Sunday, August 30, 2009

Words

  • Stationery, arguably, is one of the most mis-spelt words – it’s spelt stationary with alarming frequency. Which makes me think: Have you ever seen stationary ever being mis-spelt as stationery? I haven’t.
  • It’s sometimes serendipity that introduces us to a new word. Like I found smorgasbord. I encountered this completely new word, just like that, twice, in two different and unconnected articles, in the span of a day. (By the way, smorgasbord means a wide variety or collection, usually of food.)
  • On Sunday night while I was watching Sehar (a surprisingly taut film, I must add) I came across a hitherto unknown Hindi word varchasva (वर्चस्व). As explained in the film, it means something of an absolute authority that can neither be shared nor delegated – only earned. Interesting, isn’t it?
  • Talking of film titles reminds me of Naseem, a film made by Saeed Akhtar Mirza, way back in 1995. I didn’t get a chance to see the film until recently, but I always remembered the title of the film because, I guess, I liked the tenderness the word conveyed. Naseem, in Urdu, means morning breeze.
  • At work, the other day, I came across this new word – L10N. I had to scratch my head few times before I got to know that L10N is actually "localization" when you replace the alphabets between L and N and replace them with the count of absent alphabets. Ah, such new things I learn at work!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Interesting! Though, I must say that, I have read or heard all of these words before and they were not new to me. I could faintly even remember recalling the meanings of some of them (like Smörgåsbord, which is a Swedish word and being based in Scandinavia I have off course come across it few times).

So, what does it prove? That, maybe, I read more than you do or I have bigger vocab than yours. Alas, I can sleep tight tonight with joy. :-)

pranabk said...

If your GMAT score is anything to go by, you indeed have a bigger English vocabulary than me. And the Hindi and Urdu words, of course, I expected you to know. Anyway, your point is taken. :-)

Unknown said...

common, Pranab, I was only kidding. I might just know some more words, which is only a number and most probably a farce. What really matters is how you can use the words to weave a nice story, which you are splendid in.

pranabk said...

Oh, I perfectly understood that. But, what I told was not false either. Anyway, haven't talked to you for long. Let's catch up and chat one of these days.

Unknown said...

What about this Saturday? I can call you at 5:30 pm Indian time, if that is OK with you.

Trinath Gaduparthi said...

Pranab, I think you should visit Scandinavia. Wasmi, please think about this !

Anonymous said...

Really informative blog Pranab. I knew the Hindi word, from the same source of course.
But this L10N is really a new, but interesting, concept to me. Is it common or used only in software-related texts?
And Wasmi is absolutely right, you are really good at weaving stories with words.
Parul

pranabk said...

Parul, thanks! :)
Well, L10N is mostly used in software industry parlance. Increasingly, software products are being made available in different international languages and L10N generally refers to such localization efforts and projects. Some other similar words are I18N (internationalization) and G11N (globalization).