Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
ISAAC NEWTON
Donald
Trumps
(perhaps) unintended
coining of a new word
unpresidented is
hardly unprecedented.
Considering some of
his predecessors have also added new
words and expressions to the English
language, philologists may have
misunderestimated (to borrow George
Bushs felicitous contribution) the US
President-elect. Or have they?
Notwithstanding his Ivy League
education, Trump has shown he is no
mug with neologisms, spoonerisms,
malapropisms and other lapsus linguae
that characterised the Bush innings in the
White House. From his patented yuge!
(for huge) to bigly (for big league), to
Im not unproud, (of his tweets trashing
a former Miss World), Trumpisms have
made a mild splash in Lingua Americana
modestly enriched by Bushisms.
American presidents going back
to its founding fathers have had a
reputation of being language mavens,
albeit underwritten by erudition that is
alien to Bush and Trump. Presidential
historians and lexicographers say
George Washington coined, among many
others, the expressions hatchet man
and out-of-the-way (for secluded), and
popularised the word indoors and
administration (for government).
Thomas Jefferson was a matchless
neologiser (someone who coins new
words) who fabricated belittle to
convey something less important by
verbising the word little. Among some
100-plus words he contributed were
Anglophobia and odometer. From
his days in Paris, he fashioned the word
pedicure to describe the care of feet,
toes and toenails. I am a friend to
neology. It is the only way to give to
language copiousness and euphony, he
wrote to John Adams.
Lincoln sweetened the language with
sugarcoat and FDR came up with iffy
to tactfully knock down Supreme Court
decisions with which he disagreed. It
was Theodore Roosevelt, forging terms
such as lunatic fringe and bully pulpit
Abhijnan Rej
The assassination of
the
Russian ambassador to Turkey,
Andrei Karlov,
in Ankara on
Monday caps an already-troublesome year for Turkey that saw an
unsuccessful coup and a spate of
high-intensity terrorist attacks.
The geopolitical ramifications of
Karlovs assassination and the
degree to which Russia would
seek concessions from Turkey as
compensation is not yet clear.
What is evident is that the
ebb and flow of Turkeys
trajectory in the recent years
closely parallel the three of the
greatest risks to the post-war
liberal international order.
These risks are the growing
fissure between Islamism and
the West in Europe and its
periphery, the rise of authoritarian leaders within ostensibly
democratic frameworks, and the
visible fragility of American
alliances and the security
architectures that sustain them.
Modern Turkey, as envisioned by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
after the collapse of the
Ottoman empire, was to be a
staunchly secular state. The
Turkish military saw to it that
EU while, at the same time, playing the Sunni-Shia conflict for its
own geopolitical advantage. This
in turn, and much like Pakistan,
exposed Turkey to Islamist
violence on its own soil. Instead of
consolidating its image as a secular republic, Turkey today embodies a schizophrenic relationship
between Turkey as a nominal
ally of the West, and as a country
with a significant Islamist base.
When pundits talk about the
rise of illiberal democracies led
by
authoritarian
leaders,
Turkey is at the top of the list of
examples. What started out as a
fringe movement on the edge of
Europe in Hungary and Poland
now appears to be mainstream.
First PM, and then president,
Erdogan has cracked down on
the press and aligns his policy
priorities as a conservative
dilbert
Bachi Karkaria
bachi.karkaria@timesgroup.com
http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/erratica
Your Name
Whats in a name?
Names, once they are in
common use, quickly become
mere sounds, their etymology
being buried, like so many of
the earth's marvels, beneath
the dust of habit.
erratica
Sacredspace
Small Miracles
Shirin was the Juliet to Farhad, the Persian Romeo. Our Shirins
story has taken a happy turn and is on course for an ever after
ending. Yet all the dice were loaded against her. She was born
blind and lost her mother when still a toddler. Her father was Zoroastrian and therefore a second-class citizen in the Ayatollahs
Iran. Like so many impoverished Iranis, he had travelled the
tortuous overland route to find a job and dignity in Mumbai. But the fire in his belly
became increasingly only that of hunger. He arrived at the Happy Home and School
for the Blind, and implored the Director to keep his precious little dokhtatr for a
few months while he went back to Iran to wind up his matters. Meher Banaji relented. But the father never returned. As Shirin blossomed, Mehers difficulties bloomed. The institution had only boys. Their voices changed; hers didnt. Her frame
changed; a bigger problem in a place where so much communication is by touch.
Meher had to find a way out for her ward, but the girl had no papers to endorse
her existence. Meher said, Please write about her. Thats when i met this 11-yearold, as angelic in her looks as in her attitude. It was difficult not to fear for someone
so accepting of her fate, and i found myself quoting Dylan
Thomass exhortation to his dying father. Do not go gentle into
that good night ... Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Surely,
shed have to be more demanding to survive in a brutish world?
But she didnt heed that advice. And Fate didnt need it. Shortly after, an
exultant Meher called to say that a well-off Parsi family, touched, had adopted
her. Next, i got a photograph of her at 16 in her first sari. Her prodigious musical
talents were discovered, and she began teaching the blind children of Happy
Home, and accompanying that beautiful choir dressed up singing carols every
Christmas at the Taj.
At this years annual exhibition of the schools exquisite glazed pottery and
mosaics, Meher introduced her as Dr Irani. Shirin, in gold jhumkas, spoke of
having done her PhD in Hyderabad on how the brain processes the nuances of
music. Independently, but still gently, she has gone out into the good light.
***
Alec Smart said: The rest of us have always known that North India
is foggy-headed.
Uday Deb
22
Salman Rushdie
the
speaking
tree