Of Slumdog, Dictionary and Millionaires
Having studied in a Marathi medium school, I have retained the habit of looking up every new word in dictionary.
This occasionally throws up surprise. In the company where I work, they decided that performance of various departments will not be reviewed every quarter [three months], but it will be done once in four months. Somebody then said ‘we will have trimesterly reviews’. The word gained currency, and everybody was using the word trimester to mean ‘once in four months’. Trimester was understood to divide the year in three parts!
Out of curiosity and old habit I looked up dictionary that said quarter of a year and trimester is same! [Actually Tri = Three, mester = Month]. Such was the conviction within the company that the word meant one-third of the year that I won six bottles of beer by taking bets.
So this time it was the turn of Slumdog. Very few could explain to me what exactly it meant.
I consulted Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com. No answer, they do not know.
So gave a search ‘What does Slumdog mean?’ on Ask.com
Here are the two answers.
1. It means a very poor person who lives in a slight place. [on Yahoo!]
2. This one is mathematical, [on Wiki,answers.com]
‘Underdog from slum…….. Slum + underdog = Slumdog!!!’
There are a million slums here and also a million slumdogs! Come over to Bharat [India to Indians] and meet them. It may just be as rewarding as earning millions!!
Cheers!!
Vivek
The mathematical addition does seem plausible !
🙂
both the meanings will do well…and i read in an english daily….slumkutta…what d’you say about the translation.
Thanks Kavi.
And thanks Jyosana. ‘Slumkutta’ is a very interesting translation of Slumdog.
Vivek
Six beers for looking up the dictionary. That’s interesting. Let me also do so and see how many wines it can fetch. Your curiosity is mind boggling right from looking at the dictionary to surfing the various sites in the net.
Nice photograph of a rainbow. Its difficult to capture one on film. Is it Lakshadweep where the photo has been taken?
Govindraj Umarji
I knew about trimesters (from my motherhood experience of three trimesters in a nine-month pregnancy period).
Slumdog is an interesting, if rather insulting, portmanteau word (like breakfast+lunch = brunch)
@Radgovin
Thanks
I took the snap at Barbados, the country of Gary Sobers, Malcolm Marshal, Joey Garner.
@Sucharita
“portmanteau” that’s a new word, I am going to consult dictionary now.
Vivek
First thing I thought of with Trimester was pregnancy. How funny to think of a company consider verbiage of birth for reviews.
I still rememebr dictionry by Virkar
Slumdog means nothing but galli ka kutta.
So the title literally was meant to signify that a ‘galli ka kutta ban gaya crorepati’
Slumdog Millionaire in reference to Indians translates to Gali ka Kutta Crorepati. Did you hear about INDIANS AND DOGS NOT ALLOWED? I agree with Pushkar.