Many elders and family friends often recited poems and passages from the writings of great authors. Living in the cosmopolitan city of Pune, in a multicultural milieu, the language was mostly English. Gone are the days when one could delight in beautiful nuances a language offered. There was simple wit, irony, double entendre, tongue in cheek understatement and delectable similes among others. One is hard pressed for that in much of literature on offer today.
With relentless march of visual media, even before COVID made TV a barely avoidable evil, dialogues seem to be the first casualty of assault on language. Films and TV are alter-egos of one another in this respect. When there was dignity in spoken language, we rejoiced in emulating famous speakers and writers. Everybody may not consider PG Wodehouse as a classicist, but one would revel in his witty turn of phrase.
There is hardly any Hollywood film today, regardless of its genre, that displays the fine taste. All that is needed is knowledge of a handful of profanities headed by the once-upon-a-time forbidden F-word and anybody can become a dialogue writer. One single word and its derivatives strive to convey a range of meanings, emotions, invective, derogatory adjectives and fill in for absence of appropriate phrase in concise dictionary at one’s disposal.
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