The Lexicographer's Rules, the weblog of Grant Barrett

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

“We heard the same story repeated over and over again. Even the most innocuous of our neighbours, we discovered, had extraordinary tales of 1947: chartered accountants could tell tales of single-handedly fighting off baying mobs; men from grey government ministries would emerge as the heroes of bloody street battles. Everything these people now possessed was built up by their own hard labour over the last few years. “Mr Seth, our neighbour, was a retired official in the Indian Railways. A safari-suited civil servant, he was polite, timid and anonymous. After passing out of Walton Railway Training School, Seth’s first posting came in 1946: he was made Assistant Ticket Insepector at Sheikhapura near Lahore. One year later there came the great divide and Mr Seth, a Hindu, found himself on the wrong side of the border. The killing had started. Sikhs and Hindus stopped trains carrying refugees to Pakistan and killed all the Muslims. Muslims stopped trains going to India and killed all the Sikhs and Hindus. “�Every train from India that passed our station was totally smashed,’ remembers Mr Seth. �Women, children, old, young: all were killed. Blood was pouring from the bogies [carriages].’ “Then one day, a refugee train from Rawalpindi under the custody of the Gurkhas passed through Sheikhapura. Nervous of being attacked by Muslims, the Gurkhas—all Hindus—let off a barrage of shots through the train windows. A stray bullet hit the wife of the Muslim station master. The station master, unhinged with grief, tried to shoot the only Hindu in the station—his Assistant Ticket Inspector, Mr Seth. He missed. But Mr Seth realized that the moment had come to flee Pakistan. He jumped off the platform and ran down the line towards India. There, a little later, he was ambushed by a party of Muslims heading in the opposite direction. They took everything he owned, including his shoes, his shirt and his trousters. “�I travelled barefoot down the lines having only a knicker,’ said Mr Seth. �Four times I escaped death. Four times! I arrived at Amritsar station at midnight, and got a new uniform from the station master. The next day I reported for duty at nine a.m. exactly.’ “�What happened then?’ “�Promotion!’ said Mr Seth, beaming a red betel-nut smile. �I became Commercial Accountant bracket Parcel Clerk, Booking Clerk, Goods Clerk etcetera unbracket. Later I was transferred to Delhi and was given a temporary house in Lodhi Colony. It was previously owned by a Muslim. I was told he had been shot dead on the veranda.‘“ (Source Link)

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Monday, April 21, 2003

“For myself I wondered at that moment if I could ever live a normal life, a nonfugitive life, after all this, after all that I’d been through. It seemed impossible that there was a life beyond the river, beyond the mountain of broken brick. I wondered if I would ever eat a hot dog at Wrigley Field again. If I really choose this warrior life, if I go on and refuse to pull back to normalcy, will I ever have another chance? How much will I suffer? This bizarre and violent time, this ritual of combat, this surreal setting combined with ferocious demons vomited into the dark-eyed night, pursuing me now with anonymous, deadly hatred. I was sure of only one thing: whatever happened next, I was choosing with eyes wide open, and while I might be wrong or foolish, limited and inadequate, mine would not be the suffering of the hapless victim. I might get crushed, but I would never complain and I would never bring suit. Life’s tough. Get a helmet.” (Source Link)

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Sunday, April 20, 2003

En catimini is French slang for “on the

En catimini is French slang for “on the sly.”

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Non-war deeds politicians committed while you were trying to convince yourself that the blobs on the

Non-war deeds politicians committed while you were trying to convince yourself that the blobs on the network vid-phone feeds were tanks and not compression artifacts: Back-office transactions. Front-office transactions.

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More than 30 million Russians live belo

More than 30 million Russians live below the breadline, an income equivalent to less than $65 a month.

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This is the personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. More about this site...

Recent Catchwords

mill and fill n. (7/3)
snake run n. (7/2)
hurricane amnesia n. (7/2)
dollar-a-year man n. (7/2)
tranny n. (7/1)
secular adj. (6/30)
commuter trip n. (6/30)
wendy v. (6/30)
double-dekker n. (6/30)
gas-sipper n. (6/29)
nuke the fridge v. phr. (6/29)
mannyhose n. (6/29)
run one’s pockets v. phr. (6/29)
gay-lister n. (6/29)
cross-shopping n. (6/29)
weird stacking n. (6/29)
block busting n. (6/27)
beek n. (6/27)
sweatbox n. (6/26)
bump-out n. (6/26)

The Lexicographer's Rules