Cool shabdhs

llustration/Uday Mohite

And so, every year into our vocabosphere trots along some new 'shabdhs' - 'shabdhs' that have one meaning in ol' Roget and Webster, but are used liberally by liberals, the literati, linguists, Lagavulin tasters, laissez-faire-sts, large fund managers, in other contexts - not millennial abbreviations like 'whatevs' or 'ossum' or 'bae'. But 'shabdhs' we've 'sunoed' before and ponder their meaning, deep in our subterranean consciousness, and we ask, why is this lexicon being used here?

Let me simplify, or rather contextualise.

These 'shabdhs' are like catch phrases. No one quite knows what they mean, often they are quite high funda. But, they are used with big intent, to impress, and they have to be 'thrown away' as words, not stressed. They are used to make the user come across as a cool achiever.

"That Shekhar, he know big words, he must be successful" - and they have to be said with so much pizzazz and nonchalance, so no one dare stop you and ask:

"Do you actually know what that word means?"

Let me give you an instance: the 'shabdh' ALGORITHM, the cool new buzzword. It's arbitrarily used across the board, in different businesses. Take this banker to banker chat:

Banker 1: "How do you see debt equity figures this year?"

Banker 2: "Um, as per our algorithms, we're estimating a 42 per cent spurt in profits."
See, from where I'm sitting, my acquaintance Webster defines 'algorithm' as an unambiguous specification of how to solve a class of problems.

So, explain this to me:

Customer to waiter: "How do you make your steak?"

Waiter to customer: "Sir, I'll have to get back to you once I verify the algorithm."

There's one more versatile 'shabdh' - yeah, dear reader - seems harmless enough, seems like a 'shabdh' that emanates from sport, but it is extensively used in cuisine, cinema, cellular technology etc, and it is GAME CHANGER. Three diverse contexts:

1. "Yaar, kheema pao is fine, but the fried egg, sunny side up, on the top, bro, that's the game changer."
2. "That Alia Bhatt, what versatility, Udta Punjab, Raazi, Highway, Gully Boy, she's a game changer. That jealous Kangana wants to be a game changer, but can't."
3. "Jio man, that's the game changer. Mukeshbhai, really, he's the man."

Third on my list of those cool 'shabdhs' is ZEITGEIST.

Get a hold of that one, dear reader: Zeitgeist.

Honestly, when I first heard 'zeitgeist', I thought it was the bada bhai of the poltergeist. Which is kind of ghost or spirit, correct? Definitely, a pre-Lord of the Rings type term. Instead, I checked it out: it is a fashion or fad considered acceptable to an era.

Model to designer: "Think I'll look good in this?"

Designer to model: "Not according to the zeitgeist."

And finally, dear reader, there's one last cool 'shabdh': SNAFU. Heard it before? Know what it means? I'll give you a hint:

Mayawati to Mamata: "What's Congress's biggest snafu?"

Mamata to Mayawati: "Rahul."

Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at
rahuldacunha62@gmail.com

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