
[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.]
Many of those who read this book may be forgiven for thinking that Shashi Tharoor would be better sticking to literary endeavours of this kind than pontificating on the horrors, real or imagined, of British rule in India. It is an immensely enjoyable work which brings out the author’s genuine passion for words and for the English language – perhaps more than can be said about some of his utterances as a politician/entertainer.
The origins of the book can be traced to a long-running column that Tharoor has been writing for a Dubai-based newspaper, Khaleej Times, in which he would discuss the etymology, meanings, evolution, peculiarities etc. of words. Many of the chapters of the book began life in that column, although, as Tharoor acknowledges, they were subsequently expanded and augmented. Substantial research assistance for the column, in turn, came from an academic who would ‘identify interesting topics, … dredge up scholarly material about them and … supply me with an incessant stream of inputs’ [p. 405] – without which, given Tharoor’s multifarious activities, neither the column nor the book would have been possible.
There are thirteen sections to the book, skilfully (and occasionally whimsically) titled: borrowed plumes; the point of punctuation; spelling bugs; typos, superfluities, misprints, and other errors; linguistic registers; in[appropriate] words and cardinal guidelines; literary tools; literary acrobatics; beer and skittles; lexical evolution; language of inclusion; masters of mirth; bellwethers. Perhaps in keeping with superstition in India, the total number of chapters has been made to reach 101; some of these chapters are extremely compact (just over two pages) while others much longer.
Tharoor’s love-affair with words started very early in life, inspired and encouraged by his father, who was a word-game addict, a ‘Scrabble fanatic’ [p. xvi], among other things. ‘My father’, he says ‘instilled in me the conviction that words are what shape ideas and reflect thought, and the more words you know, the more precisely and effectively are you able to express your thoughts’. [p. xxi] And no one who has followed Tharoor, whether in print or on television or in parliament, can deny that he is one of only a handful of public figures in the Indian subcontinent who conveys his thoughts (even his prevarications and evasions as a politician!) with precision and sophistication. With disarming candour, he admits that he is ‘[b]lessed with a keen ear for words and a capacious memory’ which has allowed ‘a robust lexicon of exceptional and highly specific words [to find] a place in my mind’ [p. xxii].
Commonwealth Bookshelf
Delhi launch of special issue India@75
The book is a treat for anyone interested in the delights and mysteries of the English language as it has evolved over the centuries. Want to know about anagrams and aptagrams, acronyms and bacronyms, malapropisms and paraprosdokians, Spoonerisms and Kangaroo words? Or simply about literary insults, the significance of slang, linguistic afflictions, mixed metaphors or disputed word origins? They are all there, expertly explained. Can one escape an excursion into political correctness as it affects the use of language? Not on your nelly: three pages are devoted, for example, to ‘the language of equity’, although it has to be said in fairness to Tharoor that he is not exactly in thrall to that present-day plague. Talking of ‘equity-language guides’ which are increasingly frequently promoted – and sometimes imposed willy-nilly – on university campuses these days, Tharoor is largely dismissive of them, or at least sceptical:
They all seem to be based on the same activist template but vary in their degrees of intolerance, each group seemingly striving to find something offensive that the other didn’t think of. It seems to be unlikely that such hyper-sensitivity actually exists amongst ordinary people, even in ‘woke’ American society. How many people would follow the dictum of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to replace ‘felon’ or ‘accused criminal’ with ‘justice-involved-person’? It is making a mockery of the language, and of commonsense. [p. 353]
In the same vein, Tharoor is subtly scathing of speech codes inflicted by certain organisations on their employees and others. He devotes a few pages to discussing the absurdity of the extent to which Oxfam, the international charity which had begun life as the Oxfam Committee for Famine Relief in the shadows of the Second World War, has gone in this regard through an ‘Inclusive Language Guide’ published in 2023. ‘A glance at the guide suggests that the urge to get people to bite their tongues rather than use language which some may find “politically incorrect” has now crossed all reasonable limits’, [p.350] and cites many examples from the guide which reasonable people would have sound reasons to cavil at. ‘It’s important’, he implores, ‘to know when you have gone too far. Stop!’ [p. 352].
The potential of this book to educate and to enrich is enormous, especially in countries like Tharoor’s native India where, alas, standards of English have plummeted alarmingly at all levels and in all age groups for at least half a century. Unsurprisingly, Tharoor himself is the butt of jokes and frequent ridicule in India, but he has learnt to take this in his stride. Referring to an occasion when he used the word ‘farrago’ in a tweet and it led to over a million people looking it up on search engines, he says: ‘My notoriety was established – I was India’s Mr Difficult Words’ [p. xv]. One meme depicted a man saying: ‘I used to think I was poor. Now I’ve met Shashi Tharoor and I realize I’m impecunious’. [p. xvi]!
Venkat Iyer is the outgoing editor of the Round Table Journal.
A Wonderland of Words by Shashi Tharoor, New Delhi, Aleph, 2024.