Have you ever gone 'yellular' on your cellular phone?

If you look up in any standard dictionary, you will not find the word ‘yellular’. It is an interesting and useful  slang term which is frequently heard these days. The term is a blend of two familiar words: ‘yell’ (= to shout in a loud, sharp way) and ‘cellular’ (related to cell phone).

Mobile phones obviously help us to stay in touch with our dear and near ones. However, the incessant technical faults sometimes make it difficult for the listener to hear what the person on the other end says. It can be due to poor network coverage or technical glitch of the user’s cell phone among many other reasons.

What happens normally on such occasions? The speaker yells at the top of their voice, thinking that yelling will troubleshoot the fault and make the connection better! This act of shouting, which is often a nuisance for others, is called ‘yellular’. When you see someone does it, you can say, ‘he’s going yellular’.

More examples:

1) My Bengali roommate goes yellular whenever she talks to her parents who live in some remote village in West Bengal.

2) Tom: “Hey, why are you screaming through your cell phone?”

Jerry: “It’s a terrible line, buddy. So I’m trying my yellular technology!”

3) After disturbing our sleep by snoring aloud the whole night, he went yellular at 5 o’ clock in the morning.

4) Stop going yellular and try to call her back after some time.

KITCHEN CABINET

Becoming the premier or president of a country is one of the most ambitious and shining jobs in the world. But at the same time, while having been elected by the people in a democratic republic, such high profile leaders have to make very important decisions on various issues during their tenure in power to win the hearts of the citizens. And these decisions should also be wise enough to please the media and most importantly to silence the opposition.

In most of the cases, the head of a State does not make the decisions themselves. Rather, he or she consults a small group of people who are very close to them. This highly confidential group of people is called a ‘kitchen cabinet’. These unofficial advisors are not often politicians but the premiers implicitly trust them.

Why does the head of a state turn to kitchen cabinet for advice rather than depending on his own official cabinet? Perhaps, because the official cabinet consists of politicians – a species who are not meant to be trusted even if they belong to your own party!

The origin of the phrase ‘kitchen cabinet’ dates back to 1830s when Andrew Jackson was the President of the USA. Whenever an important decision had to be made, he would turn to three of his close friends whom he trusted the most. But the most interesting fact is that Jackson always let these decision makers enter the White House through the kitchen door as he did not want the media, the other ministers or the public to know the secret of ‘his’ decisions. It is also believed that most of their meetings took place in the kitchen – an activity that gave birth to a new phrase in English, 'kitchen cabinet'!

Today’s media also use a few other expressions to mean the same; ‘think tank’ and ‘brain trust’ being the most widely used ones.

So the next time your country’s premier or president is applauded for his people-friendly decisions, you can imagine how they made it possible!

Have you ever been Shanghaied?

A few days ago, I posted a blog on using ‘Bangalore’ as a verb. Today, let us discuss the name of another place which is also used as a verb. The place is Shanghai.

Shanghai is the most populated city in eastern China. In the mid of the 19^th century, it was difficult to get enough number of experienced sailors for the merchant ships headed to the Orient from the West (the Orient refers to the East Asian countries while the West is a common term for Europe and North America). When the sailors were not willing to join the ship, they were compelled by fraud means which included tricking, intimidating, kidnapping and even drugging them.

Shanghai was the most common destination for the ships with such abducted crews. So, when a sailor was forced for compulsory service aboard a merchant ship, his bad luck was described as ‘he was Shanghaied’.

In modern English, shanghai means ‘to trick or force somebody into doing something that they really do not want to do’. The past and past participle forms are shanghaied; the present participle form is shanghaiing.

More examples:

Simon shanghaied the girl into his Ferrari and drove away.

Mary’s parents are shanghaiing her into marrying Simpson.

Don't get BANGALORED!

Even before the Global Economic Crunch hit America badly, many of the American companies started outsourcing their work to various cities in India. Most of such works are in the field of customer care, insurance, tele-marketing etc. The reason why such companies chose Indian cities is simple – plenty of man power with untapped professional skills, and of course cheap labour.

This new trend of offshoring work to a city in India gave birth to a new English word – Bangalore (as a verb). So, when an American says that he/she has been Bangalored, you can be sure that his company has moved its operations to Bangalore. Originally this word was used only to refer to a job which was offshored to Bangalore but now it is used as a general term for any job outsourced to any city in India such Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and many more.

Although this word was coined by the Americans, an increasing number of multinationals and media across the world are lapping up this Americanism. Earlier too many American words have gained worldwide acceptance, to name a few – beautician, hospitalize, backpack etc. It is expected that the verb Bangalore too will creep into major English dictionaries very soon. The past and past participle form of the verb is ‘Bangalored’.

Here are some sentences to demonstrate how to use the verb ‘Bangalore’ accurately:

1. Bangaloring is one of the reasons some Americans don’t like Indians.

2. A US magazine reports that an estimated 70,000 Americans will be Bangalored by the end of this year.

YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM PMD, AREN'T YOU?

Post modem depression (PMD) is a kind of depression that some people suffer from when they realise they are unable to access the Internet. In other words, it is the sadness that you feel when you are unable to access the Net.

If you are an Internet addict, you may go into a post modem depression on various occasions for example, if you have ever happened to stay with your relatives or friends who are living in a remote area where there is no Internet access, you probably have experienced PMD. You may also go into such a depression when you cannot access the Net on your PC or cell phone due to some technical snag.

In this modern era of aggressive social networking on Facebook, Twitter, Orkut etc, the number of people who suffer from PMD is increasing alarmingly. I am sure that many of you frequently suffer from bouts of post modem depression, don’t you? Frankly speaking, quite often, I do.

More examples of the expression:

“My cousin Mohan went into a post modem depression when he visited me in my village. He wanted to update his Facebook account, but he just couldn't log in. He was so depressed; he didn't talk to me for a couple of hours.”

“My colleague Sam is a Facebook-addict. He often suffers from PMD whenever his dial-up Internet connection is too slow or fails completely. I advised him to get a broadband connection.”

“Watching TV or listening to music is sometimes helpful in getting rid of post modem depression”