Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has made a comeback with his witty word usage on Twitter and this time it is a subtle dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Tharoor dropped the new word, pogonthropy, and explained its meaning on the microblogging platform on Thursday night after a Twitter user asked him to share a new "out of the box" word to learn. "My friend Rathin Roy, the economist, taught me a new word today: pogonotrophy, which means "the cultivation of a beard". As in, the PM's pogonotrophy has been a pandemic preoccupation...," Tharoor responded to the Twitter user.
Pogonthropy refers to the act of cultivating, or growing and grooming, a mustache, beard, sideburns, or other facial hair. Pogonthropy, Greek in origin, finds its advent in mid 19th century with its earliest usage in The Westminster Review, according to the Lexico dictionary.
Tharoor keeps dropping new words and creates a buzz around them on social media. The member of Parliament, who represents Thiruvananathapuram in the Lok Sabha, shared his word of the day on Twitter in January this year to respond to former players from Down Under. Tharoor shared the word epicaricacy along with an image of former cricketers who had predicted India’s defeat.
“#WordIfTheDay: epicaricacy! I am not the gloating kind but there’s a special pleasure in reading these comments today... When everything else has been said,what remains but “wow”?! #IndvsAus,” Tharoor tweeted.
In 2018, Tharoor used this fancy habit to take a dig at his trolls when he said they suffered from lalochezia. “Every day, I encounter on @Twitter people suffering from lalochezia! All too often they direct their suffering at me & others who support my beliefs,” Tharoor said in a tweet.
{{/usCountry}}In 2018, Tharoor used this fancy habit to take a dig at his trolls when he said they suffered from lalochezia. “Every day, I encounter on @Twitter people suffering from lalochezia! All too often they direct their suffering at me & others who support my beliefs,” Tharoor said in a tweet.
{{/usCountry}}Tharoor's fascination with big words, which often make readers look for dictionaries, has also humorously backfired.
In May this year, Telangana minister K Taraka Rama Rao, known as KTR, made his discomfort with names of Covid-19 medicine public. On a 'lighter note', the minister listed out the names of the medicines, which include Posaconazole, Cresemba, Tocilizumab, Remdesivir, Liposomal Amphotericin, Flavipiravir, Molnupiravir, Baricitinib etc. The list is long the minister said jokingly hinting that Congress leader Shashi Tharoor may have something to do with these names.
Responding to the comical allegation, Tharoor said he is not guilty of naming these medicines. Had it been left to him, the Congress leader would have happily called them 'CoroNil', 'CoroZero' and even 'GoCoronaGo'. "But these pharmacists are more procrustean..." Tharoor said. He also accused KTR of floccinaucinihilipilification.