Lacerated...and then Recused!

Two words that occupied prime-time news on TV and front-page articles in newspapers last fortnight albeit for controversial reasons. They were: Lacerate and Recuse. Not many may have used these expressions in their day to day communication. Of course now the entire English-speaking population of the country would be familiar with the words. Here's what they mean:
Recuse is often used in judiciary where a judge or a magistrate withdrawing from her or his position of adjudicating in a matter in order to avoid bias is said to have 'recused' herself or himself from the case. Someone challenging the judge leading to her/his disqualification on account of conflict of interest is also referred to as an act of recusation.
Lacerate means to tear something roughly or deeply cut into the skin. It also stands for emotional or mental torture.

There's a Sting there!

'Sting operation' as an expression would, in all likelihood, lead one to the beehive whilst discovering its origins . One gets to the beehive to collect honey only to be stung by the bee. It is an operation where one lures a person acting as a co-conspirator or a fellow criminal or by offering a bait and then 'stings' him or her. The expression's use increased following the Paul Newman and Robert Redford movie, The Sting. Of course with technology providing devices such as cameras that can be hidden in purses, pens or bugs that can record voices or phone calls, the expression as well as the practice of sting is now commonplace. 

Facebook did not 'unfriend'!

The popular belief (and blame) that Facebook along with other social media platforms brought in words that weren't English-English need not be true. Folks believe that 'unfriend' was not a proper English expression before Facebook gave you the power to unfriend. Well, that's just not true. 'Unfriend' meant an enemy and has been in use since the 13th century!

No one owns a Pidgin

Imagine a language that no one owns. Surprised?! Yes. there are languages that no one owns. Pidgin is developed as a simple form of communication between two communities or groups who speak two different languages as they have no language in common. So a pidgin is not the mother tongue of anyone and often has a simplified grammar and limited vocabulary.

Newscasters...Here's an appropriate word to describe their act!

We all know how some of our prominent newscasters just go on and on.  And that too at prime time. One was looking for the appropriate expression for such a phenomenon. Well, here it is: Pleonasm
Pleonasm is the use of more words than necessary to express a viewpoint or an idea.
Detailing on pleonasm curtails us from being verbose ourselves and, therefore, we just stop it here lest we get tagged as phoenastic ourselves!

Initialism again...OMG!

OMG! (Oh! My God!) Yet another example of initialism.

OMG has even made it to the Oxford English Dictionary last year. OMG to that!

Surprisingly, this acronym is not as contemporary as we think it to be. In fact one authentic record of its use dates back to 1917. A British Admiral is said to have expressed OMG in a letter to Winston Churchill.
So the term 'initialism' may have come in vogue now but the practice has been almost a century old.

Initialism it is!

An interesting word that refers to a common practice these days is 'Initialism'. The practice of either forming expressions from initials and the usage of such formed words is referred to as initialism.  SMS and chats  have only fueled the growth of this phenomenon. ROFTL - rolling-on-the-floor-laughing is a prime example of initialism as much as is 'lol'. 

More and more colloquial words, slang expressions are squeezing their way in to Queen's English. One of the most recent entries is a word that's intriguing and often used by people all over. SELFIE. Its a photo that one shoots of oneself to upload on to a social media site. Now its not just the celebrities who are doing it but common folks too are putting up their selfies. At least that's a good change from people putting up a celeb's photograph as their profile photo! Selfie is in...literally too!

Spell Vocab Challenger

Smart-Vocab Challenger is a unique contest for school students that checks the participants’ vocabulary and challenges their general language proficiency. Initiated in 2003 with fifty leading schools of Delhi and NCR, the contest has grown in stature and reach. 

A unique format and process makes the Smart-Vocab Challenger an engaging contest for the participants. Stage one of the contest screens participants with a written test. The top scorers from each participating school are selected on the basis of their performance in this round. These top scorers then take on the winners from other schools within their zone in the zonal round. This round is based on a standard quiz format, each zone being a homogeneous geographical cluster. The winners of the zonal round then compete in the final round. The winner of the final round is crowned the Smart-Vocab Challenger Champion.