Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Bombustious

Meaning: The grandiloquent noises made by a country when it acquires a nuclear bomb.
Pronunciation: Bomb-bust-yes.
Usage: After Pokhran, even a sober nation like India turned bombustious.
Root: Bomb (nuke) + Bombast (bluster) + Rumbustious (lacking in restraint).

Oorga-ga

Meaning: Salivate over spicy content.
Pronunciation: oo-r-ga-ga.
Usage: Gongura makes the gults go oorga-ga.
Root: Oorga + ga-ga.

Tendenzee

Meaning: Propensity to attach the alphabet zee to a brand name to make it more cool sounding.
Pronunciation: Ten-den-zee.
Usage: After the success of Zune, naming companies have overdone the tendenzee thingy.
Root: Tendency + Z (phonetically zee).

Orfans

Meaning: Fans disowned or left in the lurch by a star.
Pronunciation: Sounds exactly the same as orphans.
Usage: The Elvis orfans gather every year in Graceland.
Root: Orphans + Fans.

Chupperware

Meaning: Utility articles that suck big time.
Pronunciation: Chup-pa-wear.
Usage: Every time my cousin returns from a kitty party, she's saddled with a pile of chupperware.
Root: Chupparadhu (to suck in tamil) + ware.

Kunjuicer

Meaning: A juicer that sucks out the last drop from a fruit. Or any device that squeezes the maximum output from the input.
Pronunciation: Cun-joos-err.
Usage: The ganne ka ras vendors in Benaras were the inventors of the legendary kunjuicer.
Root: Kanjoos (Hindi for anyone with a penchant for getting the most from his investment)+ Juicer.

Kiddyappam

Meaning: Smaller servings of the idiyappam.
Pronunciation: Kiddy-aap-pum.
Usage: Kiddyappams are the small-idli-size idiyappams dished out in premium restaurants. They were born when the hotel management decided to serve lesser without giving the impression of serving lesser.
Root: Kid (a metaphor for small) + Idiyappam (A South Indian breakfast item).

Dindoo

Meaning: An incompetent person who fails to carry out even simple tasks.
Pronunciation: Rhymes with Hindoo.
Usage: Sometimes it pays to hire a dindoo in your team. At least this way you can look smarter.
Root: Phonetic version of Didn't-do (failure to accomplish).

Bustigmatism

Meaning: A disorder afflicting hot blooded men. Cause: A woman's chest. Effect: Inability to focus on everything else.
Pronunciation: Bus-tig-mat-tism.
Usage: When Pamela Anderson walked out with her silicone implants, the attendants at the clinic experienced an attack of bustigmatism.
Root: Bust + Astigmatism.

Sunday, October 07, 2007

Busmasura

Meaning: An ill-fated bus that swallows the lives of its passengers.
Pronunciation: Bus-ma-su-ra.
Usage: The 72 passengers on the highway to Ghaziabad had no clue that they had boarded a busmasura.
Root: Bus + Bhasmasura (a demon from Hindu Mythology who destroys the very man who empowered him).

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Shinaman

Meaning: One who adds sheen to the cricket ball using saliva.
Pronunciation: Shiner-man.
Usage: There's a difference between ball tampering and playing shinaman.
Root: Shiner + Chinaman (a cricketing term).

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Chennaisa

Meaning: A cosmopolitan islamic school.
Pronunciation: Chen-ny-sa.
Usage: The easiest way to root out jihadis is to create more chennaisas.
Root: Chennai (new name of Madras) + Madrasa (arabic for islamic school)

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Chessnokov

Meaning: A common name to notate Russian chess players.
Pronunciation: Chess-no-kov.
Usage: The tournament had its share of chessnokovs.
Root: Chess + -nokov (a popular russian name suffix)

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Bhejaculation

Meaning: Mental masturbation.
Pronunciation: Bhay-ja-q-lay-shun.
Usage: Conference rooms are venues for bhejaculation.
Root: Bheja (Hindi slang for brain) + Ejaculation.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Sarcar

Meaning: An automobile that carts government of India officials/dignitaries. Invariably a white ambassador.
Pronunciation: Sur-car.
Usage: A caravan of sarcars descended upon the forsaken village one day before the election.
Root: Sarkar (Hindi word for Government) + Car.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Penicotine

Meaning: A pen used vicariously as a cigar/cigarette.
Pronunciation: Penny-co-teen.
Usage: In the Anbumani regime, bollywood villains will be forced to hold penicotines on screen.
Root: Pen + Nicotine.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Elarocism

Meaning: Tendency to mix up the letter l with r.
Pronunciation: El-la-ro-cism.
Usage: The Japanese are prone to elarocism as their language has no phoneme equivalent of the English 'l' or 'r'.
Root: El (phonetic L) + A (phonetic R) + -Cism (suffix cueing a state or condition).

Mincetrument

Meaning: A device capable of cutting or chopping things.
Pronunciation: Mins-true-ment.
Usage: Kapil Sibal was used as a mincetrument in the Lok Sabha debate to dice through the shallow arguments of the BJP.
Root: Mince (to cut) + Instrument.

Slowcality

Meaning: Where nothing much changes.
Pronunciation: Slo-cal-litty.
Usage: Nehru's obsession with socialism reduced India to a slowcality.
Root: Slow + Locality.

Fileanthropist

Meaning: A forwarder of interesting files.
Pronunciation: File-lan-thrope-ist.
Usage: The difference between a fileanthropist and a spammer is the benign motivation.
Root: File + Philanthropist.

Shirkular

Meaning: A resignation letter cced to all.
Pronunciation: Shirk-q-lar.
Usage: After the raise freeze, I vented my frustration by posting a colorful shirkular on the bulletin board.
Root: Shirk + Circular.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Lilustrious

Meaning: Eminent at a young age.
Pronunciation: Lil-lust-ri-yus.
Usage: Ajit Tendulkar would have been envious of his lilustrious kid brother.
Root: Lil (small) + illustrious.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Shushpicion

Meaning: Snuffing out suspicion by rounding up the usual suspects.
Pronunciation: Shush-pi-shun.
Usage: Cops enact the charade of shushpicion whenever there is a terrorist incident.
Root: Shush (silence) + Suspicion.

Prophecease

Meaning: Stop forecasting.
Pronunciation: Prof-a-cease.
Usage: I used to predict the results of one-day matches. After the world cup debacle, I've kinda propheceased.
Root: Prophecy + Cease.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Tonguerezi

Meaning: Indians whose mother tongue is English.
Pronunciation: Tongue-ray-zee.
Usage: Tonguerezis are Angrezis with an Indian birth certificate.
Root: Tongue (mother tongue) + Angrezis (the English).