In the past few months, the quality of political discourse in the country has probably touched, if I may use a stock market jargon, a 52-week low. We can blame it on a red-hot climate, a charged-up election atmosphere and an uncanny malady called 'adjectivitis', which has spread among almost all politicians. It clearly impaired their linguistic faculties, making them incessantly pick adjectives from a forbidden basket.

The consequence was there for all of us to see. They freely used words, such as butcher, murderer, neech, monster, big dog, gunda no. 1 and ghatiya aadmi. In fact, one big leader from the east went to the extent of equating another from the west to the higher primates — monkeys and apes.

With hindsight, the pre-campaigning days, in which words such as Feku and Pappu were in vogue, appear far more decent. It's sad for the big democracy that the verbal standards could not be maintained when the most important democratic exercise was on: voting.

Away from the real world, the virtual universe was not trailing in coining terms that would be probably remembered for a long time. Here is a list of some of the latest entrants to the political vocabulary on the social media, their derivations and what they mean:

1. Presstitute (Derivation: Press + Prostitute): I start with this because it relates to my industry. The media. The insinuation here is obvious. A media that is "sold out" and has "crossed all ethical lines and has no morals". This barb has come from all directions and parties for being "partisan" and having "soft corner" for some leaders. Ouch. That hurts.

2. AAPtards (Derivation: AAP + Retards): This one is aimed at the supporters of Aam Aadmi Party. It was probably coined by BJP trolls to indicate that AAP followers have no brains whatsoever, and they blindly believe in the party and its supreme leader, Arvind Kejriwal.

3. Modicine (Derivation: Modi + Medicine): Perhaps this has been created by the BJP itself to suggest that the party's PM candidate the medicines to "cure the country's ailments". We need a break from this one, don't we? Let's move to the next one.

4. Khangress (Derivation: Khan + Congress): This has been going on for quite some time to allege that the Congress party is concerned "only about the Muslims and their welfare". The allegation is that the party favours its key vote-bank community and does very little for others.

5. 10 Sampath (Derivation: 10 Janpath + V S Sampath): The allegation here is against current Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) V S Sampath, who has been accused of favouring the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections. After T N Seshan, the 10th CEC, who transformed in the early 90s the way in which elections are conducted in India, this is the first time fingers are being pointed at the commission. So much so, that several political parties have accused the constitutional body of being partisan. By the way, I hope you know 10 Janpath is the residence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

6. Ford Front (Derivation: Ford Foundation + Fourth Front): This term is being used to refer to Arvind Kejriwal and his party, AAP. Kejriwal has vowed that he will not be part of the Third Front (until he does a U-turn) and will make a Fourth Front. So, Ford Front is a play on similar sounding words to suggest that the AAP "receives funding" from the international foundation and it “intends to upset the political spectrum" of the country.



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