Word Play

English is amongst the wordiest languages. Perhaps the wordiest. It boasts of a million plus words. 80% of which are borrowed from other languages. Contrast it with French, which has some 10,000 words. An average educated english-speaking person has a basket of 20,000 words! Although we use about 2000 words a week. Words fall into categories and patterns. I have attempted to put together a list of word classification which, in practice, are easy to identify with and often used, but their nomenclature is not necessarily so.

1. Antonyms: Opposites
2. Synonyms: Reason why Thesaurus is in business.
3. Buzzword: a popular word relating to a particular activity or subject
   1. Calibrate Expectation | Outside the box | Push the envelope | Sea change | Boil the ocean | Cloud Computing | Integrated Marketing
4. Catchword: a popular word relating to a particular idea, class or quality.
   1. Sexy
5. Demonym: word used to refer to one’s origin or country.
   1. Example Parisian, Indian, Egyptian
6. Derivation: a word that comes from another language
7. False friend: a pair of words that sounds similar in 2 languages but have different meanings.
   1. Actual in English and Aktuell (at present) in German
   2. Stanza in Italian means room
   3. Carte (card, menu) in French and cart in English
   4. Adept (proficient) and Adepte (follower) in French
   5. Affluent (wealthy) and Affluent (tributary of a river) in French.
   6. After in German means anus.
   7. Apologie is praise in French
8. Homograph = Homo (similar) + Graph (writing). Words which are written identically but mean and are often pronounced differently.
   1. Bark: Dog | Tree
   2. Beat: with a stick | Music
   3. Axes: plural of both axis and axe.
   4. Compound: Chemical | Playground
   5. Content: ingredients | satisfied
   6. Now that you have got the hang of it try these: Bat | Bow | Coordinates | Bust | Desert | Digest | Discount | Fine | Lead | Minute | Object | Produce | Putting | Refuse | Row | Second | Subject | Tear | Wind | Wound | Lie | Lead | Close | Bear | Bank | Back | Bar | Capture | Change | Conduct | Console | Contest | Converse | Convert | Defect | Foot | Letter | Light | Live | Match | May | Mind | Park | Rock | Rose | Spirit | Transport | Yard | Wave
9. Homophone = Homo (similar) + Phone (Sound). Word pairs with similar pronunciation but different meanings and spellings.

On Happiness

 

"Live your Love. You'll love life!" - Dilpreeta

Spoken word: Jugalbandi of words and art

Love of poetry and storytelling had me stop flipping radio stations and listen to "The deck of cards" by Tex Williams; experiencing a  Haruki Murakami moment "Whatever it is you are seeking won't come in the form you are expecting." I had discovered a form of art, spoken word. An estuary of narrative and music  for the soul. A confluence of words and performing art, dance and theatre. All this, over a banal trip, ridden with gnarling Delhi traffic, browsing through FM channels indifferently, driving back across 3 states from work.

I was in the throes of a scripturient urge to celebrate my abecedarian finding. The drive seemed longer than usual, there was so much to do; quench my curiosity by reading more, attend to a deluge of examples, listen to new finds and compile a playlist. Most of this though, was curtailed to the luxury of late evenings that afforded time for myself.

Sunscreen,  Are you lonesome tonight, Yeh kahan aa gaye hum, have been all time favorites, only today I  know better, I can flaunt the genre of music they belong to and discover more such gems.

Political motivations, social causes, religious discourses, leadership speak, life experiences, stories, folklore and many more expressions have found themselves in this experimental art form.

I have put together a humble playlist of Hindi spoken-word tracks to show and tell what spoken-word is all about,  and with your suggestions it could only get better. 

Get the complete playlist: Here

4 beautiful poems written by Javed Akhtar recited by Farhan Akhtar in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Apne Hone Par Mujhko Yaqeen Aa Gaya | Yeh Jaane Kaisa Raaz Hai | Dil Aakhir Tu Kyun Rota Hai | Toh Zinda Ho Tum

An all time favorite from a movie which is poetry in motion, Rituparno Ghosh's Raincoat. The movie is an adaptation of O' Henry's short story "The GIft of Magi". Enjoy the recitation in Gulzar's baritone and Shubha Mudgal's voice in Piya tora kaisa abhiman.

Calling Amitabh Bachchan fans. Silsila scores high on music  and poetry. Yeh Kahaan aa gaye hum has Amitabh Bachchan monologues and Lata Mangeshkar singing to Javed Akhtar's  lyrics.

What I learnt from Stephen King 'On Writing'

Your life experiences shape what you write. Gather more. Reach out, within. Then expand the experience to imagination.





Find your nook; your go to place, for reading and writing. Nothing ostentatious. Nothing distracting. A place which allows your mind to travel to a state of hypnosis.





Reading is a non-negotiable.



 
Write each day, every day.





"It ain't how much you've got, honey, it's how you use it!" Use words that come naturally.

Keep your sentences simple. Put your reader, first.  Be understood.

A list of 100 "what's the word?"

Do you ever get stuck for “that one word” that best describes a nuanced feeling or a thing? Well, I do. This curiosity set me up for some random browsing. What I found, was a bunch of words that were fairly descriptive and interesting. I began categorizing some 100 words; from being prohibitive & amusing on one hand to conversational & slang on another.  From a usability perspective, I am inclined to remember words that are both easier to use and easily understood. The rest are plain trivia.

Words I can live with:

1.      Aglet: that little plastic bit on the end of your shoelace or drawstrings.

2.      Aphthong: alphabets used in spelling a word but not in pronouncing it, essentially silent alphabets in a word: Example: Knife | Knew | Knight | Wednesday; Yes, people ‘d’ is silent J

3.      Akimbo: love standing with your ‘hands on your hips and elbows outwards’? The position is called Akimbo.

4.      Barm: the foam on your beer is barm. Cheers!

5.      Beblubber: the swollen eyes and face due to crying. She looked beblubbered-for crying out loud!

6.      Box-tent: That plastic tripod that comes in your pizza box is a box tent. Not only does it have a name it has a patent too.  

7.      Brannock Device: Useless trivia but did you know that the instrument used to measure your feet at the shoe store had a name?

8.      Claptrap: pretentious empty language or writing. Use of big words which mean nothing, are insincere. If you do end up familiarizing yourself with these words you will surely fall into this trap.

9.      Clinophile: a person who loves beds. Need I say more? Need to go back to my reclining, clinophile position.

10.  Contranym: a word that can be its own antonym. Stumped? So was I. Let me come to your rescue with some examples

a.      Cleave: to sever | to cling

b.      Off: Activated (alarm went off)| Deactivated (turn it off)

c.       Weather: to withstand (she can weather any situation)| to be worn away ( she looked weathered)