Who is the real hero/protagonist in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien? — Although J.R.R. Tolkien did not expressly identify a protagonist for his trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, I do believe a character towers over everyone else in the book and can be said to be the overarching protagonist. Read on to know I am referring to whom. According to Merriam-Webster…

If you encounter a big, bad wolf what would you scream? — ‘A big, bad wolf!’ But why not ‘A bad, big wolf’? This is because of a convention called ‘ablaut reduplication.’ ‘Reduplication’ refers to the repeating of a word or pairing of a word with a similar sounding word. …

As I stepped into the hallowed grounds of the college hostel where I had stayed for 3 years when studying for my under graduation since 20 years before, I thought that it had not changed one bit. The hostel comprised many U-shaped blocks of 3 stories spread across a vast…

Origin, evolution, and metamorphosis of language and its weaponization in the corporate world “We’re facing challenges in organizing the client deliverable,” my manager chanted in a flat and unemotional tone. He threw his arms out as if to figuratively demonstrate the extent of the “challenges.” He made his message clear…

The literati shouldn’t be apologetic about prose for prose too, like poetry, can string the best words in the best order As darkness threatened to take the dale under its downy plumes anytime, I sat on the easy chair in my portico looking at the sylvan glade whose lush green…

Etymology reveals why the word ‘literally’ is so annoying (among other things) — Etymology studies the history of words by tracing their evolution from the earliest occurrences and their transmissions across languages and by analyzing their components and cognates. At first glance, etymology appears a dreary science practiced by bespectacled, doleful etymologists in dingy, stifling rooms, burying their erudite heads into dusty books…

A clique of classic macroeconomic binaries — boom vs. recession, supply vs. demand, expansion vs. contraction –, substantiated by COVID-19, clouds the inflation-deflation outlook — Executive summary India recorded a -3.21% WPI in May raising the specter of deflation and demanding the attention of the policy makers The macroeconomic outlook appears nebulous in light of COVID-19 and its first- and second-order effects

All vocations suffer an identity crisis some time, but the editorial profession today suffers it in its own way. An identity-challenged editor, at a publisher or a newspaper, can be forgiven his waxing confusion over the waning clarity in professional boundaries. He often ruminates and asks himself, “Who am I…

Sheds a glassy tear, grass blade bent by dangling dew and lashes back — all still. One dewdrop on a grass blade; within one, many tiny drops of dew. Ladybug loiters on the sheath; which blade of grass to take, it knows not! Ferns, vines, shoots, creepers. Sunlight sparkles on zephyr. Serpent…