In an interview with The Wire to describe his latest book ‘A Wonderland of Words: Around the Word in 101 Essays’, Shashi Tharoor says: “I’m besotted with words; it is fair to say that I love them”. When asked if, therefore, he is attracted to words in the same way as honey attracts bees, Shashi Tharoor laughed and agreed.
He is also the opposite of Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady who famously said: “Never do I want to hear another word, there isn’t one I haven’t heard!” This is an interview that you have to see and hear to enjoy. Shashi is at his playful best.
He is full of delightful anecdotes and fascinating examples of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the English language. In this connection, he talks about what he calls ‘Indianisms’, the distinction between Indian english and bad english, the differences between British and American english, paraprosdokians, spoonerisms and the range of silent letters in english pronunciation.
Shashi Tharoor also talks about how his fascination for words goes all the way back to his childhood when his father, Chandran Tharoor, to whom the book is dedicated, used to play word games with Shashi and his sisters.
In fact, his father dreamt up a game very similar to Wordle, which Shashi describes in quite the most captivating way. Shashi also talks about the famous tweet that led to him acquiring a reputation as ‘India’s Mr Difficult Words’, shortly after he became an MP.
He also talks about how he thought he had invented the word ‘prepone’ only to discover that it was coined in 1913. I will stop there. This is an interview that has to be seen and enjoyed rather than written about and read. It’s only 25-minutes long and I can assure you that those 25-minutes will be most enjoyably spent if you watch the interview.
