Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Layins

Meaning: Advertising layouts that don't see the light of the day.
Pronunciation: Lay-ince.
Usage: My portfolio is littered with some lovely layins.
Root: Layouts that stay in the comp.

Brazealot

Meaning: An enthusiastic supporter of the Brazilian football team.
Pronunciation: Bra-zeal-lut.
Usage: There are tonnes of brazealots even in a cricket crazy country like India.
Root: Brazil + Zealot.

Laevotee

Meaning: A communist at heart.
Pronunciation: Lee-vo-tea.
Usage: N. Ram is the most famous laevotee in Chennai.
Root: A devotee of leftist principles. Note: Laevo is left in latin.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Persiflog

Meaning: severe banter
Usage: Halfway into the India-Pak world-cup('96) match, the two commentators- Gavaskar and Imran Khan- picked up the rapier of persiflog.
Pronounciation: per-C-flog
Root: persiflage + flog

Halloocination

Meaning: Fantasies in the toilet.
Pronunciation: Hal-loose-sin-nation.
Usage: The Liril ads were supposedly based on the premise that women do a lot of halloocination.
Root: Obvious.

Bogitation

Meaning: Deep thought in the toilet.
Pronunciation: Bawg-it-tayshun.
Usage: I get most of my ideas during extended sessions of bogitation.
Root: Bog (loo) + Cogitation.

Pornslaught

Meaning: The gush of porno emails in your inbox. Or sudden explosion of porno pop-ups on your comp.
Pronunciation: Porn-slot.
Usage: My girlfriend gave me a disgusted look when she looked at the mails in my inbox. She didn't realise it was plain pornslaught.
Root: Porn + onslaught.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Quackophony

Meaning: Bathroom singing. Or when the uninitiated and untrained boldly belt out songs like pros, regardless of whether the rendition is offkey or offbeat.
Pronunciation: Kwack-co-phoney.
Usage: I am a big fan of Kishore Anna's quackophony.
Root: Quack (pretending to be a pro) + Phony (Sounds).

SWG

Meaning: The Indian flag.
Pronunciation: Es-Double-You-Gee.
Usage: Indians are a sentimental lot. Burning the SWG could cause a riot.
Root: Saffron, White & Green.

Oleopoly

Meaning: Domination by the oil cartels.
Pronunciation: Olio-polly.
Usage: The days of the oleopoly are numbered.
Root: Oleo means oil in latin/greek. Poly is control.

Squintellectual

Meaning: An intellectual with an ideological bias.
Pronunciation: Skwint-tellectuals.
Usage: The Seminar magazine is the favourite haunt of India's most renowned squintellectuals.
Root: Obvious.

Shallumni

Meaning: Wannabe students of a prestigious institute or univ.
Pronunciation: Shall-loom-nai.
Usage: The IITs attract over 100,000 shallumni every year.
Root: Shall + alumni.

Conkology

Meaning: Study of breakdowns, failures and malfunctions.
Pronunciation: Conk-call-logy.
Usage: Professor Avinash had this bright idea of starting a course on conkology.
Root: Conk (malfunction) + Logy (study of).

Cockneysucker

Meaning: one who tries hard to fake cockney accent after watching Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels for the first time, but soon realizes that he's(she's) not good at it and ultimately gives up.
Usage: After the first screening of LSTSB the hall was full of cockneysuckers.
Pronounciation: cock-ne-sakar
Root: cockney + sucker

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Pre-ception

Meaning: The curious practice of having the wedding reception before the wedding.
Pronunciation: Pree-ception.
Usage: Most tamilians opt for a pre-ception, thanks to wedding hall economics.
Root: Prepone + Reception.

Yawn Tennis

Meaning: Never ending verbal volleys in a courtroom.
Pronunciation: Obvious.
Usage: Most legal eagles get out of a tight corner by wearing out the judge with some mind numbing yawn tennis.
Root: Lawn tennis.

Herfidy

Meaning: Betrayal of trust of wife or girlfriend.
Pronunciation: Her-fid-dee
Usage: Hillary may never forgive Bill Clinton's herfidy.
Root: Perfidy.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Sybarista

Meaning: Person devoted to the pleasure derived from having barista brewed coffee
Usage : No one can claim to be a sybarista without having visited the first starbucks store in seattle.
Pronunciation : s+eye+burr+is+ta
Root : sybarite + barista

Dickchik Dickchik

Meaning: the sound that cars playing Punjabi-rap make as they pass by.
Usage: To irritate passers-by with dickchik dickchik is Harry's sole salvation.
Pronounciation: dick-chik dick-chik
Root: very onomatopoeic

anti-Saymight

Meaning: one who hates juice (no pun intended)
Usage: The juice shop had to close down its operations due to increasing anti-Saymightic sentiments.
Pronounciation: anty-say-might
Root: anti-Semitism
Note: fruit juices bring about instant strength...and strength leads to might

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Indozzie

Meaning: An Australian of Indian origin.
Usage: Instead of just wooing ABCDs we should also build bridges with Indozzies.
Pronunciation: Ind-ozzy
Root: Indo + Ozzie (As in Aussie).

Presscendo

Meaning: Media build up.
Usage: I dunno if Sania Mirza can live up to the presscendo.
Pronunciation: Press-send-o.
Root: Press + Crescendo.

Ganagram

Meaning: A song that's been created by remixing the notes of an already popular song.
Usage: Deva, the man who gave us the gana paatu, is a great exponent of ganagrams.
Pronunciation: Gaana (rhymes with ghana)-gram.
Root: Gana (song in Hindi) + Anagram.

Halfluent

Meaning: On the road to getting rich.
Usage: India is no longer a poor country. You can call it a halfluent nation.
Pronunciation: Haf (american pronunciation) + fluent.
Root: Half + Affluent.

Kneemoania

Meaning: Very, very tired legs.
Usage: After the marathon, I had an instant attack of kneemoania.
Pronunciation: Same as pneumonia.
Root: Obvious.

Skypography

Meaning: The art of writing in the sky by releasing vapour from an aeroplane.
Usage: Brian proposed to his girlfriend using skypography.
Pronunciation: Sky-po-graf-fee
Root: Sky + Typography.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Lustronomer

Meaning: A person who studies shapely bods.
Pronunciation: Lust-rawn-nummer.
Usage: Every man is a lustronomer at some point of his life.
Root: Lust+ astronomer.

Pointlessium

Meaning: A useless chemical element.
Pronunciation: Point-less-CM.
Usage: Every element discovered after atomic number 94 has been a Pointlessium.
Root: Every element after 89 has an -ium as its suffix. And since nobody anyway remembers elements after 94, we can safely assign the monicker Pointlessium.

Crushmir

Meaning: The doctrine that Kashmir can only won by brute force.
Usage: If India doesn't follow the Crushmir policy, there is a great chance that Srinigar might become the hub of Al Qaeida, in the years to come.
Pronunciation: Crush-meer
Root: Crush + Kashmir.

Hindocrinate

Meaning: Brainwashing people into militant Hindutva.
Usage: Is Narendra Modi trying to Hindocrinate Gujarat?
Pronunciation: Hind-awk-trinate
Root: Hindutva + Indoctrinate.

Ying & Yan

Meaning: Ying symbolises effeminate men. And Yan symbolises women with masculine tendencies.
Usage: The Yin & Yang imbalance has led to the Ying & Yan balance.
Pronunciation: Obvious.
Root: Yin + Yang = Ying. Yang + Yin = Yan.

Saydative

Meaning: Talk that can put you to sleep.
Usage: Manmohan Singh's speech was a 60-minute saydative.
Pronunciation: Say-day-tive.
Root: Say + Sedative.

Thinheritance

Meaning: The measly portion of wealth bequeathed to a person by a nasty benefactor, post-death.
Usage: Yashovardhan Birla was not at all amused with his thinheritance.
Pronunciation: Rhymes with inheritance.
Root: Obvious.

Horibral Column

Meaning: Spine that never stands up.
Usage: Tony Blair's servility to Bush has never perplexed me. Blame it on his horibral column.
Pronunciation: Horry-bral-call-lum.
Root: Hori is the opposite of verti. Just insert this insight into vertebral column. You get a phrase that means exactly the opposite.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Bonghari

Meaning: a Bengali, born and brought up in Bihar
Usage: Never get into an argument with a Bonghari.
Pronounciation: bongha-ri
Root: Bong(slang for Bengali) + Bihari

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Mouse-padstitute

Meaning: anything (usually household or stationery items) that is used as a substitute for a mouse pad
Usage: Amongst hardcore games, hard-bound books make the best mouse-padstitute
Pronounciation: mawz pads-T-tute
Root: mouse-pad + substitute

Phuthor

Meaning: an author who adds "PhD" after his name.
Usage: In journalism, it's best to keep things simple. You'll turn off readers if you sound like a phuthor.
Pronounciation: fu-ther
Origin: Phd + author

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Metabrahma

Meaning: The ultimate god.
Usage: If Sachin is God, then Bradman must have been a metabrahma.
Pronunciation: Meta-brumma.
Root: Brahma is the creator. Metabrahma literally means the creator of creators.

Nomenplayture

Meaning: The art of being inventive with pedestrian names.
Usage: To get a half-decent domain name, one must resort to nomenplayture.
Pronunciation: Gnaw-men-play-cher.
Root: Play + Nomenclature.

Lackuracy

Meaning: Imprecision. Unexactness. Being off-mark.
Usage: Agarkar is famous for his lackuracy.
Pronunciation: Lack-Q-russy.
Root: Lack of accuracy.

Palm Post-it

Meaning: Scribbling an important piece of information on your palm when you don't have a piece of paper.
Usage: Don't worry, I'll give you a call. I have your number on my palm post-it.
Pronunciation: Obvious.
Root: Self explanatory.

Pfaffilter

Meaning: The power to distil the facts from a sea of hype.
Usage: The voters in India are quite intelligent. They switch on their pfaffilters during elections.
Pronunciation: Faf-filter
Root: Self explanatory.

Postdator

Meaning: One who thrives on issuing post dated cheques.
Usage: When the going gets tough, it pays to become a postdator.
Pronunciation: Post-dater.
Root: A play of predator.

Bellirker

Meaning: A pesky person who derives sadistic pleasure in pushing up your blood pressure by ringing the door bell, again and again.
Usage: When I wish to be yelled at, I play bellirker.
Pronunciation: Bell-lurker.
Root: Bell + irker.

Twinterval

Meaning: Two breaks of identical timespans.
Usage: Director Cheran had originally planned to release his Tamil movie 'Thavmaai Thavamirundhu' as a film with a twinterval.
Pronunciation: Twin-ta-well.
Root: Obvious.

Ghazzler

Meaning: one who listens only to Ghazals and is very dismissive of other genres.
Usage: Harry said, "That ghazzler doesn't know what Led-Zep is!", and added with certain smugness, "what a loser."
Pronounciation: same as guzzler
Origin: Ghazals + guzzler(as in beer guzzler)

Friday, January 20, 2006

Warttrochi

Meaning: A blemish that just refuses to go away.
Usage: Bofors is one hell of a warttrochi for Sonia Gandhi.
Pronunciation: Wart-traw-chee.
Root: From Ottavio Quarttrochi, the Bofors middleman, whose name keeps cropping up every 5 years.

Cleawage

Meaning: The monetary inducement dangled by tabloids & magazines, for a strip-and-show shoot.
Usage: Playboy magazine was the first to figure out the fact that every supermodel has a cleawage.
Pronunciation: Same as cleavage.
Root: Obvious.

Cuesician

Meaning: One who cannot make music without a cue sheet.
Usage: Brian hates to perform live as he thinks he's a cuesician.
Pronunciation: Q-sician.
Root: Obvious.

Psychopathetic

Meaning: a pitiable psycho
Usage: Harry's metamorphosis from a psychopath to a psychopathetic largely went unnoticed
Pronounciation: sai-ko-pa-thetic
Root: psychotic + pathetic

Cigibana

Meaning: art of arranging cigarette packets in complex geometrical patterns.
Usage: Harry's expertise in Cigibana is envied by many.
Pronounciation: C-ge-ba-na ['ge' as in geek]
Root: Ikebana- ancient Japanse art of flower arrangement.

Shopping Maals

Meaning: beautiful girls that one comes across in shopping malls- who leave one wondering if they(shopping maals) are there to shop or flaunt their looks.
Usage: Harry, invariably, spends his evenings in malls, ogling at shopping maals.
Pronounciation: shaw-ping maa-l
Root: shopping mall culture

Missnomer

Meaning: A girl whose name belies her looks.
Usage: Harry looked at the reservation chart and was delighted to discover that some Malaika Arora is seated beside him...his dreams came to a shattering end- as she turned out to be a missnomer.[This word has a negative connotation.]
Pronounciation: miss-no-mer
Root: a variation of misnomer

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Mockestra

Meaning: A bunch of cacaphonic people who use their vocal chords to recreate a whole song or composition with just their vocal chords.
Usage: Group antaksharis in hostels often degenerate into one huge mockestra.
Pronunciation: Mawk-kess-tra.
Root: Obvious.

Organ Stanley

Meaning: A person who earns his money by trading in human organs.
Usage: The slum dweller made his first lakh by selling his kidney through an Organ Stanley.
Pronunciation: Or-gun-stan-lee.
Root: From Morgan Stanley, the investment banker.

Paxophone

Meaning: A call made to make peace or to bury the hatchet.
Usage: Kumaraswamy played the paxophone to his dad Deve Gowda, after he was sworn in as the Karnataka CM.
Pronunciation: Pax-so-phone.
Root: Pax in latin is peace. The rest is obvious.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Huemour

Meaning: Jokes laced with a tinge of racism.
Usage: In case you think black humour is huemour you must be a racist.
Pronunciation: Same as humour.
Root: Hue + Humour.

Boasterior

Meaning: Euphemism for a rear worth bragging about.
Usage: JLo's boasterior was the toast of America.
Pronunciation: Rhymes with posterior.
Inspiration: Butt for avi's assfixation, i couldn't have conjured this up.

Friday, January 13, 2006

Compliment Sponge

Meaning: One who expects appreciation all the time.
Usage: The compliment sponge is always on an impression trip.
Pronunciation: Obvious.
Root: Very obvious.

Worsenality

Meaning: One who is a let-down in real life but in the virtual world sounds really, really impressive.
Usage: I know for a fact that I am a worsenality, that's why I am anti-social.
Pronunciation: Versa-nality.
Root: Personality that worsens on meeting people in flesh and blood.

We-mail

Meaning: An email ID jointly owned and operated by a couple.
Usage: Having a we-mail account is akin to sharing your underwear with your partner.
Pronunciation: V-mail.
Root: Smitten couples tend to have the same login and password for communicating with the rest of the world. We-mail captures this very trend.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Swignoramus

Meaning : someone who doesn't know a thing about drinks
Usage : The swignoramus flushed a deep crimson when the bartender asked him if he wanted sex on the beach
Pronunciation : swig no ram us
Root : swig + ignoramus

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Kleenexpert

Meaning: An agony uncle or aunt.
Usage: Nothing works like a massive crib session with a kleenexpert.
Pronunciation: Clean-expert
Root: From Kleenex (a brand of tissues and also one's best friend in times of grief).

Talock

Meaning: To drop the idea of divorce.
Usage: Karishma and Sanjay Kapoor have decided on a talock.
Pronunciation: Thul-lock.
Root: Talaq is a licence to break free from a relationship. While Talock is about locking this very thought.

Chixation

Meaning: The state of being besotted with women.
Usage: The reason for missappointments is chixation.
Pronunciation: Rhymes with fixation.
Root: Obvious.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Printomercial

Meaning: A print ad that looks like a commercial.
Usage: We came up with printomercials for one of our clients but dropped the idea when someone pointed out that our target audience may not be ready for it, yet.
Pronunciation: Print-toe-mershial.
Root: Obvious.

Betelling

Meaning: Having a conversation while chewing paan.
Usage: An easy way to coin new words is start betelling.
Pronunciation: Be-telling.
Root: Betel Leaf (Paan) + Telling.
Also known as: Paanversation.

Mandarinse

Meaning: To wash away the competition by flooding the market with cheap Chinese products.
Usage: The pen market in India is currently being mandarinsed.
Pronunciation: Man-der-rinse.
Root: Mandarin + Rinse.

Knewrotic

Meaning: One who is paranoid about learning something new.
Usage: Lensmen who've shot on film all their life are knewrotic about digital cameras.
Pronunciation: Same as Neurotic.
Root: Obvious.

Podinary

Meaning: An uncool gadget or gizmo.
Usage: Sony Walkman has suddenly become so podinary.
Pronunciation: Pod-din-nary.
Root: From Ipod, which has made everything look so uncool.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Sparlance

Meaning: The colourful vocabulary of verbal warriors.
Usage: In campus sparlance, Bose-a-decay is not even the equivalent of a rubber bullet.
Pronunciation: spar-luns.
Root: Spar (to fight) + Parlance.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Bilesstoday

Meaning: Two days ago.
Usage: I was not in this city, bilesstoday. So I couldn't have commited the crime.
Pronunciation: Phonetically it will sound Bile-yesterday.
Root: Bi (two) + Less (minus) + Today = Two days before today.
Note: Three days ago is trilesstoday.

Fretrothal

Meaning: An engagement gone awry.
Usage: Ben Afflect hasn't yet got over his fretrothal with JLo.
Pronunciation: Fret-row-thul.
Root: Fret + Betrothal.

Posteopathy

Meaning: The bloggers' disease characterised by mindless, mechanical visits to the same old post with the hope of catching new comments.
Usage: The fall in office productivity may be blamed on posteopathy.
Pronunciation: Post-tea-yo-pathy.
Root: Osteopathy.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Centoutophobia

Meaning: The fear of getting out before scoring a century.
Usage: Nervous nineties is a symptom of centoutophobia.
Pronunciation: Sent-out-toe-fobia.
Root: Cent is hundred. Out is the cricket term for losing your wicket. Phobia means fear. Also centout phonetically is sent out. So fear of being sent out of the field.

Cellibate

Meaning: One who abstains from having verbal intercourses via mobile phones. Ergo, any person who avoids carrying cell phones.
Usage: No, I don't have a mobile number. I am cellibate.
Pronunciation: Sell-lee-bate.
Root: Cell + Celibate.

Bragpiper

Meaning: One who blows his own trumpet.
Usage: He needs no hypemeister 'coz he's a bragpiper.
Pronunciation: Brag-piper.
Root: Bagpiper.

Taskade

Meaning: A gush of work.
Usage: I just returned from my new year vacation only to be confronted by a taskade.
Pronunciation: Task-cade.
Root: A cascade of tasks.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Damesake

Meaning: One having the same dame as the other.
Usage: Arjun and Yudishtra were damesakes. They lived with the same woman named Draupadi.
Pronunciation: Rhymes with Namesake.
Root: Dame (wife or mistress) + Namesake.

Eyestalgia

Meaning: Pictures or images that bring back memories of the past.
Usage: Parineta has a lot of calcutta eyestalgia.
Pronunciation: I-stall-jia
Root: A cunning play of nostalgia.

Verbaflorist

Meaning: One who uses flowery words to flaunt his or her knowledge of a language.
Usage: Jaswant Singh is a verbaflorist par excellence.
Pronunciation: Verb-ba-floor-wrist.
Root: Obvious.
Near cousin: Grandiloquent.

Letharji

Meaning: An utterly lazy politician, bureaucrat or person in a position of power.
Usage: India will clock Hindu rates of growth as long as we have letharjis calling the shots.
Pronunciation: Lay-thar-jee.
Root: Lethargy + Ji (the hindi suffix that is often attached to names with some authority).
Inspiration: The word letharji was coined first by my batchmate Virendra Baradwaj as a PJ.

Flablets

Meaning: Slimming pills.
Usage: Manisha Koirala needs a regimen of flablets to get back into action.
Pronunciation: Flab-lets.
Root: Flab reduction tablets.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Wreckruiter

Meaning: A pathetic HR person who causes incalcuable damage by hiring misfits. Also a term for those who brainwash people into becoming a terrorist.
Usage: Meet the wreckruiter who gave us a CEO with the IQ of an ant.
Pronunciation: Homonym of recruiter.
Root: Wreck + Recruiter.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Mirror Mail

Meaning: A mail sent to yourself.
Usage: I rely on mirror mail to access the stuff I write at home.
Pronunciation: Obvious.
Root: Obvious.

Paan Holi

Meaning: The art of painting the town red by indulging in paan spitting.
Usage: Paan Holi is the favourite sport of millions of Indians.
Pronunciation: Paan-holy.
Root: Paan (betel leaf in Hindi) + Holi (a riotous festival in India celebrated by spraying or sprinkling colour on each other).

Andromorphing

Meaning: Transformation into a male.
Usage: Aparna Mafatlal opted for andromorphing and became Ajay Mafatlal.
Pronunciation: And-row-mor-fing.
Root: Andro (male in greek) + Morphing (body transformation).
Related Coinage: Gynomorphing = Transformation into a female.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Coparazzi

Meaning: The policemen who shadow a VIP for security reasons.
Usage: Behind every major traffic snarl in India, there is the invisible hand of the coparazzi.
Pronunciation: Copper-raatzee.
Root: Cop + Paparaazi.

Vapour Man

Meaning: All hype, no substance kinda guy.
Usage: The problem with the BJP is it's got too many vapour men.
Pronunciation: Way-per-man
Root: Vapour is hot air. Anyone who's all hot air is a vapour man.
Related coinage: Vapour Girl, Vapour Woman.
Antonym: Man of substance.

Shy Candy

Meaning: Some one who catches the eye by pretending to be coy.
Usage: In an overcrowded party teeming with flirts, the shy candy always gets the girl.
Pronunciation: Shy-can-dee.
Root: Shy + Eye candy.