lexicon
Glocal language 
Deepti 

Play a while

Bernard Shaw left money in his will for the advance of spelling reform but apart from one half-hearted attempt, there were no takers. So, readers, if you think you are an orthography expert, try your luck!

Learn a little

When a language is no longer the native language of any community, it becomes a dead language. It may remain in use as a second language or a library language. The easy part of saving a language from death is that as long as there are two people who use it as a first language, it cannot die. So, look around you and if you find such a scenario emerging, just step in. A fact to inspire you: across the country, several dedicated individuals across the board are working hard to save Sanskrit, the mother lode of so many languages. How do they function? By holding free classes, by using it in daily life, by writing books and articles in Sanskrit and by encouraging research in it. There are such dedicated individuals in Chandigarh too, who are working hard to save Urdu!

Intriguing words

An interesting word on the horizon is ‘localvore’ It refers to people who choose to limit their food supply to what is grown within a restricted radius around their homes in order to help the environment and the local economy. Just as carnivores eat meat and herbivores eat plants, locavores or localvores only eat foods that have been grown locally. The concept of a ‘foodshed’ is at the heart of this movement; whereas watersheds outline the flow of water to a specific area, foodsheds outline how food flows to a specific area. Today’s foodshed spans the globe, hence our food can travel thousands of miles before we eat it. Initially originating in California, the localvore culture introduced the idea of eating within a small foodshed and supporting sustainable agriculture to a wider audience.

Precise usage

‘Forego’ means ‘to go in front or before’ and mostly it is used as in ‘in the foregoing pages you have read’ or ‘it is a foregone conclusion that he will not be running the race’. ‘Forgo’ means ‘abstain from something or do without something’ as in ‘citizens forgomanyrights once an emergency has been declared’.