Decent Proposal

My whole life sometimes feels unvalidated and unwitnessed because I don’t have a definite tribe. I don’t align with people based on ideology, region, religion, institution or even hobbies. I mean Ravelry is hardly a place to discuss philosophy. Don’t get me wrong, I still do manage to find friends here and there but they’re an eclectic mix and don’t necessarily share my love for Spooks and Eartha Kitt (or even know about them). Occasionally I’ll find a 'WEST WING' lovers group on social media or even see my passion for LOTR reflected in Stephen Colbert and James Franco but I don’t actually hang out with them. 

So it’s only a tiny coterie of friends and some family ( the ones I like) that either listen to or read my diatribes. And as it happens they’ve accepted some of the lingo that I've spawned and some that I’ve appropriated. Let me begin with one of mine. ‘Smugly’. Not the adverb ‘Smug-ly’ but the noun I’ve coined. ‘Sm-Ugly. I coined it when I was telling my daughter about a man with good facial features, he looked really ugly because of the smugness of his expression. He’s so smug he’s ugly. Hence SmUgly. 

                                   

At a recent Yoga session, the instructor told us to "hold the pose according to your comfortability”. Why say “comfort and ability” and use two words when comfortability says it all. 

Hindi speakers will understand this more clearly than the non-Hindi ones. It's a simple phrase ‘What goes of my father?’. Basically means, no skin of my nose but since it’s a trans-literation, the joy it gives when used aptly is infinite. I take no credit for birthing this one either, it just fell into my lap.

A recently coined word by yours untruly is ‘Vapidoid’. It’s self explanatory : someone just posting vapid garbage robotically.  Of course I coined it for a particular individual (he stays anonymous) and my friend (he needs anonymity) who heard it first liked it a lot and came up with the idea to use it in Hindi as well. ‘Vapidoid kahin ka'.  Love it!

‘Try Hard’ has been in use for so long in my coterie, I don’t know of its origins although I suspect it may be a friend with an army of brothers. A ’try hard’ is  a social climber but mostly an unsuccessful one.  You just have to say ,‘She’s a try hard’ and it’s implicit, that the said person will walk on glass to gain notoriety.

Then there’s ‘analyzation’. No, no hold your horses, it’s not what you think. I once heard a teacher explain how students will present the ‘analyzation of their work’. Yes she meant ‘analysis’ but since then, every time I see Pundits on TV giving us analysis that they’ve clearly pulled out of their own behinds, I call it ‘analyzation’. My people know what I mean. 

My favorite self-coined word is ‘villageous’. It basically means ‘villager like’. Simpleton and rural don’t just make the cut like villageous. You know some people have that manner, and look - you know it when you see it.  Jeremy from Top Gear is a prime example of someone being villageous. 

‘Attachmeant’ is a word I wish I’d known in 2003. It’s not about love or infatuation, it’s simply the e-mail attachment that you forgot to attach. The one you meant to send. It’s concise and the intranets are responsible for this perfection. 

Words are mere words. Friendships and relationships cannot be based on words alone. Let alone made up ones. What keeps me bound to my folks is that we’re all decent people.  Not brilliant, nor outstanding nor benevolent (we could be though) folks. Just run of the mill - decent. We are bound by a common love of everyday niceties. We say our Ps and Qs, we listen, wave at motorists who allow us to pass, and if we’re driving, we let pedestrians pass and wait for another car to honk at them.

However there has been a depletion of decency. We need people not to click on the Johny Depp - Amber Heard divorce trial videos, we need TV anchors who don’t cuss out their guests, we just need to choose to do the decent thing occasionally. Worry about pollution, surrender nukes, share vaccines, food and coming back to friends, we should take care of our allies. Not provide them with ammo to take on an enemy they have no chance of winning against.