In the wee hours of Wednesday night, Shashi Tharoor took to Twitter to comment on the countless number of parodies that have filled the internet mimicking his “speaking/writing style”.
To all the well-meaning folks who send me parodies of my supposed speaking/writing style: The purpose of speaking or writing is to communicate w/ precision. I choose my words because they are the best ones for the idea i want to convey, not the most obscure or rodomontade ones!
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) December 13, 2017
Tharoor’s vast lexicon and eloquent manner of speech have become somewhat of a popular culture phenomena. And this time, it was his use of the word “rodomontade”, which means boastful or inflated talk or behaviour, that caught the collective imagination of Twitter. It took them no time to add to the existing ocean of jokes and memes on Tharoor, no holds barred.
Breaking: Dictionary scam! @shashitharoor is being paid by the dictionary industry. https://t.co/2Nvs5jwN8e
— Nitin Pai (@acorn) December 14, 2017
Learning English? Follow my friend @ShashiTharoor for words you never knew existed & will struggle to ever use in a sentence but by golly they sound impressive. #rodomontade 😀
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) December 14, 2017
— Nana Patekar (@nanapatakarr) December 14, 2017
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade
— S.A.G.A.Ratty (@YearOfRat) December 14, 2017
When life gives you education, rodomontade
Heard one new word again-"rodomontade"😂. I want my school fees back. 😂😂
— Balendu Pandey (@balendu29) December 14, 2017
Is that a thesaurus in your pocket or are you just rodomontade to see me? https://t.co/2qxOSbOgHl
— Sachin Tyagi (@sachin_tyagi) December 14, 2017
Twitter:140 Characters
— Rayomand J. Patell (@RayomandJPatell) December 14, 2017
Tharoor: #farrago
Twitter: 280 Characters
Tharoor: #Rodomontade
Your move, Twitter https://t.co/FOlvaOqisE
I can rodomontadely say that day by day I read your rodomontaded tweets in English, I will be rodomontaded of my improved English. A rodomontade Jai Hind sir.
— Kanatunga (@Kanatunga) December 13, 2017
And google search for 'rodomontade' attains a peak today. https://t.co/mt3BiDOItX
— Gagan B Mishra (@__gbm) December 14, 2017
This online joke-creating battalion always has its arms at the ready, even when what Tharoor tweets are not actual words, as happened last month. When he commented on the controversy surrounding the film Padmavati, his became the victim of the “dreaded auto-correct”. But by the time he even tweeted out a clarification, the jokes were aplenty.
Agree totally. The #Padmavati controversy is an opportunity to focus on the conditions of Rajasthani women today ¬ just of queens six centuries ago. Rajasthan’s female literacy among lowest. Education more important thang Hoog hats https://t.co/82rvGmkfwO
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) November 13, 2017
Just realised that dreaded autocorrect has changed “than goonghats” to “ thang hoong hats”. Apologies. When I hit “tweet” I was still seeing the correct words I’d typed https://t.co/aQzEGfBuJq
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) November 13, 2017
*thang hoog hats* 😱😱😱
— मङ्गलम् (@veejaysai) November 13, 2017
Half the country has already run through every possible dictionary maybe! 🙄😎 https://t.co/UopLheZLvo
I googled the words n was trying to make sense out of them
— Saket Aloni (@SaketAloni) November 13, 2017
Hoong : Boy's name meaning, origin, and popularity
Thang: non-standard spelling of thing representing Southern US pronunciation, typically used to denote a feeling or tendency.
Tharoor’s formidable vocabulary was in evidence when Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami levelled a series of allegations against him.
Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations&outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalst
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 8, 2017
While it was predictably followed by a series of Twitter jokes, there was even a video parody titled Inside Shashi Tharoor’s Phone that purported to give the viewer access to Tharoor’s phone, imagining text messages that he might send out.
Some creators went one step ahead and put out a video series (below) that documented Shashi Tharoor launching his very own channel, Farrago TV, to take on Arnab Goswami. In the trailer for the said channel, the narrator, trying to impersonate Tharoor’s diction, declares: “The verisimilitude of the exasperating falafel of distortions made by a journalist masquerading as a door knob has prompted this latest innovation in the hallowed discipline of broadcast journalism.”
Another parody (video below) juxtaposes how Tharoor talks with how a “normal human being” talks. For example, if a normal human being says: “All that glitters is not gold”, Shashi Tharoor would say: “All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous”.