Visual Pollution !

Fashion is a very broad term- it can be a style, a characteristic, a facade or a fad depending on which way we look at it. 
I wont criticize or adulate fashion here. I hardly know anything about it. 
I'll talk about the 'visual pollution' some people call fashion, which they endorse, flaunt and throw in everyone's face with extreme brazenness. Some of the most downright appalling examples of this pollution are-

1) CROCS- They come in all the imaginable colors under the Sun, yet they manage to look excessively bad with each and every article of clothing. The only thing they can go along with is social gaucherie and complete idiocy! Maybe on the beach side they can get a pass- but for running around town- simply hideous. It is amazing how crocs are a unique combination of being supremely expensive, poor quality and ugly- all at the same time! These gaping holes called shoes are a remarkable mockery of the basic concept of footwear! 

2) Skinny Jeans on men- Skinny jeans do make sense- but on cyclists who want to avoid a tangle, and on women who are in love with their super thin legs and want to show their curves off! These jeans only make men look like wannabe lean women or roller skating divas. They are conspicuously uncomfortable to wear- so I cant comprehend their craze among men! If it is in the "thin is in" spirit or it is to show off one's thunder- they fail hopelessly at doing both these things. Skinny jeans make men look undeniably and unnecessarily lean to the hilt of being borderline gay and make it impossible for them to sit cross-legged normally! And frankly who cares for the thunder thereafter! 

3) SHADES Forever- 'Sunglasses' is the apt and self-explanatory term- it means a cover for the eyes when one is in the Sun. Though shades are more of a fashion statement than a protection medium now. They look cool no doubt, but it gets preposterous when people start wearing them on anything and everything, even indoors, and at all times of day and night! What could justify these ridiculous acts? Well there can be a few plausible reasons for people indulging in them for instance when- 
a) They are blind, in which case they genuinely need the shades at all times.
b) They are ugly, and again they need the shades to hide their horrid faces and to look better in pictures (if the world lived on facebook- they could get away with it too!)
c) They want to publicly stare at people (chicks) in which case they can clock a decent amount of time ogling at them without anyone noticing.
d) They wear cheap clothes, in which case they think that their shades,worth a few thousands, can make up for everything else.

4) Red Lipstick- Two kinds of people look good in a red lipstick- vampires and marilyn monroe! Red lipsticks look extremely horrible on most women and 
less horrible on the rest. There are a thousand names for literally the same shade of red colour- berry juicy, midnight love, cherry desirable, royal red. It's obvious they are making up this ridiculous nomenclature when they start using words like "love" and "desirable" to describe color! Technically it is either dark red or light red- both equally ludicrous. Insecure women, with boring faces, and mostly striking complexions, who wear this hokey, unreal shade of red- look nothing less than clowns- only lacking cherry on their noses to complete the ensemble.

5) Too much Perfume- Technically it isn't a visual offense, but it does completely ruin the mental image one would form of a person, whose aura is a stifling nauseating cloud of too much scent. Too much perfume on a person shows that not only does he/she not know how to wear perfume (dab it on the skin rather than spray it all over!) but also that he/she suffers from serious BO! No one likes to slam into the wall of excessive perfume perpetuated by its carrier even after he has left the place. I read a very interesting article which claimed that scientists have partially proved that depression in women causes a loss in sense of smell- thereby leading them to wear more perfume. Whether it is out of depression, stupidity, or an effort to exact some artificial pheromone reaction from others, too much perfume is a complete turn-off; a human repellent- that needs to be controlled!

THE ENGLISH THAT OX4D DOES NOT TEACH !

I recently received a comment for my post, it read- "SMH, TMI !" It was too cryptic for my grey cells, so I googled it. As it turns out, it means- Shaking my head, too much information.


I read in school that grammar evolves continuously, and adapts to the accepted usage of every generation. The purists accept these contemporary changes, however these take few years to be effected. But the English that I refer to here is not the grammar we learnt in school, or the vocabulary we read in our books, but the hip-happening turn of phrase that we hear, read and type everyday. It is different from the colloquial language spoken by the natives, it's the universal hip language, spoken by people, generally miles away from the native land. It is the latest fad, evolving faster than the Apple app innovations, and spreading like wildfire.
If you aren't in touch with this cool intertext lingo, you are so out of the 'game'. And it's not just written, it's spoken too. The more fluent you are with these words, the "cooler" you are. If you don't hang with the cool kids, you can always go back to twitter, facebook, tabloids and the spam of some texts and mails to get your daily dose of slangs. Also insightful in this regard can be sitcoms like 90210, gossip girl, entourage and so on. 

                                                            


Here are some of the 'cool' slangs that I came across -
A3- anytime, anywhere, anyplace
It's sick- It's awesome (contrast is in)
The Shit- The best or the the greatest (same principle as above)
Ma- My ; Ya- You  ( I may not dance like Jamaicans but I can copy their accent! )
FUGLY- extremely ugly (like they used in the movie)
Postmodem Depression- when u stay away from the internet for a long time (like several minutes)
UNSULT- insult given as a compliment (invented by The Simpsons)
Sinlaws- parents of the live-in boyfriend/girlfriend (they are a reality now)
What's The Beef- what's the problem (sounds more fun)
MIA - missing in action
PTA- pain in the ass
FTW- f*** the world (I don't give a damn, how cool is that)
JK- just kidding
STFU- shut the f*** up
AFAIK- as far as I know (now sent in official mails)
XOXO- hugs and kisses (courtesy: gossip girl)
DKDC- don't know don't care
ADOD- another day another dollar
FML -   f*** my life
KISS-   keep it short and simple (seems to be the bottomline of it all )


Every decade has its own slangs, but the intertext slang is the fastest growing cult, it's catching up everywhere. It's shorter, faster, and as I mentioned 'cooler'. People are using it not only in chat boxes and texts, but in official-unofficial mails, letters, and in day to day conversations. It would not be uncanny to imagine that some day this lingo might even take over English as we know it, turning our Oxford Dictionary into an Ox4d one !