By Ranee Kumar
We’ve come a long way from the ‘Tharoorian’ (Shashi Tharoor) style of eloquent, erudite English vocabulary. Words have completely transformed their connotation that even those of us who graduated in the late ‘70s are left groping with usage. I can present a plethora of such terms that had meant something else earlier and mean an entirely different thing in the present context and day. There are few others that have disappeared from today’s lexicon altogether. They need a decent burial.
Here we go: There is nothing like morally good or ethical. Today ethics is a corporate word and a true blue professional one; not expected to exist in personal life.
What’s character? It refers now to anything but strong personal qualities/traits! Well, character is comprehended by Gen Z as a certificate often mandatory at school or official level as a valid document to negate bearings of criminal record or in another sense, the actors on screen or stage playing a role for the story.
Virtue and virtuous have now been relegated to the Bible because they are no longer relevant.
There comes a time when the societies world over turn “immoral” and then the word moral acquires a negative, judgemental connotation.
That brings us to the term judgemental, which is being tossed about like loose coins these days. This term is a judicial one first appearing around 1873 and the dictionary then defined it as ‘involving exercise of judgment’.
The house construction is ‘virtually’ complete made sense up to the millennium at least in our country. The dawn of computers has unearthed it from its physical reality form and plonked it on a digital presence, a sort of re-birth.
Whether we share an ice-cream, coffee or books or movie ticket money is not less used than ‘to share’ information of any sort- romantic, personal, mutual mobile numbers or data-based info, it doesn’t really matter.
Contact doesn’t mean getting in touch with somebody; it means a list of important, useful persons you know at different levels of familiarity.
It is obsolete to say friend(s); it is bestie, homie, fam, bruh/bro, dude, Day One, Main Chic, Wingman, gal pal or sis…
There’s nothing like privacy in its literal sense because everything private gets released on to Instagram, X, Meta and where all, God alone knows.
Privacy by the way is replaced with space. Everyone from a tiny tot of three to an adult of 60+ needs his or her ‘space’ in one’s own home! Teenagers need it more than other mortals.
Very religio-spiritual Sanskrit terms Mantra, Guru and Avatar are global buzzwords for keyword, focus, master, digital cartoon for virtual identity and so on.
There is a sudden dearth of epithets. No beautiful, no magnificent, no wonderful, no lovely or pretty. Everything is amazing from paranthas and dosas to the Eiffel Tower and Pyramids.
Any form of superlative is just Super; it can be weather that’s super cold, it can be Starbucks coffee that’s super-hot, nonchalant, indulging parents – super cool dad and mum, super good house, well, it goes on.
Awesome meant anything that is ‘awe’-inspiring like a storm or tornado or divine presence. Today it’s a standard synonym for great.
You don’t ‘cry’ or ‘weep’ any longer no matter how sad and deep the emotional disturbance is. You have a meltdown. Anything that doesn’t look impressive is condemned as ‘pathetic’, not just miserable existence or situation. You ‘chill’ just in case you get ‘excited’ (worried) over some ‘issue’ (problem).
Issue, once upon a time was an offspring (children), a monthly, weekly or fortnightly magazine, a way out (a command) but now it’s a vague synonym for anything from intense dilemma, difficulty, obstacle to simple trouble or problem.
Mummy is not the Egyptian pharaoh’s dead body, it’s an endearing way of calling your ‘mother’ which has further gyrated to ‘Mum’/ mom/mamma. There is no silence attributed to mum due to change in nomenclature.
There’s a global ‘turnaround’ in simple conversation in corporate corridors: “Let’s start a meeting…’ is cliché. It is ‘let’s keep up the meeting’. Your voice is breaking (then); you’re breaking up on my end (now). ‘Let’s talk later’ is passe; its ‘let’s circle back on this later’. It’s no longer cool to say, ‘I agree’; it makes more sense to say, ‘I’m on the same page’. If you have a problem with something at a meeting, you say, ‘I have a blocker.’ And you feel ‘it’s a bit challenging,’ instead of saying, ‘it’s not possible’. You get it, right?
Viral, an entirely medical term now runs like Shatabdi for digital popularity and success. Whether Cloud makes a child look up to the sky is of no importance; the child is more familiar with the invisible data storage network called Cloud. Follow is not just going after someone; it is engaging with the creator’s content and staying updated.
Zoom was and still means a whizzing upward motion but today’s teenager can only see it as an ‘application’ to view and start a meeting. And there’s a whole lot of vocabulary associated with it. ‘Join the Zoom meeting’ has upgraded itself to ‘’Please hop on the call.’
Oh, yes, Application itself is confusing: it can be the process of filling in a printed paper of petition/appeal but there runs a parallel world of software computer programs and operating systems known as application (s) or Apps for short.
Sartorial lingo is a maze in itself. As we move further away from the era of handmade stuff, the language shifts to metaphorical shift increases. Like dress graduated to costume and now settled to Outfit digitalised to OOTD (outfit of the day) on social media platforms. Salwar-kameez is now Suit, then obviously to decrease the confusion men’s suits (trousers, coat and vest) are now referred to as formals, lounge suit, dress pants (male and female). Ironically, in the world of modern streetwear and gender-neutral fashion, matching sets (same fabric shirt and pants) are Co-ords (coordinates). Your dress is not ‘spoilt’ if ketchup fell on it by accident; it is ‘ruined’. There’s nothing ‘delicious’ on the dinner table; everything is just ‘Yumm’.
Gender orientation led to a cultural shift that has contributed its might too. The actual meaning of Gay is carefree, joyful. But today it means a sexual choice. So, too, the move from gender specific pronouns of ‘he’ and ‘she’ to the plural form of ‘they’ and ‘them’ to refer to a single individual as a preferred address goes really cool. Judith Butler, the pioneer of the ‘Queer’ theory is an instance. What did queer mean a decade ago? Peculiar or eccentric or odd. No longer! It’s an empowering, broad indentifier (it dismantles binary oppositions like male/female and other such labels).
There are no second-hand goods; it has gone a sea change from ‘used’ to ‘pre-owned’ be it cars, refrigerators, bikes.
That reminds me: motorcycle is simple bike, and bicycle, which was referred to as bike, is just cycle; while auto-rickshaw is just rickshaw and the pedalled rickshaw is anyways an endangered species.
With a noble objective of upholding the dignity of every ‘different’ individual, certain earlier terms have been re-visited and baptised (new naamkaran): Blind is visually-challenged, deaf and dumb is hearing and speech impaired, cripple was handicapped but no longer. He/she is physically- challenged. Prostitute is anathema: it got elevated to sex worker, escort services, while being labelled a housewife is infra dig; she is a home-maker. Begging seems so lowly while Pan-handling sounds professional.
I’m not concluding this piece; it makes perfect sense to say I’m wrapping it up. Because this enumeration can be endless. Regionalisation of English will throw up an entire new dictionary to be compiled. So, let’s leave it to lexicographers of the latest Gen.
(Ranee Kumar is a journalist who has worked with mainstream papers like The New Indian Express and The Hindu. Her area of work was mainly on business desk and reporting as well as art & culture. She is now settled in Doon and actively involved in writing)
