Congress MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor is known for throwing in rarely-used, often difficult-to-pronounce English words into the Twitter lexicon. On Wednesday, he posted another head-scratcher — ‘quockerwodger’. The man of many words hopefully shared the meaning too.
Quockerwodger: Shashi Tharoor Wants You To Add This Word To Your Vocabulary https://t.co/Roy2NvVxXH pic.twitter.com/uAM4A5ktBb
— NDTV News feed (@ndtvfeed) April 20, 2022
“A quockerwodger was a type of wooden puppet. In politics, a quockerwodger was a politician acting on the instructions of an influential third party, rather than properly representing their constituents,” he said. “A useful addition to our political vocabulary!?” He added that the word dates back to 1860.
This is not the first time the famous author, politician, and wordsmith has sent netizens looking for their dictionaries to confirm whether such a word exists in the first place. Last year, Tharoor took a dig at the BJP with the word ‘allodoxaphobia,’ which he explained was an irrational fear of opinions.
When Mr #ShashiTharoor announces a New Word ,The Dictionary Upgrades itself !!
Splendid !!👏 Tharoor Sir is an Intellectual Powerhouse !! I never learnt words so easily !! The enthusiasm with which Sir describes them I remember their meaning effortlessly.😊#Tharoorosaurus 📓 pic.twitter.com/ui6nJMbU7b
— Jaishree Misra (@top_gun55) April 20, 2022
Before that, the Congress MP engaged in a friendly and playful conversation with TRS working president KT Rama Rao over COVID-19 medicine names and threw in the obscure ‘floccinaucinihilipilification.’ Oxford dictionary states that ‘floccinaucinihilipilification’ is the action or habit of estimating something as worthless.
One for the next edition of your Tharoorsaurus?!
— Ashok Lalla (@ashoklalla) April 20, 2022
In the past, he has vexed people with words such as ‘farrago’ and ‘troglodyte.’ While ‘farrago’ means a confused mixture, a ‘troglodyte’ means a person who acts deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned. Netizens are amazed when Mr.Tharoor fools the internet time and again. They love it when he introduces words with tough syllables and many have termed them gems from the famous ‘Tharoorosauras’.
Shashi’s recent tweet has been liked over 2,200 times and netizens have eagerly tried to guess his motive behind the tweet. While some Twitter users pointed out that it could be a jibe at the current political scenario, others wrote how they were enthused to learn a new word.
References: India Today, The News Minute
Featured Image Source: MoneyControl
