... sounds like more than just moral support!

Thank God the Pakistanis are doing their bit for the War on Terror!

- From a Malaysian paper

The Henry Higgins of Genetics

I'd been hearing a lot about the way a particular scientist at my Institute speaks, and as an amateur linguist, I'm always fascinated by the choices people (and groups of people) make about syntax. Sometimes the choice of syntax can reveal quite a bit about the speaker, and its always interesting to see what information can be gleaned from this. Well, I finally had the opportunity to interact with him, and the level of overlap between his scientific and casual speech was significant.

Scientists as a group tend to allow complex technical jargon to seep into conversational English. While this happens in every occupational group, scientific English has its peculiarities. Scientific English is vociferously international, and regional variations and quirks are unacceptable. The nature of peer review among scientists enforces a common syllabary, which sometimes deviates significantly from standard English. Given the stringent of the field, synonyms are rarely tolerated. The language is argument based, with no room for ambiguity. Analogies and comparisons are the bread and butter of science, and this makes its way into common speech as well. My friends are well aware of (and irritated by) my strong tendency to draw analogies. In addition, modern science uses standard English terms to define new phenomena, unlike the older practice of graeco-latin etymology. Words such as termination, interference, silencing, screening, and selection have very specific meanings, which can differ significantly from the standard understanding. There are almost field-specific 'dialects'. For example, Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic geneticists speak variant, though mutually intelligible dialects. Of course, it's not very pronounced, but it's discernible.

Earlier this week, I was assisting my guide review a manuscript for an international peer-reviewed journal. I was struck by the relatively poor "genetics" dialect of the authors. While the logic of the article was fine, their argument was on shaky ground. The authors lacked a sound understanding of the language of genetics, which fails to impress reviewers. As I later discovered, the authors were medical doctors. The idea behind any communication in the scientific world is to effectively convey your observations, and defend your findings. The logic should build upon previous findings, and therefore must employ the same jargon.

Googlisms: The perks of prison

Googlism for Aditya:

aditya is confused as he is attracted to shamli but has not thought of marriage & at the same time doesn not know prerna yet she seems to have everything that [plot of Ekta Kapoor serial?!]
aditya is the coolest and the sweetest guy [oh, ok... whatever!]
aditya is the first tanker of the indian navy to be built in the country [Sasta aur tikaoo]
aditya is sort of indifferent to her wails [take that, Be-yatch! And that! And that!]
aditya is a nice man who has been forced to take the path of crime by a wrong doing of the system [expect an angry letter to the Editor of the Economic Times]
aditya is caught by prabha because he's the prime suspect in the murder of an industrialist [crime doesn't pay... as much as it should]
aditya is a criminal who faced the charges for murder and is serving his life term in central jail of vizag [Are we waiting for something.... for Life?!]
aditya is anal [Yeah, prison will do that. Enjoy!]
aditya is glad that the onus is on him to carry the family heirloom [Careful with those family heirlooms in the prison shower]

Googlisms: Ridiculous demons

Googlisms for Tamal:

tamal is corn [I think they were going for corny]
tamal is wrapped in papatla husks [A straitjacket would be more effective]
tamal is the main murder suspect in srila prabhupada's poisoning [Say two Hail Marys Hare Krishnas]
tamal is untrustworthy [yeah, poisoning someone will do that for your reputation]
tamal is 3 feet long [more like 3 feet tall]
tamal is wrapped in the corn husk and baked [I think I had a dream where I did that]
tamal is ridiculous [As I've said myself many times]
tamal is stuffed with stewed chicken or pork [only at dinner time]
tamal is excellent [HAHAHAHAHA!]
tamal is a tamal is a tamal [how existential!]
tamal is exalted [...at least by me!]
tamal is always a surprise waiting to be opened [true]
tamal is sick from accepting karma [Ye shall reap what ye sow, chump]
tamal is running scared [... of karma?!]
tamal is in a very quiet crisis [I know]
tamal is a demon [... sometimes]
tamal is wonderful [... sometimes]
tamal is to die for… [can't argue with that. I agree]

Googlisms: Cool handsome God

Bumped into googlism.com. Spooky how accurate these things can be!

Here's a run down of googlisms of me and some friends.

Me:


rohan is cool [Duh!]

rohan is a handsome 7 [Again... can't argue with that!]

rohan is the leader of the mystic knights and the first to gain his armour [cool!]

rohan is not at all what he seems [how true]

rohan is the home of the eorlingas [well, I do love me some lingas]

rohan is an institution [true]

rohan is god [ditto]

rohan is unofficially ranked in top 10 in the world in international moth class [hey, who're you calling a moth?!]

rohan is the son of peter theobald and levana fletcher [bald?!]

rohan is only two and a half years old but his brain is matured to a hundred years old guy he is sharp and everybody is proud of this little babe [yeah, we tend to do that]

rohan is also seen in a lot of local television commercials [Dr. Batra's, mostly]

rohan is considered to be one of the best athletes [how am I kidding?!]

rohan is san francisco's first and premier soju bar [So-who?!]

rohan is one of them [I KNEW it!]

rohan is dashing and smart [how redundant]

rohan is an unusual one [true true]

rohan is aditya's attempt to trick him [Hey!]

rohan is his own man [true]

rohan is draganta [who's in drag?!]

rohan is not the only victim of feng shui [my first chinese words!]

rohan is now studying film technique and art design at the university level [...almost]