Thangs for the memories

Tony Deyal, Contributor

A rose by another other name may smell as sweet, but not a jasmine. I don't mean my daughter Jasmine but the flower which is going from hero to zero in China. I remember my son Zubin getting upset when we bought some jasmine rice because we had not bought some 'Zubin' rice and we had to go to great lengths to placate him.

Soon, there would be no cause for worry. It is not that millionaire conductor Zubin Mehta might think of naming a rice after himself, but the reality that there might be no more 'jasmine' anything in China where the word has fallen into disgrace after the flower became the symbol of the Tunisian 'Jasmine Revolution'.

It seems some Chinese dissidents anonymously called for a Chinese 'Jasmine Revolution', and asked protesters to "stroll silently holding a jasmine flower". According to The New York Times on Wednesday, "Do not be lulled by its intoxicating fragrance or the dainty, star-like blossoms whose whiteness suggests innocence and purity. Jasmine, a stalwart of Chinese tea and the subject of a celebrated folk song, is not what it seems." It seems that "this flowering cousin of the olive tree has been branded a notorious change agent by the skittish people who keep the Chinese Communist Party in power."

The Chinese are blocking any cellphone text message with the word 'jasmine' in it, have cancelled the annual Jasmine Festival, and have made life hard for jasmine planters and vendors. A lot of them have no idea why jasmine is now as forbidden as Beijing was. One vendor said it had something to do with radiation contamination from Japan and another said that it contained poison that was killing people.

The jasmine jeopardy is proof that British politician was right when she said, "Handle them carefully, for words have more power than the atom bomb." While the symbols the words conjure up are the real culprits (and victims), there are times when the words get out of hand - mainly on a Scrabble board or, as announced last week, in a Scrabble dictionary.

While I like Scrabble, I no longer play it too often since I keep having vowel movements. It makes me want to go to the 'Shittah', which is not as bad as it sounds since it is a type of acacia plant (called 'Cassy' in Antigua) from which comes 'shittim wood', from which, according to Exodus, Noah built his ark, and the Ark of the Covenant and parts of the Tabernacle were made.

'Dirty' scrabble

There are other words that also sound bad in English but which are perfectly safe to write but not to say in mixed company. Since Scrabble players are more interested in the spelling than in the meaning of words, there are some words like 'prickmadam' (species of the beautiful stonecrop plant used in worm medicine), 'cockchafer' (a large European beetle) and 'horehound' (a bitter type of mint) that are in the two major Scrabble dictionaries - the Merriam-Webster Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary, the authoritative tome for American and Canadian Scrabble players, and the Collins Official Scrabble Words, which is used by almost everybody else. Excluded from the Merriam-Webster are about 200 words that are deemed obscene. This has led to a variation of the game in the US called Dirty (or Obscene) Scrabble, where words banned from the official Miriam-Webster Scrabble Dictionary are used.

Last week, the Collins people added about 3,000 new words to its list, and that has not gone down too well. The Periscope Post stated: "Like all things, Scrabble, the game beloved by wordsmiths the world over, must change with the times - no matter how much Scrabble traditionalists are going to hate it. This week, the Collins Official Scrabble Words, the compendium of officially permitted Scrabble words, announced that it is adding 3,000 new words and slang terms to the list of playable words. Among them are 'innit', 'grrl', 'Facebook', 'blingy', 'qin', and 'thang', according to Time magazine.

Official wordlist

Collins, when contacted by The Periscope Post, confirmed that the new words were indeed added to the list of playable words and passed on a press release highlighting a few other new words, including 'fansite', 'webzine', 'badware', 'darknet', 'vlog', 'biach', 'airgun' and 'heatwave'. The publisher also noted that this list is the official international tournament list for countries excluding the US and Canada, so North American Scrabblers can rest easy." Other words are from Indian cookery (keema, alu, or aloo, and gobi), as well as various kinds of drugs (tik, gak and tina).

I don't have the space to go into what all the new words mean or refer to, but it is easy to see why there is controversy. 'Tik' is methamphetamine or crystal meth, 'gak' can be cocaine, marijuana or crystal meth, and 'tina' is yet another street name for crystal meth. This led some people to suggest that maybe the researchers who added the words may have themselves been high on tik, gak and tina. Many of the words are merely modern terms such as 'vlog' for 'video blogging', 'inbox' for 'email folder for incoming mail', and 'darknet' (closed private network of computers used for file sharing). Some that give traditionalists the greatest discomfort are 'grrl' (a pop culture site with a feminist slant), 'innit' (isn't it?), 'thang' (thing), and 'nang' (cool). There are those words stuck with otherwise unplayable letters, 'qin' (a Chinese musical instrument) and 'wagyu' (a breed of cattle).

I go for the Indian words myself. I remember when I was a little boy going to an Anglican school, my teacher corrected me when I said that I liked curry aloo and chicken, insisting that I say 'potato' instead of aloo. I was also told that instead of 'nana' and 'nani', I should say 'Grandpa' and 'Grandma'. I got so self-conscious that I never called my Uncle's wife 'Khaki' in public or eat my 'roti' in the classroom in full view of the other kids who mocked us with, "Coolie, Coolie, come for roti." Now the wheel seems to be coming full circle - in Scrabble at least - and 'gobi' is not just a desert but 'cauliflower'. Pretty soon, when asked what is the best soil for growing potatoes, the answer might well be 'aloovial' soil.

Tony Deyal was last seen saying that Scrabble gives him temporary amnesia. "Everytime I play Scrabble," he says, "I draw a blank."