In fact, ‘cromulent’ is an apposite term for much of the Modi government’s claims. An administration that has spent Rs 5600 crores of taxpayers’ money in its first five years on advertisements and publicity praising itself, is particularly prone to cromulence. Thus, the government boasted of creating millions of ‘Jan Dhan’ accounts at a time when 93 per cent of them had zero balance, and spent crores publicizing the free gas cylinders provided to poor rural women for cooking without acknowledging that the refills had to be paid for—and 97 per cent of the beneficiaries declined to do so because they could not afford the cost of a gas cylinder.
Interestingly, cromulent is a recent entrant into the English language, having first appeared, it seems, in a 1996 American television show, The Simpsons. From there it made its way into a US Supreme Court amicus curiae’s brief, and eventually into the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Initially, it meant just ‘fine’ or ‘acceptable’, as when a character in The Simpsons uses the wrong term ‘embiggens’ instead of ‘enlarges’, but a teacher says ‘it’s a perfectly cromulent word’. That usage led to the ironic meaning the word now has, since cromulent was a fake word invented to defend the credibility of another invented word. So, something is cromulent when it sounds plausible but is actually not
true or accurate.
Cromulent is not to be confused with ‘crapulent’, which refers to excessive drinking of alcohol, though of course a crapulent spokesperson is quite likely to make cromulent claims. Our abstemious politicians do not even have the excuse of crapulence to justify their cromulence.
9.
Curfew
noun
AN ORDER SPECIFYING A TIME DURING WHICH CERTAIN REGULATIONS APPLY, ESPECIALLY THE TIME WHEN INDIVIDUALS ARE REQUIRED TO RETURN TO AND STAY IN THEIR HOMES
USAGE
During the first few days of curfew, the city
looked like a ghost town after 7 p.m.
The word curfew has an interesting history. Literally, the word means to ‘cover fire’. In the early fourteenth century, spelt curfeu, it meant an evening signal, involving the ringing of a bell at a fixed hour, usually 8 p.m., as a signal to extinguish fires and lights. The word curfew also denoted a cover for a fire, made of metal and designed to enclose the embers at the end of the day so that the fire could be relit easily the following morning. The curfew bell was a bell rung in the evening in medieval England as the signal for everyone to go to bed.
It was William the Conqueror in England who decreed after 1068 that all lights and fires should be covered at the ringing of an eight o’clock bell to prevent the risk of fire within the wooden timber buildings of that era. His intention may not have been purely innocent, however: the curfew was also initially used as a repressive measure to prevent rebellious meetings of the conquered Anglo-Saxons. Historians speculate that William prohibited the use of live fires after the curfew bell was rung to prevent associations and conspiracies against Norman rule by the English. But the practice long outlived that purpose. In Macaulay’s history of Claybrook, Claybrooke Magna (1791), he says, ‘The custom of ringing curfew, which is still kept up in Claybrook, has probably obtained without intermission since the days of the Norman Conqueror.’
Today a curfew is an order issued by the public authorities or military forces requiring everyone or certain people to be indoors at certain times, usually at night. It can be imposed to maintain public order, or suppress restive populations: a dusk-to-dawn curfew is a typical imposition by military rulers, with a shoot-at-sight order for violators. Curfews have also been imposed by the head of a household on those living in the household, as most teenagers know, since they are often required to return home by a specific time of the evening or night. College authorities rarely use the word curfew for their regulations, but most college hostels impose a daily requirement for guests to return to their hostel by a certain hour. In the UK, those who frequent pubs have their own curfew, after which patrons of licensed premises may not enter; thus ‘last orders’ have to be taken by a specified curfew time, usually midnight. In American League baseball, there was a ‘curfew rule’ under which play could not continue past 1 a.m.
In India, Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) empowers an executive magistrate to prohibit an assembly of more than four persons in an area. In about 1861, Officer Raj-Ratna E.F. Deboo used the curfew along with Section 144 to reduce overall crime in that time in the state of Baroda, an achievement for which he was awarded a gold medal by the Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda. Curfews are frequently imposed in riot-stricken areas but are usually a temporary measure and lifted when calm and public order are restored. Curfews have, however, been resorted to more often in Kashmir, often confining the population to a form of collective house arrest for days together in periods of heightened militancy.
More recently, of course, the prolonged lockdown prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic involved all-day curfews, obliging people to stay indoors to avoid infection. As with law-and-order curfews, these were also initially enforced by the long arm of the law,
aided by lathis.
Terrorists, in turn, have imposed their own curfews, forcing shopkeepers to down their shutters and traffic to stay off the streets as a form of enforced non-cooperation with the authorities. In this instance, a curfew becomes a form of coerced protest, and the authorities, who usually enforce curfews, have to resort to inducements to keep normal activities going. Wonder what William the Conqueror would have done if the English had tried to turn the tables on him that way!
10.
Cwtch
noun
A HUG, BUT MUCH MORE
INTIMATE THAN A HUG
USAGE
Once the election results are out, many a defeated candidate will be in need of a cwtch.
Derived from Welsh and pronounced ‘kwootch’ (almost like a sneeze that stifles a cough), cwtch features as a legitimate word in the authoritative Oxford English Dictionary. The Welsh have been famous for various unusual words, including the longest train station name in the world (Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch). But the short and simple one-syllable ‘cwtch’, arguably, is the most special of them all.
The Urban Dictionary says that cwtch connotes snuggling, cuddling, loving, protecting, safeguarding and claiming, all at once. Welsh people say a cwtch is a hug that makes you feel safe, warm and comforted. (There’s a second, lesser-known usage too, for a small cubbyhole in which to store things safely, but that really reinforces the metaphorical meaning.) Kate Leaver of the BBC writes of an ‘emotional embrace . . . that evokes a sense of home’. She quotes a Welsh source as saying: ‘A cwtch is something you do when you’re overflowing with joy and love at another person’s sheer existence in your life that you can’t help but try and squeeze that love into them; it’s a safe space of love and comfort for someone who needs it; it’s all the best parts of being alive and loving someone, in a pair of arms. Hugs are for everyone; cwtches are only for a few, very special people in my life.’
Friends tell me you give a cwtch only to someone you have some close claim on; it is a sincere act, not a routine ritual like the PM’s hugs of startled world leaders. It requires a culture where the giving and receiving of profound affection is normal and not hemmed in by civilities or protocol; giving a cwtch assumes a way of life and a state of mind that don’t exist in every society. Strong, sincere and heartfelt affection is required for a mere hug to qualify as a cwtch. Elizabeth Taylor famously said about Richard Burton, whom she married twice (and who was Welsh), ‘I just want to go and cwtch him.’
An Australian writer of Welsh origin, Chloe Sargeant, expressed it beautifully: ‘When someone gives you a cwtch, you feel loved and secure and wholly shielded. . . . You feel a hug physically, but you feel a cwtch mentally, emotionally, with every fibre of your being and essence.’
The friend who introduced me to the word sent me a poem that sums it up so beautifully I can’t improve upon it:
A cwtch is a Welsh
word steeped in history;
From where it came is still a mystery.
It’s hard to describe the feeling you get
But your first real cwtch you’ll never forget.
A cwtch is wondrous morning or night.
It’s always the best way to get over a fight.
As a reliever of pain it’s better than pills;
It’ll help you forget all of your ills.
A cwtch is a drug, addictive for sure;
Indulge in it once—you’ll hunger for more.
It’s more than a hug; it’s more than a cuddle;
It’s something you give to someone who’s special.
The art of cwtching has passed down through life
From parents and lovers, from a husband or wife;
The one thing for sure that I’ve learned is true
The spirit of cwtching lives on in you!
11.
Defenestrate
verb
LITERALLY, TO THROW OUT OF THE WINDOW; METAPHORICALLY, TO JETTISON
USAGE
The Opposition is united in its determination to defenestrate the Modi government.
‘Defenestrate’ is one of those words one learned to use in college debates at St. Stephen’s in the 1970s, combining just the right doses of gravitas and jocularity so beloved of adolescents. It was never enough to throw out something you disliked; you had to defenestrate it. Derived from the Latin word fenestra or ‘window,’ which survives in French as fenêtre, defenestration actually
happened most famously in European history, when two Catholic deputies to the Bohemian national assembly and a secretary were tossed out of the window of the castle of Hradschin in Prague on 21 May 1618 by Protestant radicals protesting infringements of their religious freedom by regents of the
Catholic Emperor Ferdinand II.
This incident, which has gone down in the history books as the ‘Defenestration of Prague’, had a semi-happy ending: the victims survived, but only because they landed in a pile of garbage. Their defenestration marked the start of the Thirty Years’ War.
The good people of Prague had a demonstrated taste for this means of resolving their political differences. Two centuries earlier, in 1419, seven town officials were thrown from the windows of the Prague Town Hall, precipitating the Hussite War.
Less happy endings have occurred in other situations where defenestration was used as a means of execution. In Biblical days, for example, defenestration sealed the fate of Queen Jezebel, who, the Second Book of Kings says, was killed by being thrown out of a high window by her own eunuch servants, on the orders of Jehu. King John is said to have killed his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by defenestration from the castle at Rouen, France, in 1203.
Closer to home (and to our own times), is the story of how Adham Khan, Akbar’s general and foster brother, was defenestrated not just once but twice for murdering a rival general, Ataga Khan, a favourite of Akbar’s, who had been recently promoted by Akbar. Akbar was woken up by the tumult after the murder. He struck Adham Khan down personally with his fist and immediately ordered his defenestration. The first time, his legs were broken as a result of the twelve-metre fall from the ramparts of Agra Fort, but Adham Khan survived. Akbar, in a rare act of cruelty probably reflecting his anger at the loss of his favourite general, ordered Adham Khan’s defenestration a second time. This time the fall from a higher window killed him. Adham Khan’s mother Maham Anga had been Akbar’s wet nurse, so Akbar personally informed her of her son’s death by his orders. The story goes that she dutifully replied, ‘You have done well,’ only to pass away of acute depression forty days later.
While the act of defenestration connotes the forcible or peremptory removal of an adversary, there is also a neutral meaning for the root word. Architects speak of a building’s fenestration, by which they mean the style and placement of its window openings. Defenestration in this context would involve the closure or boarding-up of a building’s windows.
These days, defenestrations are more metaphorical, and involve electorates jettisoning their political leaders. Few are likely to result in anything like a Thirty Years’ War. The defenestration that the Indian Opposition is striving for seeks merely to end a shorter torment.
And the word lends itself to humorous use in the computer era: some say they are ‘defenestrating their computer’ when they describe the act of deleting Microsoft Windows as their operating system!
12.
Epicaricacy
noun
DERIVING PLEASURE FROM
THE MISFORTUNES OF OTHERS
USAGE
When the boastful braggart was defenestrated by his club, my epicaricacy knew no bounds.
There’s always a particular malicious satisfaction that some people gain from seeing others—especially those to whose vainglory we have been subject—receiving their comeuppance. The Germans popularized the term schadenfreude, but the English version of the same idea is derived from Greek, not German—it’s from the Greek word epikhairekakía, ‘joy upon evil’, made up of epi, upon, plus chara, joy, and kakon, evil. Epicaricacy is what you feel when you chortle on hearing something bad has happened to someone else.
It’s usually malicious: an article in The Guardian discussed the motives of internet trolls who prey on women with abuse and threats, and defined their epicaricacy as ‘derivation of pleasure from the misfortunes of others’. Another citation I came across speaks of ‘taking sadistic joy in the misfortune of others’, involving delectatio morose (Italian for much the same thing).
All round, epicaricacy would have to be summed up
as Not Nice.
Sadly, however, all too many people seem to enjoy the humiliation and degradation of other human beings. Many of our television channels relish inflicting such humiliation upon their targets; no tragedy is too painful to be exploited by the more callous and voyeuristic of our anchors and so-called journalists. Accusing people, savouring their setbacks, degrading people who are unable to hit back, taunting others, willing others to fail, are the staple of many of our more reprehensible channels, and they have fed into, or reinforced, if they haven’t actually created, a culture of relishing the downfall of others so that it makes their viewers feel better.
I’d like to think I’m largely immune from epicaricacy, because I was born without an envy gene, and have grown up convinced that the world has enough room for everyone to succeed and that the sufferings of others should never be a cause of rejoicing for myself.
Still, epicaricacy is not always evil. Arrogant braggarts need to be brought down from time to time, if only for their own good. Many a schoolchild will recall a moment of epicaricacy when a know-it-all classmate got a bad mark on a test, or the impossibly glamorous heartthrob forgot his lines during the school play, or the rich show-off lost his wallet and had to beg for tiffin money from his impecunious friends.
When these emotions get transferred to adults, however, they turn into malicious joy at others’ suffering. People with low self-esteem are particularly prone to epicaricacy: the less self-esteem an individual has, the more frequently, and more intensely, will they experience epicaricacy. The joy of observing the suffering of others comes from the lesser person’s feeling that failure brings the other person down, thus improving or
validating their own standing and enhancing
their self-worth.
Still, whether harmless or nasty, epicaricacy is to be avoided. When you smile at bad news about someone, suppress a grin and say insincerely, ‘It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,’ you are experiencing epicaricacy. Grow out of it quickly, though—as any shrink will tell you, negative emotions are not good for you—or for any of us, even politicians!
13.
Epistemophilia
noun
AN EXCESSIVE LOVE OF KNOWLEDGE
USAGE
He was constantly nose-deep in general knowledge textbooks to a point where his epistemophilia was positively antisocial.<
br />
The term epistemophilia comes from the Greek: it’s a compound of episteme, which means knowledge, science or understanding, and philos, love. Whereas epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge, the justification and the rationality of beliefs—all of which are generally seen as good things—however, epistemophilia has a negative connotation, implying a love of knowledge that is excessive. Someone given to epistemophilia is marked by an excessive striving for or preoccupation with knowledge
for its own sake.
We all know kids like that in India, mugging up useless trivia to ace quizzes, to enter ‘GK’ competitions and—who knows?—perhaps one day to score those extra marks in a vital competitive examination. The acquisition of knowledge is a national preoccupation in India as an end in itself, but unlike in most countries, it is rarely about acquiring true mastery of a difficult subject or deepening one’s understanding of the world and its mysteries. It is rather a test of memory that involves remembering an obscure fact for its own sake and recalling it just when it matters, at the key moment when the question is asked to which that particular fact or detail is the answer.
This pursuit was a harmless enough hobby in my student days. I founded the Quiz Club in St. Stephen’s College in 1974, well before ‘quizzing’ acquired its current monstrous proportions, and was rather proud of my mastery of trivia. But now, when every high school and college seems to be caught up in quizzing, when televised quizzes attract sponsors offering big prize money, prestige and of course fame, the culture has made epistemophilia a rampant disease in our schools and colleges. And that’s decidedly not a good thing.
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