No political biases here but you will agree when I say that Shashi Tharoor is the master of lexical range in the English language. His choice of vocabulary never ceases to amaze us. From ‘exasperating farrago of distortions’ to ‘webaqoof’ and ‘snollygaster’, Tharoor has taught us all a lot of new and twisted words. Remember how these tough words became a matter of internet memes and jokes?
Shashi Tharoor.shashitharoor.in
Well, to the sheer delight of Twitterati, he gave them a new hashtag to joke about. He tweeted, ironically, about how people make parodies of his speaking/writing style, and got spoofed again!
Shashi Tharoor.media0.mensxp.com
This time the word from his tweet that went trending with memes and jokes is ‘rodomontade’. Those of our readers who know what this word means, we hail to you! Those of us, who haven’t heard this word before; it means ‘boastful or inflated talk or behavior’.
To all the well-meaning folks who send me parodies of my supposed speaking/writing style: The purpose of speaking or writing is to communicate w/ precision. I choose my words because they are the best ones for the idea i want to convey, not the most obscure or rodomontade ones!
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) December 13, 2017
Now, it is needless to say that #rodomontade has been trending whole day and people are having a ball on twitter. Twitter users are just amazed and rather speechless about Tharoor’s knowledge about literature. We could already sense the situation turning a matter of memes and jokes again. This time too it happened, this is what people have been tweeting.
@ShashiTharoor guy is a paid agent of oxford english dictionary 1850 edition. inki CBI jaanch honi chahiye 😁😁😁😁😁😁
— manavsaraf (@manavsaraf) December 14, 2017
“Communicate” with precision.. The problem is, those words may be precise (though rodomontade) but hardly communicate, as an average person wouldn’t bother googling their meaning
— Sherry (@CherieDamour_) December 13, 2017
If tge so called Avg person uses a SmartPhone to read Mr. Tharoor’s writings, he/she wd obviously hav the Google App on the device. T’is good to ‘invest” a moment, Google the words you don’t know. Enhances your knowledge. You learn something new.
— Rajesh H Jhangiani (@JhangianiRajesh) December 14, 2017
Ma’am, no one is requesting or forcing you to ‘learn’ it. That’s your personal choice. But there’s no harm in ‘knowing’ about it. If you don’t like the word, please feel free to ignore it, and you could always refer Thesaurus to use another easier word which has the same meaning?
— Rajesh H Jhangiani (@JhangianiRajesh) December 14, 2017
Indeed. I’m not too fond of this propensity to dumb-down things. Also, I suspect this happens more for English here. Was Vajpayee asked to dumb down his beautifully eloquent Hindi, or was he appreciated for it? Karunanidhi for his brilliant Tamizh? Appreciate beautiful language!
— Manjula C (@ManjulaC2012) December 14, 2017
— Krishna (@i_am_krisna) December 13, 2017
Dr. Tharoor, what is the difference between rodomontade and boastful, pretentious, hifalutin, grandiose? Why is rodomontade the precise word here?
— Aarti Tikoo Singh (@AartiTikoo) December 14, 2017
Look at this picture.
That was..! pic.twitter.com/HzvzXiZJL2
— Aks Pai (@akshathakpai) December 14, 2017
I can rodomontadely say that day by day I read your rodomontaded tweets in English, I will be rodomontaded of my improved English. A rodomontade Jai Hind sir.
— Kanatunga (@Kanatunga) December 13, 2017
Tharoor Sir feels obliged to use a word that he comes across while opening the dictionery !
— Krishna Khandelwal (@krsnakhandelwal) December 14, 2017
What made this entire situation more interesting was a well-timed and witty tweet from former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah who endorsed Tharoor as a teacher of impressive English.
Learning English? Follow my friend @ShashiTharoor for words you never knew existed & will struggle to ever use in a sentence but by golly they sound impressive. #rodomontade 😀
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) December 14, 2017
Well, we are enjoying Farrago 2.0. How about you?
