Thursday, July 27, 2006

How if Zidane enters the Dictionary !

There are very many words adapted to English from different languages and cultures. Many of them were very popular and relevant in a particular culture and got adapted to English Dictionaries based on the high volume of usage among the public.

And there are words, which have done great business globally to find a place to the elite dictionaries. “Google” is the most recent addition to this. Searching has almost become synonymous to googling and vice versa. People tend to google for each and every bit of information, though there is plenty of subject specific information retrievers exist. Truly they are more accurate and specific than the jungle of results google creates, but unfortunately not so popular even to information specialists and librarians.

Well, I am not intended to tutor about searching and its relevance.
Xerox, Cola, coke, zipper...the list of such business and market related trade marks in English dictionaries goes long.

Khaki, pajamas, guru, pundit, curry, yoga…there are quiet a big number of terms and usages have been adapted to English from Indian languages.

Words like ‘copra’ (The dried white flesh of the coconut from which coconut oil is extracted.), ‘coir’ (The fiber obtained from the husk of a coconut, used chiefly in making rope and matting) etc are examples of words borrowed from Malayalam language to English.

I was wondering about the possibility of adding another wonderful term to this list. The copyright holder, here is a person ‘Zinedine Zidane’ and the term is ‘zidane’.

I noticed a piece of news in “The Times of India’ which reads ‘Irish Jockey does a Zidane’. The news was about an Irish jockey who was caught on camera butting his horse. He is facing a ban now for that mistake.

The popularity, the zidane-materazi incident gained was amazing. It was so popular since Zidane who made (did) it. He was the real football magician in our decade and the whole world was awaken for his reign over the trophy.

Well, if it could manage so long in the public memory, what would be the out come years after?? Perhaps an entry for ‘Zidane’ to dictionaries and a tiny news column in some news papers
‘Two zidaned to hospital !”

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