Shashi Tharoor, 62-year old Indian politician, writer and a former career international diplomat needs no introduction. The former under-secretary general of United Nations is currently the MP from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala while he is popular among the netizens for the usage of unusual and extensive English words that leaves readers scratching their heads.
In Shashi Tharoor's latest tweet posted in the wee hours of Wednesday (November 21), the social media wordsmith wonders if anyone can be a 'bibliobibuli,' that too these days? Before you search for a dictionary or get ready to google it out, we have the answer you are looking for!
Can anyone (especially these days) ever read TOO much? pic.twitter.com/UGB8k4TjGP
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) November 20, 2018
The word "bibliobibuli" point at the people who reads too much. The word is a portmanteau of Greek ('biblio' meaning books) and Latin ('bibulous' from 'bibere'- meaning to drink). The word-to-word meaning can be loosely translated as being drunk on books.
The term was coined in 1957 by H. L. Mencken who said, "There are people who read too much: bibliobibuli. I know some who are constantly drunk on books, as other men are drunk on whiskey or religion. They wander through this most diverting and stimulating of worlds in a haze, seeing nothing and hearing nothing."
Shashi Tharoor has satirically used the word bibliobibuli this time asking, 'Can anyone (especially these days) be able to read too much?' As there is hue and cry over declining reading habit among the new generation, his latest tweet is thought-provoking.
This is just one of the latest complex words that Tharoor has used in his tweets. Last month during his new book release about PM Narendra Modi titled 'The Paradoxical Prime Minister,' he described it is 'more than just a 400-page exercise in floccinaucinihilipilification.' A Google search shows that it is a noun and means 'the action or habit of estimating something as worthless'.
For some Twitter users, the word floccinaucinihilipilification made their head spin. Tharoor soon followed it up saying those people may have hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia which means the fear of long words.
