Tenth Grade Girl Is So Incredible With Her English, She Introduced Shashi Tharoor To New Words! Isn’t That Supercalifragilistic?
I’ve always had an immense love for languages. And not just English or foreign ones like French, Spanish and Latin but our very own Sanskrit too fascinates me to no end. I still have all my language books and remember all the shlokas I learnt! It’s made me consider multiple career options (like becoming a foreign language interpreter) to finally writing. English, being the lingua franca, does give it a tad higher appeal than others. And for a long, long time, the biggest flex for any English-speaking person was the extent of their vocabulary. Just knowing supercalifragilisticexpialidocious wasn’t enough flex any more. You had to be good. And lately, the standard to which we Indians measure our English by is, of course, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor!
The man eats English words like rodomontade (talk boastfully, saved you a Google search), lalochezia (the use of vulgar or foul language to relieve stress or pain) and hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia for breakfast. We’ve all seen how incredibly low-brow the discussions in our parliament can get. Now imagine Shashi Tharoor using words like ‘snollygoster’ for unscrupulous (yep, I know this word *smug*) politicians. It’s as if the Lok Sabha channel suddenly started receiving House Of Lords ka signal! So Akshay Kumar’s speech to that angrez from Namastey London was indeed correct. We learnt English from the best and now we beat them at it. And Shashi Tharoor is one of the aces up our sleeve.
But I’ve always wondered what it would take to impress Professor Tharoor and make him reach for the dictionary? Well, turns out, a tenth grader from Idukki managed to do just that!
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Diya is a class ten student from Idukki who was being interviewed by Club FM, a private radio station in Kerala, because her English prowess pretty much blows everyone’s minds. The host, RJ Rafi, began the segment, conducted over a Zoom call, by asking Diya about how she got around to learning these words and how she is so good at it. The video is in Malayalam but you can easily interpret her enthusiasm and her eyes twinkle when she mentions Shashi Tharoor and his Tharoorian English, which has impressed one and all. She even recited a very long English word that took several breaths to say, and actually meant a fictional food!
Little did she know, though, that a surprise awaited her on the other end of that word. Tharoor himself joined the video call, much to the surprise of Diya. She couldn’t believe that one of her idols was right there, looking mighty impressed with her. The RJ then asked her to speak the word again, and when she did, even Shashi Tharoor was stumped! He had to ask her for the meaning. Eventually, he praised Diya’s English, attributing it all to her amazing memory and concentration. He even advised her to learn bigger words that she could use in regular conversation, much like he does himself! Shashi Tharoor then also tweeted about it!
[Malayalam] Wonderful story of brilliant 10th-grader Diya, who has mastered tongue-twisting English words I've never heard of, & for whom I made a surprise appearance during a @clubfmkerala show on her prowess!https://t.co/INEwhtYwtq
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) November 5, 2020
Well looks like even though Shashi Tharoor got beaten in this round of Are You Smarter Than A Tenth Grader, he was more than happy to have met Diya and inspired her even more to keep up her progress! Such an inspiration she is!
