pariah

I always think this sounds like a fish name. It’s not, of course. A pariah is a social outcast – someone who’s rightly or wrongly rejected or shunned by society or a particular group, often due to their actions, beliefs or circumstances. We use ‘pariah’ in lots of different contexts, from politics to social circles. The kids would probably say it’s when someone gets cancelled.

Etymologically, ‘pariah’ actually has a bit of a dark history. It has its roots in the Tamil language of southern India. It comes from the word ‘paṛaiyar’, which referred to members of a lower caste group who played the ‘parai’, a large drum used at public ceremonies. Over time, the term became associated with those considered low status or outside the main social hierarchy.

‘Pariah’ was eventually adopted by Portuguese colonisers, entering English in the 17th century where it took on a much broader meaning. By the 19th century, it had lost the ‘caste’ connotations, and was commonly used to describe any individual or group that was socially or politically ostracised, regardless of their background.

Lots of figures we celebrate today were considered pariahs when they were alive (which is sad). Some examples:

• Vincent Van Gogh – reviled and ridiculed during his lifetime, and probably only ever sold one painting. Now we know he was suffering from mental illness (probably bipolar, maybe schizophrenia) which makes this doubly sad. His brother’s wife (Jo van Gogh-Bonger) promoted him when he passed as a way to survive, and it’s thanks to her efforts that he’s so appreciated today.

• Edgar Allen Poe – he died alone and miserable, probably with rabies. He did marry his 13-year-old cousin though…

• Alan Turing – despite playing a crucial role in breaking the Enigma code during World War II, helping to shorten the war and save countless lives, and laying the foundations for modern computer science, Turing was persecuted throughout his lifetime just for being gay.

If you can get through this without blubbing, then you must be a bit dead inside. Sorry.

juggernaut

A juggernaut is something huge and powerful, usually destructive, that can’t be stopped, either literally or metaphorically. Like a steam roller, or Donald Trump’s ego. In British English we also use it for a big old lorry. But it is a bit of a weird word. So what is a jugger, and why is it nauting?

A slightly unimpressive photo of the temple

Well, the good news is that ‘juggernaut’ has some epic etymology. The bad news is that it’s a bit grim. It comes from Jagannāth, the Hindi word for ‘Lord of the World’. Jagannath is an incarnation of the god Vishnu, and has an important temple in Puri, on the eastern coast of India. That’s not the grim bit, obviously. Each year the temple holds the Ratha Yatra, or chariot festival, when images of Jagannath and his brother (Balabhadra) and sister (Subhadra) are pulled on huge and elaborately decorated (you’ve guessed it) chariots. According to hopefully apocryphal (i.e. bullshit) reports going back to the 14th century, hardcore Vishnu fans would throw themselves in front of these to show their devotion by being crushed beneath the wheels of carriages. That. Is. Commitment. Colonial Brits supposedly saw this, then anglicised Jagannath as ‘juggernaut’ giving it the meaning of unstoppable force that we have today.

Jagannath and his siblings’ temple at Puri is freaking massive – it covers an area of over 400,000 square feet (37,000 square metres in new money). It was built in the 11th or 12th century (depending on which page of Wikipedia you look at) by king Anantavarman Chodaganga, a ruler of the Eastern Ganga dynasty who were in charge of the southern part of Kalinga in India. There’s a flag on the top of it which apparently defies science, and always flies in the opposite direction to the way the wind’s blowing. (Boringly, there is actually some science that explains this involving fluid dynamics and something called a Kármán vortex street, but that isn’t half as fun so let’s ignore it.) Every day since it was built, a priest has scrambled up the walls of the temple – the height of a 45-storey building – without any protective gear, to change this flag. Bagsie not me.

doolally

Photo by Mitchell Ng Liang an on Unsplash.

Doolally is a term for someone who’s a bit mad or eccentric, usually temporarily. It’s a shortened version of a British military slang expression, ‘doolally tap’. This basically means ‘camp fever’ (‘tap’ being an Urdu word for fever). The doolally part is a corruption of Deolali, the name of a military camp near Bombay (now Mumbai) in India.

Established in 1861, Deolali had a large barracks and was a chief staging point (i.e. a transit camp for troops or equipment), acting both as a training camp for soldiers who’d just arrived, and a place for British troops whose enlistments had expired to hang out while they waited for transport home. Because ships only sailed between November and March, this could mean some men stayed at Deolali for months waiting for repatriation. This is where we get the ‘losing your mind’ part from. Conditions in the camp were pretty awful – malaria was rife and soldiers were bored, driven nuts by sandflies and often afflicted with all the fun stuff you got from hanging out in the brothels and gin palaces that inevitably sprung up near to barracks (alcoholism, syphilis and other delightful venereal diseases). These men were described as being in ‘full doolally tap’, which we’ve since shortened to just ‘doolally’.

If you’re of a certain age then you might remember a 70s sitcom called ‘It Ain't Half Hot Mum’ which was set in Deolali. Like most British sitcoms from the 70s it’s since been accused of racism, homophobia and pandering to imperialism, meaning it’s now been assigned to the recycling bin of TV history.