And then there is Indian media, suffering from severe lack of sense of discrimination, which starts drooling with excitement whenever anything remotely connected to Indian cultural landmass gets approval from westerners. A press release by a little-known American company that makes money by monitoring new media for mentioning its clients, announcing the crowning of one millionth word should ordinarily have been brushed aside without a thought, but the inclusion of two words having an India-connection (Slumdog & Jai Ho) was enough enticement for our media to treat a publicity gimmick by a private company as yet another shining example of India's cultural impact on the world. Would we have stopped using the words Slumdog or Jai Ho had this monitoring agency not included these words in its expanding list? Has our national pride suffered a dent because Slumdog is listed at 9,99,997 and not at 10,00,000? If not, why do such crappy crowning ceremonies conferring chance celebritiness to accidental new words become news?
As a response to such senseless pandering to juvenile fancies, Onionuttapam.com too has created its own list of new words and phrases that deserve an entry in English lexicon.
C
ountupation - (noun - Counting clowns) - The silly and absolutely pointless occupation of keeping a count of new inclusions of items in a given branch of knowledge that are indelineatable due to lack of accepted and clear-cut criteria for inclusion or exclusion of such items in that branch of knowledge.Languappropriate - Attempt to appropriate or assume pseudo-control/ownership of an entire language through insidious means such as setting up a language monitoring company, unauthorizedly taking up the role of deciding which words deserve an inclusion in official lexicon and pompously crowning words arbitrarily with meaningless titles.
Authoreverence - (reverence or worship of authority) Obsessive obeisance by mainstream media to traditional institutions of authority or institutions pretending to be institutions of authority (like Oxford English Dictionary, Global Language Monitor etc) while ignoring the contribution of popular barometers (such as Urbandictionary.com which boasts a dictionary of 4 million words) to the profusion of new words and phrases.
(National) Gloryearning - Excessive yearning or hankering for national glory. Often exhibited by media by giving over-importance to international competitions of no significance, and by treating every international contest featuring any person, product or an abstract idea related to the nation, however tangential the relation might be, as a matter of national pride and glory.
