NEW DELHI:
Congress leader
Shashi Tharoor on Thursday in his classic way came up with yet another unusual word '
hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia' on
Twitter, which again created a buzz on social media.
Tharoor was, however, quick to provide the meaning of the word in the tweet to his followers.
"I'm sorry if one of my tweets y'day gave rise to an epidemic of hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia! [Don't bother looking it up: it's just a word describing a fear of long words]. But #TheParadoxicalPrimeMinister contains no words longer than Paradoxical!" wrote the Congress leader.
While some users praised the Congress leader for his strong vocabulary, few others were not left amused.
One user while responding to his tweet said that his life is shorter than the word 'hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia'.
Another follower responded in a witty way and used some unusual words also.
Another user tweeted:
This came just two days after Tharoor introduced a near unpronounceable and difficult word '
floccinaucinihilipilification' on Wednesday to describe his new book on Prime Minister
Narendra Modi.
"My new book, THE PARADOXICAL PRIME MINISTER, is more than just a 400-page exercise in floccinaucinihilipilification. Pre-order it to find out why!" Tharoor said in a Twitter post that had everybody reaching for the dictionary.
According to the Oxford dictionary, 'floccinaucinihilipilification' is a noun and means "the action or habit of estimating something as worthless".
Discussing the usage of the word, the dictionary adds, "Floccinaucinihilipilification is one of a number of very long words that occur very rarely in genuine use."
The book itself was relegated to the background as the word got Twitterati talking.
"I get a feeling of floccinaucinihilipilification when I don't know the meaning of floccinaucinihilipilification," tweeted one of Tharoor's followers.
"What my English teachers taught was a lie. Won't order it as I cannot take out the dictionary everytime," said another person in reply to Tharoor's tweet.
Tharoor's love for the language and propensity for little heard and little used words is well known.
In May 2017, the MP from Thiruvananthapuram and author of 17 books got netizens talking when he described the coverage of the death of his wife
Sunanda Pushkar by a news channel as an "Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalist".
In December last year, he used the word 'rodomontade', meaning boastful or inflated talk or behaviour. "I choose my words because they are the best ones for the idea I want to convey, not the most obscure or rodomontade ones!" he tweeted.
And in February this year, he introduced 'troglodytes' to the Twitter world in a response to Vinay Katiyar's comment on the Taj Mahal.
“We can't let these troglodytes destroy our country & everything beautiful in it,” he tweeted.
(With agency inputs)