Word up!

NEW DELHI: Language has often been described as a living, breathing organism, capable of omission, revision and evolution. In line with that image of the King’s English, Oxford University Press recently named ‘rizz’ as its word of the year. Short for charisma, rizz was defined as a term used by Generation Z to describe someone’s ability to attract or seduce another. The word went viral after Spiderman star Tom Holland once said he ‘had no rizz whatsoever’. The word raced past another popular terminology, ‘Swiftie’, used to describe an enthusiastic fan of pop sensation Taylor Swift. Another word that made the shortlist was situationship (which implies an informal romantic or sexual relationship).

In a year where a chunk of our chats revolved around artificial intelligence (AI), it would be unimaginable to keep the phenomenon out of the loop. And so, prompt (an instruction given to an AI programme) also emerged as one of the four finalists, selected by a public vote, and vetted by experts at the publisher of the multi-volume Oxford English Dictionary. We also have the ‘new and improved’ hallucinate — the tendency of AI to produce false information contrary to the user’s intent and present it as if true and factual. Other words that captured the public’s attention this year included deepfake, as well as kibbutz (a communal farm or settlement in Israel), the latter of which happened to be in the crosshairs of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

These linguistic flourishes aren’t limited to the Anglicised world. A viral catchphrase that emerged in India, in the aftermath of the ICC World Cup 2023 final was ‘panauti’. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi weaponised it at an election rally in Rajasthan, targeting the ruling dispensation with a veiled reference to the presence of the Prime Minister at the eponymous Narendra Modi Stadium as a harbinger of bad luck for Team India. He said, “Our boys were playing well, they would have won the World Cup. But ‘Panauti’ made us lose.” The Hindi word is synonymous with ill omen.

Not that the BJP took too kindly to the comments, as it immediately sought the intervention of the Election Commission of India (EC) against Rahul for his jibe. A show-cause notice was issued to him for dropping verbal artillery including ‘panauti’, ‘pickpocket’ and ‘loan waiver for the super rich’ while targeting PM Modi. The EC, in its notice, said that the use of ‘panauti’ fell under the definition of corrupt practice, as per the Representation of the People Act, 1951. It was defined as an attempt to make an elector believe that he or she ‘will become or will be rendered an object of divine displeasure or spiritual censure.’

More recently, expelled TMC member Mahua Moitra, known for razor sharp repartees referred to questions posed to her by the Ethics Committee in the Cash for Queries episode as the proverbial equivalent of a vastraharan (disrobing). She has previously dropped S-bombs when cornered by the media, and called out PM Modi’s administration for its ‘alleged’ collusion with industrialist Gautam Adani, who has seemingly Topi Pehnaao-ed the countrymen. For the latter, Moitra came to the Parliament with a party hat.

In a nation bracing for elections, it might seem imperative to get up to speed on the buzzwords that will form the core of the electoral vocabulary in 2024. Here’s something we don’t want our leaders to resort to — whataboutery.