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Thursday, February 23, 2006
The charms of Neenjari
I'm at the IPCL ground in Baroda, where England is playing the Board President's XI, and we were told in the morning that Michael Vaughan would not be playing the game because of a knee injury. Instantly the thought came to mind that 'knee injury' doesn't quite glide off the tongue, requiring an unpleasantly forced pause between 'knee' and 'injury'. In fact, any combination of two words where the first ends with a vowel and the second starts with one faces this problem. Why not combine those words then, eliminating one of the vowels?
Thus, 'knee injury' would become 'neenjari', 'toe injury' would become 'tonjari' and so on. You could even use this trick for phrases that involve a consonant, as long as the neologism doesn't confuse. For example, what else could an earjury be but an ear injury. In the case of long words, entire syllables could be removed, as a hamstring injury could become, simply, hamjury. One must be careful not to stretch it too far, of course, and refer to an instep injury as an injury, which could initiate an endless loop of questioning. ("What kind of injury?" "An injury." "Yes, but what kind?" "An injury!")
Fun, no?
Thus, 'knee injury' would become 'neenjari', 'toe injury' would become 'tonjari' and so on. You could even use this trick for phrases that involve a consonant, as long as the neologism doesn't confuse. For example, what else could an earjury be but an ear injury. In the case of long words, entire syllables could be removed, as a hamstring injury could become, simply, hamjury. One must be careful not to stretch it too far, of course, and refer to an instep injury as an injury, which could initiate an endless loop of questioning. ("What kind of injury?" "An injury." "Yes, but what kind?" "An injury!")
Fun, no?
