Doomscrolling: Shashi Tharoor tweets 'word of the era'

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, known for throwing in rarely-used English words into Twitter lexicon, on Tuesday shared his "word of the era" -- doomscrolling. The man of many words helpfully shared the meaning too. "The act of continuously seeking out and reading bad news," read the meaning posted by the Congress leader.

"Word of the Era! Merriam Webster Dictionary says they are watching the increasing use of this term (along with 'doomsurfing'). Increased consumption of predominantly negative news could have psychological ill effects, in addition to causing political depression...," Tharoor tweeted with a screenshot of the word 'doomscrolling' and its meaning.




This is not the first time the author-politician-wordsmith has sent Twitterati scurrying for their dictionaries to confirm whether such words indeed exist.

Earlier this month, Tharoor took a dig at the Ministry of Railways with a difficult-to-pronounce head-scratcher -- quomodocunquize.

"To make money by any means possible," the meaning posted by him had said.

In a tweet, Tharoor had said, "Obscure Words Deptt: Must the Indian Railways quomodocunquize?"

He tagged the Ministry of Railways, using the hashtag 'SeniorCitizensConcession'.

Last month, he posted the word quockerwodger.

"A quockerwodger was a type of wooden puppet. In politics, a quockerwodger was a politician acting on the instructions of an influential third party, rather than properly representing their constituents," he said.

Before that, Tharoor took a dig at the BJP with the word 'allodoxaphobia', which he explained was an irrational fear of opinions.

Also, the Congress MP had engaged in friendly banter with TRS working president KT Rama Rao over COVID-19 medicine names and threw in the obscure 'floccinaucinihilipilification'.

Oxford dictionary describes 'floccinaucinihilipilification' as the action or habit of estimating something as worthless.

In the past as well he has stumped people with words such as 'farrago' and 'troglodyte'.

While 'farrago' means a confused mixture, 'troglodyte' means a person regarded as being deliberately ignorant or old-fashioned.