Hyderabad: An exchange between a sesquipedalian Shashi Tharoor and the Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia stuck K.T. Rama Rao brought a rare chuckle of delight for the twitterati on an otherwise gloomy day that continued to be about Covid, hospital emergencies, shortages and rush to save people. Or on cue, the KTR-Tharoor’s persiflage abounded jocundity on twitter.
Minister KT Rama Rao, in a tongue-in-cheek back and forth on Twitter with Congress party MP Shashi Tharoor, known for his proclivity for picking and using rarely used, obscure and little-known words in English, enthralled followers of both the tech-savvy smart leaders, who are known for the flair for expression.
It begun a day before when Rama Rao, who uses the Twitter handle @KTRTRS tweeted about how hard it was to pronounce names of drugs and went on to call out a few: Posaconazole, Cresemba, Tocilzumab, Remdesivir, Liposomal Amphoterecin, Flavipiravir, Molnupiravir, and Baricitinib. He then went on to tweet this immediately thereafter: “I suspect @ShashiTharoor Ji Pakka has a role to play in this.” (Sic).
Tharoor, not known to back down from a challenge involving vocabulary, twitter or both, responded the way he does best, throwing into his reply a long tongue twister, and another easier to say, but as is his wont, a rarely used word.
In his reply to KTR’s good natured dig that Tharoor probably had something to do with the drug names, the Congress leader responded: “Not guilty! How can you indulge in such floccinaucinihilipilification, @KTRTRS? Left to me ‘d happily call them “Coronil”, “CoroZero”, & even “GoCoronaGo!” But these pharmacists are more procrustean….” (Sic).
That was enough for KTR to reply saying: “Devudaaa…..had to pull out a dictionary & Tharoorosaurus to comprehend.” He then added: “P.S: Loved the Coronil dig.” (Sic).
Incidentally Tharoorosaurus is the title of Shashi Tharoor’s latest book on vocabulary.
This lighthearted ribbing between two of the more popular Indian politicians on Twitter over nomenclature of drugs racked up thousands of likes and hundreds of retweets and comments, with people joining in the fun, using their own choice of words, and some helpfully providing the meanings and pronunciation of the words Tharoor employed.
For the record, the Collins dictionary says ‘floccinaucinihilipilification’ means the action or habit of estimating something as worthless, while procrustean is explained by the Mirriam Webster dictionary as something takes no account of individual differences but cruelly and mercilessly makes everything the same.
Sesquipedalian is a love for long words, and Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia means, ha, the irony, fear of long words.
It is noteworthy in an era when huge teams handle the twitter handles for political leaders, both KTR and Tharoor handle their personal twitter handles themselves. May the two plenipotent leaders grow more.
