person's ego but it actually is bovarism. Bovarism is an expression used to describe a state of mind where a person carries an exaggerated estimate of oneself - often a glamorized impression of self. 
You can blame it on the beauty products, the gyms round the corner or the fake compliments passed on as pleasantries - bovarism is what most suffer from.  Selfies are just an indication. No?

Cuss words...Profanity it is!

A recent case of a verbal spat between a high profile corporate scion and a Bollywood celebrity has had a cascading effect of views and counter-views. The reactions range from calling it all a hoax and frivolous to admiration for the woman who has the gumption to raise her voice against verbal intimidation.

Ever since profanity permeated into the thin skin of modernity - the line between what's objectionable and what's not has blurred. As a society we are becoming more tolerant of profanity and we hardly ever cringe on cuss words. Profanity - our word this week - means vulgar or irreverent action or speech.

Mnemonic...its all iconic!

Convention has it to use this expression for a word or string of words that are intended to make stuff easier. Something that makes you write less but communicate more. They are something that assists memory - be it a formula or even a rhyme! That's Mnemonic.

The modern tech-savvy folks, however, have taken it all to a new scale for mnemonics have revolutionized the way we communicate and express ourselves now. A whole lot of icons and mnemonics which have nudged away sentences, phrases, words and expressions. Don't our smart phones have such mnemonic which can, at times, even express a full sentence.

For the science freaks...Anthropomorphic!

So you wanted to create a robot and give it human like features? You just visualised an anthropomorphic robot!

Anthropomorphic - that's our word this week. 

It is ascribing human attributes or form to a being or even an object that's not human. Well not just scientists, even story-tellers do it. And poets...they are busy these days projecting the monsoon clouds in an anthropomorphic form.

Don't you mess with him...he's irascible!

The self-indulgent and inward looking version of modern-day celebrities is such a contrast to the stars of yesteryear. Those personalities may not be too accessible but whenever they made a public appearance - they appeared approachable and patient. The celebs these days are seemingly reaching-out more and are connected with the their fans through social media. However, whenever they appear in public they are always on tenterhooks and are irascible - that's grouchy and likely to get provoked easily!

Well, you could say that even some of the defeated candidates and leaders of parties which haven't done too well in the recent polls are irascible too. Or at least they appear so at the sight of one Arnab Goswami!

Those Incendiary Speeches!

Today India gets its 29th State - Telangana. The euphoria is marred by incendiary speeches by the leaders who are adept in creating conflicts. There has been talk around the corridors of power that people of one state cannot work in another. Not only is this unconstitutional - it is incendiary! 

Incendiary seems to be the most appropriate expression here and it means: tending to arouse strife, sedition: tending to inflame the senses. Trust some politicians to do so, right?!