At the rate at which he is going, one would be inclined to think that Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s new year’s resolution in 2017 was to do something about our collective vocabulary. Maintaining his grandiloquence on Twitter, and schooling those who send him mocking versions of the way he speaks, on December 14, Tharoor tweeted:
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
“To all the well-meaning folks who send me parodies of 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! (sic).”
Also read: When Shashi Tharoor makes a typo, we think it’s a new word
The word ‘Rodomontade’ means “boastful or inflated talk or behaviour” or to “talk boastfully”. Tharoor claims the words he uses are not to be boastful but to communicate “with precision”. This reminds us of an eloquent but stern English teacher, who would pore over each of our sentences and chide us for improper sentence construction or missing punctuations.
Clearly exasperated with all the comedy around Tharoor’s practice of using high-sounding words, he decided to hit back with another word to the haters of his well-stocked vocabulary.
Soon, Tharoor’s Twitter followers started scrambling to figure out what he meant. One was quick to send a screenshot of the meaning of ‘rodomontade’ and the rest went on to thank him for saving time. pic.twitter.com/JmP8cbms2U
— Krishna (@i_am_krisna) December 13, 2017
Also read: Why Shashi Tharoor is getting “condolences calls” today
Last time the Thiruvananthapuram MP made headlines was when he introduced us to “farrago”. The word, which means a “confused mixture”, was used to describe the speculations about his wife, Sunanda Pushkar’s alleged murder. He had said, “Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations & outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalist (sic).”
In July, Tharoor had also coined a new word for those sharing frivolous information on social media. He used the term “Webaqoof” to describe them. With Tharoor at the helm of cleaning up our lexicon, we are surely in safe hands because everytime he makes sure that we are flummoxed but learn another new word.
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