Know Your English
"HOW WAS the movie?"
"Fantabulous."
"Fantabulous! Never heard that word before."
"It's a combination of fantastic and fabulous. Can you guess what it means?"
"Probably means excellent or superb."
"Very good. I saw a fantabulous dining table yesterday. I think I will buy it."
"A fantabulous dining table. What's wrong with you? You hate furniture and now."
"...relax. I am just trying to be a salesman. That's what they say in ads, don't they? This fantabulous sofa set can be yours for only..."
"...please, stop. You are not a salesman. And I am not interested in a sofa set."
"Then how about this example? The new restaurant is supposed to be fantabulous."
"That's more like it. Anyway, .."
"..are you going to add `fantabulous' to your wordrobe?"
"Wordrobe? You mean wardrobe, don't you?"
"No, I mean wordrobe. An individual's wordrobe is his vocabulary."
"So, can I say, how many words have you added to your wordrobe?"
"I suppose you could. Prakash's wordrobe is very limited."
"Well, so is mine. Tell me, what were you doing? Were you on the computer?"
"Yes. I was doing some egosurfing."
"Egosurfing? What is that?"
"Well, that's when you log on to the Net in order to find out how many times your name has been listed in the various sites."
"And in your case, how many... "
"...my name didn't appear anywhere."
"Ouch! That must have hurt. I am sure if Laxmi egosurfs, she will find her name listed on several sites."
"Please, I don't want to talk about that cookie pusher."
"Another word from your wordrobe, I see. What does cookie pusher mean?"
"Do you know what a cookie is?"
"Yes, I do. `Cookie' is the word Americans use for biscuit."
"Exactly! A cookie pusher is someone who flatters people in order to get ahead in life."
"One of those terrible people."
"Exactly! My boss is very lucky because the office is full of cookie pushers. He gets at least one free lunch every week."
"Ravi is a well-known cookie pusher in my class."
"A cookie pusher came in today and told me what a great guy I was."
"That's what all cookie pushers do, I guess."
"By the way, a lazy person can also be called a cookie pusher."
"How about this example? I don't understand how a no good cookie pusher like Kalyan got promoted!"
"My boss said that from now on it's going to be only performance that counts. He is planning to fire all cookie pushers."
"Our government offices are overflowing with cookie pushers."
" That's true."
"Guess who I ran into at the video store? Ganesh."
"Ganesh! I haven't seen him in a while. How is the worrywart doing?"
"Worrywart? You are pulling a lot of strange words out of your wordrobe."
"Worrywart is a word that has been around for some time. When you refer to someone as being a `worrywart' what you mean is that..."
"...he worries about things unnecessarily."
"Fantabulous. My cousin Mala is a worrywart."
"Being in the company of worrywarts can be very depressing."
"Yes, it can. I tend to shy away from worrywarts. Anyway, what is Ganesh worried about now?"
"He didn't do too well in the entrance exam."
"I thought he had paid a lot of money to get the question paper."
"Unfortunately none of the questions turned up in the exam."
"His source was unreliable. He must have got the question paper from someone who works for American intelligence!"
***** ***** *****
"If you die in an elevator, be sure to push the Up button." — Sam Levenson
(Know Your English completes 21 years)
S. UPENDRAN
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