ARTICLE-1

[rachana]

Hi Friends,


I searched a lot to find some article which will be suitable for reading as well as developing our vocabulary, here is the first article on from worlwidewords…

Please read the article and find the meanings for the underlined words and their usage in the context for discussion.........


Poor old Thomas Carlyle, permanently and irretrievably burdened with having described economics as “the dismal science”. He was really talking about political economy, at the time a slightly different beast. But whatever one’s view of economics (I failed the only exam I ever took in the subject, so may be considered biased), lexicographically speaking it has been a fruitful term.


These opaque musings were prompted by what journalists have started to call Enronomics, in reference to the accounting practices of the failed US Corporation Enron and their implications for the Bush administration. It’s not as popular yet as Enrongate for the same imbroglio, but shows slight signs of fashionableness, having appeared in several US newspapers recently, and having even made it across the Atlantic to a British Sunday newspaper within hours. However, its chances of taking a permanent place in the language seem vanishingly small.

Before we tar journalists too heavily with the brush of knee-jerk word invention for the sake of novelty, in fairness it has to be said that people have been borrowing that ending for at least 150 years. Agronomics, for example, was coined in the 1860s as a term for what is now often called agronomy, and ergonomics was invented about 1950.

The Greek original of economics splits nicely in two to make -nomics, since its source was oikos, house, plus nemein, to manage (so economics literally means “household management”, which really brings it back to earth, or at least to home and hearth).

But its move into the overtly political arena really dates from late 1969, when Nixonomics was invented as an umbrella term for the economic policies of President Richard Milhous Nixon. But the word which settled its popularity—Reaganomics—arrived in the early eighties; it was followed in the early nineties by Clintonomics. In the eighties, Britain briefly had Thatchernomics, though it was never very popular; New Zealand’s former Minister of Finance, Roger Douglas, provoked Rogernomics (a rare case of a politician’s first name rather than family name being borrowed). Other British politicians have had it applied to them in a half-hearted and short-lived way (Majornomics, Haguenomics) and Americans may remember Dolenomics from 1996.

These examples settled the ending firmly into the grab-bags of topical writers. A sign of its acceptance is that it now pops up from time to time attached to words other than politicians’ names. Back in 1996, a report by Kleinwort Benson described the policies of Malaysia as Noddynomics, which greatly displeased that country’s government. Burgernomics has been applied to the global economic policies and impact of certain fast-food firms. Cybernomics has been used for the economic implications of the digital economy. And so on.

So we ought not to be surprised that Enronomics has popped up, though it is unusual in being attached to the name of a corporation.





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[WISDOM]

thx for that and i will surely look them up later on. keep up de gud' work.

[WISDOM]

dismal means not cheerful or something that causes sadness but here the dismal science is put inside the quotes which essentially signifies that it is used as part of informal speech. here 'dismal' means 'of poor quality' or inexact science. 'aap bade great ho' -> i put that in quotes to indicate that something is different in these words i.e. either i am using hindi or saying something informally etc.

In the first line, the auhor refers economy as a whole as an unpleasant and inexact scence and in the second line, he targets a special field of economy known as political economy and term it as a slightly different 'beast'. beast here means something unpleasant or difficult thing. he only means to say that there is not much difference between the unpleasantness of economy in general and political economy in particular.

arre baap re! do lines mein fuse ud gaya. it is a very difficult article. but i ain't gonna quit!

biased = partial towards something esp the one that we love(cool breeze) or that we know or favouring something, inclined to something. 3rd line is clear. the author has always failed in exam of economics, so he feels his view about economics are biased.

Now comes a twist in the tory. the author uses the word lexicographically which means the art or process of writing, compiling and editing of dictionaries. from this very word, we get a hint that author will describe various words which are related to economics or uses it as a root etc. and that's why he said that this term economics is very helpful for the dictionary although he does not like this subject very much.

now we will continue further only if we are interested in knowing abt the economics and the various words related to it. But since 'I am' the future of India and will play a major role in shaping her economy, so i feel i must go ahead..........lol! i have to make such cmnts time after time to make myself go ahead othrwise i am too tired to write evn a single word any further.

'opaque musings'..........again a very interesting phrase. here opaque means something dull or boring referring to the discussion of economics which has been described as dismal science in the first para. 'musings' are just the thoughts of someone.

Enronomics is defined here and it is possible that aithor has coined this word himself. The author defines it as representing the accounting practises of some failed US corp 'enron'
Enrongate is a new word again seems to be coined by the author himself to suck the blood of readers like you and I.
imbroglio refers to a complicated situation or some misunderstanding and by 'not as popular yet as Enrongate for the same imbroglio' author only means that this word enrongate has not been popular coz' of same situation(failure of US corp. enron which is also the reason for unpopularity of enronomics)

[WISDOM]

In the next para, author describes few more words like agronomics and ergonomics. luckily these words are listed in my dictionary:

ergonomics: The study of the relationship between people and their working environment, including machinery, computer sytems, etc.. So, next time if anyone asks u what u r doing, tell them u r a student of ergonomics and immediately they will realize that they have messed up with the wrong girl!!!!
:D

In the next para, the root from which economics has been derived is given and i feel that learning some roots can be evry helpful to anyone wishing to improve his vocab. u can go for word power made easy by norman lewis and that is the best book that i can refer to you. nomics = source & oikos=house, plus nemein, to manage => economics = house management. isn't it amazing if u know the root then u can guess the meaning of any word that is built on that root. let's take demonomics = demos + nemein; demos is
a greek word for people and nemein we just learnt means to manage; so demonomics means managing people, so if u do not like to say that u study ergonomics, then say that u r a demonomist and believe, the other person won't be able to find this word in ANY dictionary or thesaurus and may spent his whole lifetime finding the emaning of this word provided the name of person is not WISDOM!!!!!! so, we move ahead in our journey where only the likes of sidney sheldon or our very own salman rushdie dares to tread - the journey of words!

Moving ahead, nest para talks abt few other words which have been built in exactly the same way we built demonomics, so send that word back to the author of this article and ask him to find the meaning of this word and we are not really concerned abt knowing the emaning of nixonomics, Reaganomics etc. u can refer to the article where the meaning of these terms is explained as these are the terms that are not part of english language.

"These examples settled the ending firmly into the grab-bags of topical writers".............topical writers means writers who either belong to a particular place or write only abt a particular place. this is said in context of the various words which uses the root -nomics and are framed for a particular place like nipponomics for nippon; gandhinomics for the policies of gandhi and any american etc. can't easily understand who was gandhi etc.!
grab-bags means in their bags (apne palle me) or on their side or favouring them.

A sign of its acceptance--------here its refers to enronomics which is the main subject of discussion and author has beautifully explained various words which use the same root as the word enronomics. In the last line, the author sums up the whole article by saying that if words like burgernomics, nipponomics etc can exist, then there should be no surprise on hearing the word enronomics although it won't be wise to relate this term to the US corp enron.

Last thought.... how abt the word fordonomics or microsoftonomics!!!!! it seems i need some sleep.

[WISDOM]

Although my first reaction on seeing this article was that of boredom and signs of dismal were quite visisble on my face. but after my small stint with the very first line, i understood that this is the article to read and analyze. One do not normally find such articles in regular newspapers and 'rachana' has done a wonderful job by finding this article and posting it here.
hats' off to u!............................. 'taaliyaan'

cheers
S.C.S.A.C WISDOM
(STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN CHANAKYA WISDOM)! :D
(hey did u hear that joke abt a hyderabadi guy and james bond; if not go and find it in jokes section and i hope that this big name of mine may also give shock to bond, james bond!)

[WISDOM]

beast of burden: An animal such as a donkey or bullock, used to carry or pull loads.

[wizkid]

Hei Wisdom,

That wonderful analysis about the meaning of the article and the context also...but
yaar, thune ithna achha describe kardiya ki, hame kuch bi jagha hi nahin chooda!...

any way well done buddy....

OOps

STONE COLD STEVE AUSTIN CHNAKYA WISDOM

[rachana]

that good analysis wisdom...go for my second article

[WISDOM]

hey wizkid, spell chanakya correctly! :D