Building your vocabulary through The Hindu Word#2 of the day: Consonance Word#3 of the day: Barb Word#4 of the day: Crack the whip ‘While chiding Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi for making speeches that were “not in consonance” with the letter and spirit of the Model Code of Conduct, and serving notice to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi for his barbs about the election symbol of the Congress, the hand, the EC seems to have been overly conscious of this need to not only crack the whip against politicians, but also seem even-handed between the ruling coalition and the main opposition party in its monitoring of the elections and electioneering.’ [The sentence given above has been taken from The Hindu (dated: Nov 16, 2013)] 2. ‘Consonance’ means agreement. It can also mean a combination of musical notes that are pleasing to ears. The word might be confused with ‘console’ as they have a similar spelling. Console means to give comfort or sympathy to someone who is feeling low. 3. ‘Barb’ is a remark that is made to hurt someone’s sentiments. A sharp projection extending backward (as from the point in an arrow) and preventing easy extraction is also called barb. One can easily remember the word by relating it to ‘barb wire’. Barb wire is one which is constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strand(s). Another word worth knowing is ‘Barbarian’, which refers to someone who is uncivilized and wild. Those who have read the Shiva trilogy would have immediately related to the word. In the first book of the trilogy, the character Shiva was repeatedly called a barbarian by the Chandravanshis. 4. ‘Crack the whip’ is an idiom which means to use authority or power to make somebody work hard by treating them in a strict way. Another idiom which might appear to be related to it is ‘crack down (on someone or something)’. It means to take strong action to prevent someone from doing something bad. For example: The university is taking steps to crack down on underage drinking on campus.
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 05:59:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015