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Hit the average litterateur with the word autumn, and instead of stars, John Keats’ lines will swim before his or her eyes. And certainly, autumn is a “season of mists”, of “mellow fruitfulness”, of the “maturing sun” and other warm and romantic fantasies. But it is also a season of cooler air, longer nights and […]

Some years ago, a friend and I were in a shop that sold kitchenware in a suburban Mumbai market. The store, run by a second-generation trader, was tiny and crammed, as it had always been, but over the years some of the traditional steel bartan had given way to imported items, such as casseroles and […]

Namaste! For starters, here’s a lesson in how not to say that word: Mispronouncing a foreign word should not be confused with saying it with a different accent. Everybody has some accent, and those of us who lack the talent of Meryl Streep or Jon B. Higgins cannot lose our accent completely. But anyone can […]

A 12-year-old boy just started with engineering classes at Cornell University this September. He is their youngest ever student and his name is Jeremy Shuler. His story has been extensively covered because it is astonishing to most of us. But, his parents, Andy and Harrey Jeong Shuler, recognized his unusual brilliance at an early age. […]

359 million of us may speak English but accents still distinguish us – just like the brand of our watch or sunglasses, the degree we hold, or the clothes we wear. When we travel, accents can seem like verbal passports – they announce who we are and where we’re from. They also help us build […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]