lexicon
The exception and the rule 
Deepti

Play a while

American writer Christopher Morley calls Pun ‘language on vacation’. Puns need not always be found in literature. They, sometimes, can be seen on the roads in the shape of playful personalised car licence plates. The practice is common in America and here are some examples: a doctor’s car licence plate reads ‘YRUILL’, an aerobics instructor’s ‘YRUFAT’, a weather forecaster’s ‘4CAST’, and an ophthalmologist’s IC2020’. Can you guess this one — EIEIO? Yes, a farmer named McDonald!

Learn a little

New would-be words often showcase the trends of a society and can also highlight a disturbing trend like the two that follow. In the race for achieving excellence, kids are getting labelled as ‘trophy children’ because they frequently act as status-enhancers or trophy winners for their parents. Mothers are termed SMUM or Smart, Middle-class, Uninvolved Mother, who find motherhood tedious and their children uninteresting.

Intriguing words

‘Hue and cry’ refers to a noisy commotion over any little problem. The origin of the word lies in cacophony. Before the 19th century, this phrase was the old legal term used as an official warning when calling out for assistance while chasing a suspected criminal, who was trying to escape. Law-breakers, who did not stop in the face of the hue and cry, were punished rigorously when caught, hence the noise and commotion associated with the phrase.

Precise usage

English is called a language in which the exception is the rule. Learners often get frustrated at the absence of uniform norms. But, one area that has certain clear rules is that of hyphenation. One, hyphens are used to indicate word breaks where there is no space to complete a word at the end of a line. Two, hyphens are used to join the compound numbers between twenty-one and ninety-nine and also when fractions like three-quarters are written in words. Three, when hyphens are used to join compound words like happy-go-lucky this is counted as one word. Four, when a prefix is used with a word that begins with a capital letter a hyphen is always inserted as in pro-British. Five, hyphens are used to indicate a range of numbers or dates as in 50-60 members.