Archive by Author

Word Nerd: German, the original hashtag language

4 Dec

You know how hashtags work. A hashtag is a hash sign followed by a word. Sometimes a phrase is compounded into a single word. People can intuitively understand its meaning from either the word itself or the context. Sometimes, though, it’s possible to take it #TooFar #BeyondAllReason #DoesItEvenMakeAnySenseAnyMore #ICantEven. Well, if you thought this was […]

How studying in New Zealand is helping me in my career

30 Nov

Vivek Masoji is a microbiology laboratory technician with a farmer-owned multinational dairy company called Fonterra. He went from Kolhapur, India, to Lincoln University, New Zealand, where he earned his Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Science, in Food Science, in 2016. Here he discusses how studying in New Zealand is helping him build his career.   Studying […]

Word Nerd: 5 colorful expressions that are not really about color

13 Nov

Color can mean a lot of things besides the wavelengths that reach your retina. It can refer to embellished rhetoric, or imparting a certain tone to a story. In music, it can refer to timbre, which is what enables us to distinguish a note played on a violin from the exact same note played on […]

My semester abroad at Duke Kunshan, China, taught me how to make the most of life

8 Nov

Vinamra Mathur studied Electrical Engineering at Shiv Nadar University in India, and spent the Fall 2016 semester as an international student at Duke Kunshan University (a partnership between Duke University in the US and Wuhan University in China). Vinamra, who now works with a tech company in the Delhi area, discusses why he decided to […]

5 amazing animation movies you must watch

7 Nov

Does animation only mean cartoons to you? A genre you’ve outgrown like braces? Well, it’s a way more nuanced medium than that. And after you’ve been through the movies on this list, you’ll understand exactly what we mean. The beauty of animation is that it allows a story to be told in infinite ways with […]

Word Nerd: 5 Aztec words that you definitely know

6 Nov

Technically, the language spoken by the Aztecs is known as Nahuatl, and there are many variants of it. It’s the language Europeans heard in the 16th century, when they first arrived in the great city of Tenochtitlan (the site of today’s Mexico City). Nahuatl has been spoken for more than 1,000 years in Mexico, where […]

Word Nerd: 5 words that are their own opposites

23 Oct

Even if you don’t know Hawaiian, you’ve probably heard the word ‘aloha’ and know it is used as both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. The Italian ‘ciao’ is similar. In Hindi, ‘kal’ can mean either yesterday or tomorrow, which probably goes a long way in explaining Indian attitudes towards deadlines. Such words with two opposite meanings are […]

Word Nerd: 7 words of wisdom that India gifted to the English language

16 Oct

Language and history often go hand in hand. The words we use – or don’t use – often contain fascinating stories within them that carry a good deal of meaning beyond the dictionary definition. Here are a few – feel free to add some of your own in the comments! 1. Ahimsa This Sanskrit word […]

How a Wharton summer school alum is helping save the planet

28 Sep

Aniketh Khutia studies at DPS, Ruby Park, Kolkata. After participating in the Knowledge@Wharton High School Global Young Leaders Academy in the summer of 2016, he teamed up with a friend on the latter’s environmental initiative called Stopwatch. As a Member (Operations), he discusses how far the fledgling venture has come in just over a year, […]

Word Nerd: An English-speaker’s guide to funny Americanisms

25 Sep

By now, many Americanisms have crept into English around the world, thanks to pop culture and Microsoft Word. Perhaps you say ‘restroom’ for ‘toilet’. Or you may be one of those people who say ‘from left field’ even though they’ve never played baseball. And you probably know that a ‘cheeseburger’ is a mere shadow of […]