{"id":2880,"date":"2026-08-18T10:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T04:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anilsinghal.com\/manan\/?p=2880"},"modified":"2026-08-18T10:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T04:36:07","slug":"phrases-language-remembers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anilsinghal.com\/manan\/english\/phrases-language-remembers\/","title":{"rendered":"Phrases Language Remembers"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 6<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\n\n
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Yesterday was a quiet Sunday evening. I was free and sitting comfortably in front of the television. I was moving from one news channel to another and listening casually to different discussions. Independence Day had just passed, and many channels were still discussing different parts of the Prime Minister’s speech from the Red Fort. One unusual phrase kept coming again and again on the television screen – \u201cdimaagi Naxal.\u201d<\/strong> Different people were giving different meanings to it, but my mind did not stay with the debate. Somehow, those two words took me far back in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Almost thirty years back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 1996, I was working on the Mind chapter of a repertory. In those days, understanding words was not only about knowing their dictionary meaning. In repertory work, even a small difference between two similar words could change the meaning of a rubric. During that period, I had the opportunity to sit and discuss language with Professor Dr B. K. Kalia, Head of the Department of English. I still remember those discussions with warmth because he did not see a dictionary only as a book of meanings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would open the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> and show how a word had travelled through time. Sometimes he would point out where a word, or a particular meaning of a word, had first appeared in writing. He would show the name of the writer, the book or literary work, and even the year. I found this very interesting. A word that looked completely ordinary today had once been new. Someone had used it first, others had repeated it, and slowly it had become a part of everyday language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On that Sunday evening, while I was listening to the discussion about a new phrase on television, those old conversations with Professor Kalia suddenly returned to my mind. It was almost as if the same old dictionary was open in front of me again. Nearly thirty years had passed, but the question was still the same – how does a new word or phrase enter a language, and why do some words disappear while others stay for generations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I kept thinking, my mind travelled even further back. Perhaps this has been happening ever since human beings first started using language. Someone saw something, felt something, feared something, or noticed a behaviour again and again. Then someone found a word for it. Once a name was given, it became easier to explain that experience to another person. Slowly, an observation became a word, and that word became part of shared human memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medicine gives us many beautiful examples of this process. Long before modern scans, laboratory tests, and advanced investigations, doctors observed patients very carefully. They noticed that some symptoms often appeared together. At first, these may have looked like separate problems, but slowly a doctor recognised a pattern. That pattern was then described, discussed, taught, and finally given a name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People must have suffered from what we now call Parkinson’s disease long before James Parkinson described its typical pattern. In the same way, people with memory loss and other changes linked with Alzheimer’s disease existed before Alois Alzheimer studied and described the condition. The disease did not begin when it received a name. It was already there. The name simply made it easier for doctors to recognise, discuss, and remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anatomy tells a similar story. The special circle of arteries at the base of the brain had existed in human beings for thousands of years, but later medical students came to know it as the Circle of Willis<\/strong>. The structure did not begin with Thomas Willis. It was already present in the human body. His description helped people understand it clearly, and his name became connected with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then my thoughts naturally went towards Hahnemann. Words like vital force<\/strong> and vital principle<\/strong> are so deeply connected with homeopathic philosophy that a homeopathic physician immediately enters a certain world of thought on hearing them. These words existed before Hahnemann in one form or another, but within his system they received a special place and meaning. Even more importantly, the word homeopathy<\/strong> gave an identity to a new system of medicine and then travelled into many languages across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This made me think that people do not always create the thing itself. Sometimes they simply find the right words to describe what is already there. An idea may already exist in a scattered form, but once it receives a clear and memorable name, it becomes easier for many people to understand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History and literature show the same process again and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A ship called Titanic<\/em> sank more than a hundred years ago. Yet its name did not remain only in history books. Slowly, it became a symbol. Even today, if someone describes an organisation or situation as a \u201csinking Titanic,\u201d people understand that something large and impressive may be moving towards disaster. A real event became a metaphor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literature has also given new life to many words and phrases. George Orwell’s Big Brother<\/strong> began inside a novel, but later it became a common expression for excessive watching and control. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22<\/strong> gave people a short and memorable way to describe a situation where every option leads back to the same problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The word Godfather<\/strong> is another interesting example. It was a very old word with a completely different original meaning. But Mario Puzo’s novel and the famous film that followed gave it a new cultural identity. Slowly, the word began to be used not only for a character in a criminal family, but also for a very powerful or founding person in any field. The old word remained, but a new meaning grew around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political language also changes in the same way. The phrase fake news<\/strong> existed long before Donald Trump, but his repeated use of it gave the phrase great new energy. Suddenly, two simple words were being spoken across countries, repeated in newspapers, television debates, and everyday conversation. People could agree or disagree with how the phrase was used, but from the point of view of language, it was interesting to see how an old phrase could gain a new life in a new time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then came 15 August 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the phrase \u201cdimaagi Naxal.\u201d<\/strong> By the next evening, television channels were discussing it again and again. Some were explaining it, some were interpreting it, and some were questioning what exactly it meant. I sat quietly in front of the television and realised that I was less interested in taking any side. I was more interested in a much older question – was I watching the beginning of another phrase’s journey?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would this phrase remain connected only with one speech? Would people forget it after a few months? Would it become a part of political language? Would its meaning become wider, narrower, or completely different with time? Nobody can answer these questions today, and perhaps there is no need to answer them now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language does not make these decisions in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps this was the real lesson Professor Kalia had shown me almost thirty years ago. A dictionary does not give life to a word. It comes much later and records how people have already spoken, written, repeated, changed, and understood that word. First, a writer writes. A doctor observes. A thinker gives shape to an idea. An event happens. People begin using a word or phrase. Then time slowly decides whether it will continue or disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found that idea beautiful then, and I still find it beautiful today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language is not like a closed room where every word is kept forever in one fixed place. It is more like a flowing river. Old words continue to travel in it, new words keep joining it, some disappear on the way, some change their meaning, and some travel so far that people forget that they were once new.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps there is something comforting in this too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every generation feels that language is changing very fast. New words can sound strange at first, and new phrases can create discussion. But earlier generations must have felt the same way. Many words that sound completely normal to us today were once new and unfamiliar. Language stays alive because it keeps changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not every new word survives. Most spoken expressions disappear with time. But sometimes a word or phrase captures an experience so clearly that people begin to use it naturally. It moves from one person to another, enters books and newspapers, crosses generations, and one day becomes so common that nobody stops to ask who first used it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Sunday evening, one small phrase on television took me from the Red Fort to an old room almost thirty years back. From there, my thoughts moved through doctors, anatomists, thinkers, novelists, ships, and different moments in history. It reminded me that words carry much more than meaning. They also carry human observation, imagination, experience, and memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps future generations will freely use some expressions that sound new to us today. New experiences will continue to search for new words, and old words will continue to receive new meanings. This is the journey of language, and perhaps this is also its beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We observe, we understand, we name, and we remember. Time quietly decides what will stay, and sometimes the words of one person slowly become a part of the language of everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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