'Floccinaucinihilipilification': New Word From Tharoor’s Dictionary As He Engages In Friendly Banter With KTR

The friendly banter on the micro-blogging platform began with the TRS working president wondering why medicine names are so tough to pronounce.

Senior Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor. (File Photo/ Getty)

New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor’s command over the English language is indeed exemplary and often leaves his audience puzzled. The Thiruvananthapuram MP on Friday posted another head scratcher “floccinaucinihilipilification”, meaning the action or habit of estimating something as worthless, on Twitter as he engaged in conversation with Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) working president K T Rama Rao over the names of Covid-19 medicine.

The friendly banter on the micro-blogging platform began with the TRS working president wondering why medicine names are so tough to pronounce.

“On a lighter note, any idea who comes up with this unpronounceable names for meds? – Posaconazole – Cresemba – Tocilzumab – Remdesivir – Liposomal Amphoterecin – Flavipiravir – Molnupiravir – Baricitinib. And the list goes on…,” KTR posted last night.

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Tagging Tharoor, he wrote in another post: “I suspect @ShashiTharoor Ji Pakka has a role to play in this.”

Tharoor responded to KTR wittily and came up with yet another not so often used word “procrustean”, which means (of a system, a set of rules, etc.) treating all people or things as if they are the same without considering individual differences and in a way that is too strict and unreasonable.

“Not guilty! How can you indulge in such floccinaucinihilipilification, @KTRTRS?” “Left to me I”d happily call them “CoroNil”, “CoroZero”, & even “GoCoroNaGo!” But these pharmacists are more procrustean…..,” he tweeted.