30 Aug
Sofia and Philadelphia: 4805 miles and 7733 km apart, 7 hours’ difference, situated on different continents, an ocean and a few countries in between. The journey I was taking got me thinking: I was for sure out of my comfort zone. This was one of the reasons why I decided to attend the Knowledge@Wharton High […]
29 Aug
As I write this Word Nerd piece, August is nearly at an end, and so is the rainy season. In the Indian subcontinent, the rainy season is also known as monsoon, a word which originates from the Arabic ‘mausim’. Mausim means that which comes around once a year. This could be a festival or a […]
26 Aug
Wharton Adventure – in our enthusiasm about joining a thrilling summer-camp at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, that was the name my friends and I gave our Whatsapp group. Counting down weeks, then days, then hours, finally we were at JFK Airport, amid lots of apprehensive, bright faces just like us. As we shook hands […]
22 Aug
English-speakers often say “as busy as a bee”. No doubt bees have stuff to do, and they do what they can each day. But it doesn’t actually seem like they’re racing against deadlines and have no time to talk, does it? They seem to have plenty of time to buzz between or during their pollinating […]
8 Aug
In an earlier Word Nerd, we emphasized how English as a language begs, borrows and steals. There, we talked about how its sources have been other languages – Hindi, German, French, Latin and so on. But, of late, it is the jargon of technology – articulated through the internet, science, and media, which is becoming […]
1 Aug
Think of good, vigorous writing in human terms. It’s athletic: wakes up at daybreak, jogs 5 miles, then goes for a game of tennis. And it still looks like it just stepped out of the shower. In other words, good writing is fresh, confident and precise. Now, let’s think about mediocre or weak writing. It […]