In Defense Of Wordy Words (and People)...

I for one have never really understood the kerfuffle over inclusion of the word ‘selfie’ in the Oxford Dictionary (MS Word underlines this word marking it as a typographical error as I write). A successful language is one that is capacious and elastic to accommodate such neologisms, and English is renowned for being as such. Neologisms and borrowings have only enriched the language.

Words are organic. They do have a life of their own—and apparently lifetimes too. Words are born, evolve and die. There are words which get phased out over a period of time from the corpus, and are eventually forgotten. Some words, like some of the more flexible species of animals, adapt and assume new meanings and connotations—sometimes complete opposite of the original ones. Take for instance the word ‘timorous’: Shakespeare (in Othello) used timorous to mean fearsome/fear-inspiring; now it has come to mean fearful/trepid. Sometimes the same word has two exactly opposite meanings and both the meanings co-exist, as in case of the words cleave or dust (such words are called contranyms).  It’s through these changes and adaptations that words manage to survive for long.   

 Changes occur not only in terms of meanings but also parts of speech (so many words which were strictly nouns once are freely used as verbs now) and class-associations. The word ‘brainy’ would be scoffed at by a pedant for its slangy and lowbrow feel, fifty years ago. Can ‘Hopefully’ be used to mean ‘it is to be hoped’ or should it be used only to mean full of hope? Can ‘decimate’ be used to mean drastic reduction, or should it only be used to mean a reduction of the order of one-tenth? And other such debates have continued for many years now, and, um, hopefully, will continue evermore. 

Although usage guides thrive on such technicalities and neologisms, and ensure that the discussions around them don’t fizzle out, little sympathy is shown toward the words which are in the twilight of their lifespan or which have already met with their end. While I am all for welcoming fresh infusions in the language, I am a slightly averse to the idea of looking down upon the usage of an archaic or refined word as an instance of elitism.  

Ernest Hemmingway disapproved of Nathaniel Hawthrone's style of writing, for he found Hawthrone's usage of obsolete words or the "words that are not alive in the language" annoying. If we take the formerly used animal-analogy further: doesn't it, then, become incumbent on some of us to help the words which are becoming extinct—just as the wildlife activists do with the endangered species. You may argue that this seems like bit of a stretch. Whereas extinction of endangered species could create an ecological imbalance, disappearance of a handful of words would not have any such effect. Which is another way of saying that unless they are of utility, it is fine for words to vanish. 

But then, is the purpose of language only utilitarian. Language, and by extension literature and civilisation, would have been so drab. Is it inappropriate for writers to make an attempt to help preserve 'endangered words'? Should this kind of activism be cast off as deliberate obfuscation or undue display of verbiage? 

I remember the ‘wordy’ debate the use of word crepuscular by the Booker-prize winning author Eleanor Catton in an article had kindled last year. A reader of Paris Review had alleged that the usage of the words such as ‘crepuscular’ was an instance of exercising literary snobbery by the author. Eleanor subsequently wrote an essay to vindicate herself. 

Why can’t we open ourselves to the magic and beauty of words? Why can’t we push ourselves a little when it comes to learning new words? Why can’t we see a well placed and well used instance of a slightly uncommon word as an opportunity of enriching our vocabulary rather than as an undue display of verbiage by the writer/speaker. While we may embrace selfie and twerking freely, why can’t we also appreciate temerity or banausic? 

There is something so tempting in the crunch of crepuscular when uttered, that is missing in shadowy. There’s something so mouthful about surreptitious that is missing in secretive. It’s as though the word claims your mouth and works every muscle of your mouth before plopping out of it. Second hand can never produce the same effect as vicarious. Mixing can never be as sonorous as mingling. Sublime is not the same as beautiful (ask Edmund Burke; poor fellow wrote an entire treatise explaining the difference!)

Not very long ago Chetan Bhagat in one of his columns had mocked the usage of words such as dexterity and temerity, and had suggested that they are outdated and that they are not required in the job-market. Now, I am not the kind who’d crinkle their nose if I find someone reading Bhagat. For that matter, I have no bone to pick with Mr Bhagat. I don’t want to jump on to the Bhagat-Bashing bandwagon which, in some sense, is a way of asserting your intellectual superiority. Not everyone needs to, or has the tenacity, to deal with the meandering plots of Rushdie. Not everyone is disposed to appreciate, or has the patience to, endure layered and glacial narratives of the Arundhati Roys and Anita Desais. And thus it is very well for such a person to pick up a Bhagat and enjoy, well, a quickie. In spirit of disclosure, I must admit I myself had read his debut novel and even enjoyed it then. There is a need and market for all kinds.  And I think that’s the best thing about books: they are not obtrusive. You don’t like it, you don’t buy it or shut it. It’s as simple as that. Unlike Yo Yo Honey Singh’s songs (the horror, the horror!), Chetan’s books won’t haunt you from the gym to the night-club.  

What bothers me to some degree, however, is the whiff of this extremely narrow and utilitarian approach toward language that rises from the said column: Only the portions of language which are consumable in the job-market are worth retaining, while the rest is something that the literary elite can go to devil with. And again, this view would have been in some ways justified had Mr Bhagat been an investment banker that he earlier was, but coming from a writer it sounds a bit worrying. 

I hasten to add that this rant is not entirely impersonal. As a trainer who deals with host of students and working professionals on any given day, the most common and constant gripe I get to hear from my trainees is about the heaps of “new and difficult” words they have to learn. With some apprehension (I don’t wish to generalise), I also venture to add that most of them are engineers.  From what I understand they suffer from the same what’s-the-use-of-knowing-them-when-you’re-not-gonna-use-them syndrome: the same transactional approach. Everything, including words, has to have use; otherwise it will be looked at as burden. I find this approach a bit problematic. I keep explaining to them how they’re looking at the whole thing wrong; how they ought to change the way they perceive words; how they need to start liking and appreciating words if they want to be friends with words. Yes, words have feelings too. If you like them, they like you back. And if you don’t, they, too, are under no obligation to like you.

Sometimes, out of utter desperation, I have to invent and borrow reasons which could incentivise their enriched vocabulary: I tell them how good command over words can boost their dating prospects (this works in some cases, I must admit). But other times I get to face a rather tepid response from them when I am discussing new words with them. I remember once almost losing my temper in the class when the trainees wore indifferent and stony expressions on their respective faces as I discussed the so-called new and difficult words. Of course I apologised to them shortly thereafter, but when I reflected on the episode I realised that my discomfort sprung from the different ways we perceive words. Words did not animate them the way they animate me. A new word does not spark a frisson in them as it does in me. They see words as a task, an onerous one at that. They see these words as a short-term commitment and not a long-term investment. They don’t realise how the knowledge of these words can be their doorway to great deal of knowledge. Thriving on Buzzfeed the listicle culture, they might as well demand replacement of words with GIFs!

 Were I in their place, I would gobble up all those new words with utmost alacrity—as I do even now. And I am sure there are many others who have much deeper affection and admiration for words than I may ever have. Wouldn’t branding such people as literary snobs be a hasty judgement? 

(P.S. Honest confession: I wanted to use banausic instead of drab and logomachy instead of wordy debate, but I refrained lest I should be frowned upon.)

Rishikesh

I write this in Rishikesh. The holy land. The Tapasthali as it is called. The last time I was here was about twenty years ago. This trip, like the last one too, was equally capricious. This too, like the last one, was a journey by road. I must have been all of six or seven when the last one was undertaken. To my seven year old, callow mind the idea of travelling to a land so far by car had seemed so overwhelming. Cars can only be used to traverse city-length distances, I used to think. In this trip, however, I had no clue of what the destination was until we’d reached midway. It was then, upon my pesky insistence, that the destination was revealed to me. “Just pack your bag and sit in the car,” was the instruction given by this friend who planned the trip. I must admit that when finally the revelation was made, waves of excitement and surprise ran through my body. All the memories from the last trip came rushing back. 

Ganga—The Ganges!

Twenty years have passed since I had seen Ganga flowing in all her magnificence and glory. From the room I was staying in, one could see Ganga flowing through the foothills of the Subhadra hill range (so I am told). One could see the hills in the backdrop—or should I say not see them. These hills remain perpetually shrouded in the clouds—their summits certainly do. One can only faintly trace their silhouettes. It feels as though they are too proud of their beauty and think the world (and people like I) to be too poor a judge of their beauty, and hence in their ancient wisdom choose to remain veiled. Or maybe they actually contain the proverbial ancient and secret wisdom which they want to conceal from prying eyes. The mystique only augments their charm though. Whatever may be the reason, the sight of these tall and bosky hills wrapped in a misty blanket is spell-casting.

At their base flows Ganga. There are some subjects about whom one can’t talk without sounding cliché, and Ganges is one such subject. She splays and meanders, after having cavorted in the difficult and mountainous terrain farther up North. The volume of water and pace with which it flows is staggering.   

As a Vaishnav one is reminded of all the epics whose past is believed to be intertwined with that of Ganges. Mahabharat, if my memory serves me well, was composed on the banks of Ganga in Badrikashram. Bhagwatam—the crest-jewel of Puranas—was narrated by Shukadev Paramhans to King Parikshit, the grandson of Pandavas on the banks of Ganga in Naimish-aaranya. Lord Ram was a descendent of King Bhagirath, who is believed to have been responsible for the descent of Ganges from the heavens. Pleased by his tough penance and upon his insistence that Lord Shiv agreed to hold Ganges in his locks so as to temper her fierce flow. 

Such is the significance of Ganges. She is linked to all these ancient tales. She’s been a witness to all of them. Originating from the toenail of Lord Narayan and washing the dense locks of Lord Rudra, she descends on this mundane world. Gurgling fervently, she carves and curves her way through the Himalyan foothills. She is so ancient and yet ever so fresh. 

You cannot help but feel at home in the vicinity of Ganga. You feel you belong here. Her swift flow and vivacity seem to suggest as if she’s replete with tales to tell, of the mountains, of the ancient past, of her current sorry state. It’s a disgrace that we’ve managed to corrupt something as pristine as her. 

But Ganga—no matter how bad things may be for her—seems to give one hope. One can still draw an uncanny solace from seeing her flowing. One feels that things are not as bad, at least till is Ganga is around. 

The one thing I thought I’d miss out on this trip was rains. The clouds were clustering overhead, hanging unusually low, but, like celibate yogis who would observe strict penance, they too seemed not to let go. 

To my pleasure though, finally, just hours before our departure, they decided to, well, break their vow of celibacy.