15/11/2020
Hello friends,
It's Sunday - the day I look forward to. Not that other days are too hectic. Yet, Sunday is a day I choose to be a bit lazy, do things in a relaxed manner and do what I like too.
Yes, I would like to talk about something which may be new to some of you and well-known to the others.
English, you all know, is a language that has borrowed and continues to borrow words from other languages. This is the way it keeps growing.
Whenever anyone of us said 'Aiyo', we thought it was a Tamil utterance, and would have even felt embarrassed if we had used it while conversing with a native speaker of English.
No more of that embarrassment! 'Aiyo' has found its place in the Oxford English Dictionary! What more do you want?
'Aiyo" is defined as an exclamation used when you are surprised or upset. Interestingly, the dictionary has also got the pronunciation for 'aiaiyo'.
The Times of India writes, "The Oxford English Dictionary, or the OED, is 150 years old, has up to 600,000 entries, and its publisher - the Oxford University Press - calls it 'the definitive record of English language.' For purists who swear by it, if a word isn't in the dictionary, it isn't English. Well, bilingual English-lovers who are also well-versed in South-Indian languages no longer have to wince when they hear someone inject, "Aiyoh' during an exchange in the Queen's English!
'Aiyo', it's time for lunch! See you soon....