superseded : to replace in power, authority, effectiveness, acceptance, use, etc., as by another person or thing.
2.     to set aside or cause to be set aside as void, useless, or obsolete, usually in favor of something mentioned; make obsolete: They superseded the old statute with a new one.
3.     to succeed to the position, function, office, etc., of; supplant.

contentiousness: 1. tending to argument or strife; quarrelsome: a contentious crew.
2. causing, involving, or characterized by argument or controversy: contentious issues.

a central and contentious element of the book

sundry : 1.  various or diverse: sundry persons.
—Idiom
2.   all and sundry, everybody, collectively and individually: Free samples were given to all and sundry.

slap on the wrist: relatively mild criticism or censure: He got away with a slap on the wrist.

vital: of or pertaining to life: vital processes.
2.     having remarkable energy, liveliness, or force of personality: a vital leader.
3.     being the seat or source of life: the vital organs.
4.     necessary to life: vital fluids.

counsel: to give advice to; advise.

to urge the adoption of, as a course of action; recommend (a plan, policy, etc.): He counseled patience during the crisis.

Quaint : having an old-fashioned attractiveness or charm; oddly picturesque: a quaint old house.
2. strange, peculiar, or unusual in an interesting, pleasing, or amusing way: a quaint sense of humor.

curious, uncommin, aquainted

Doppelganger: a ghostly double or counterpart of a living person./ twin

disingenuous: lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically ingenuous; insincere: Her excuse was rather disingenuous.

Ludicrous: causing laughter because of absurdity; provoking or deserving derision; ridiculous; laughable: a ludicrous lack of efficiency.

Frumpy: 1.A girl or woman regarded as dull, plain, or unfashionable.
2.A person regarded as colorless and primly sedate.

Why do designers think that women above 40 are allowed to wear only ugly frumpy dresses?

Besmear: 1. to smear all over; bedaub.
2. to sully; defile; soil: to besmear someone’s reputation.

Fawn: –noun
1.     a young deer, esp. an unweaned one.
2.     a light yellowish-brown color.
–verb (used without object)
1.     to seek notice or favor by servile demeanor: The courtiers fawned over the king.
2.     (of a dog) to behave affectionately.

Synonyms: These verbs mean to curry favor by behaving obsequiously and submissively: fawned on her superior; students apple-polishing the teacher; bootlicked to get a promotion; lawyers kowtowing to a judge; slavered over his rich uncle; toadying to members of the club; nobles truckling to the king.

Stifle: to quell, crush, or end by force: to stifle a revolt; to stifle free expression, stifled laughter or stifled laugh
to suffer from difficulty in breathing, as in a close atmosphere./ to become stifled or suffocated.
To keep in or hold back; repress: stifled my indignation

opinion-size-age-shape-colour-material-origin-purpose

The American , pink, large car. (wrong)
The large, pink, American car (correct)
The boring old Chemistry (purpose) teacher

How many people know the deep, dark secrets of malls at 9 a.m. in the morning? Not many, except benighted early birds!

Summon: to call or notify to appear at a specified place, esp. before a court: to summon a defendant.
2. to authorize or order a gathering of; call together by authority, as for deliberation or action: to summon parliament.
3. to call into action; rouse; call forth (often. fol. by up): to summon all one’s courage.

My husband summoned a sheepish smile.

Skidded: an unexpected or uncontrollable sliding on a smooth surface by something not rotating, esp. an oblique or wavering veering by a vehicle or its tires: The bus went into a skid on the icy road.

to check the motion of with a skid: She skidded her skates to a stop.

We set off again, skidding to a halt outside our favourite mall before nine.

on the skids, Slang. in the process of decline or deterioration: His career is on the skids.
put the skids under, Informal. to bring about the downfall of; cause to fail: Lack of money put the skids under our plans.
the skids, Informal. the downward path to ruin, poverty, or depravity: After losing his job he began to hit the skids.

blearily: (of the eyes or sight) blurred or dimmed, as from sleep or weariness.
indistinct; unclear: The day begins with a bleary view of one’s world.
fatigued; worn-out.

I peer blearily at the clock. It is 4.30 a.m. Bleary eyes.

dynamic: pertaining to or characterized by energy or effective action; vigorously active or forceful; energetic: the dynamic president of the firm.

–adjective Grammar.
(of a verb) expressing an action or process, as run or grow, and able to be used in either simple or progressive tenses: I run every day. I am running home now.

But who can reason with my dynamic better half?

My next door neighbors caterwaul most nights of the week.

Ooze: (of moisture, liquid, etc.) to flow, percolate, or exude slowly, as through holes or small openings.
2.     to move or pass slowly or gradually, as if through a small opening or passage: The crowd oozed toward the entrance.
3.     (of a substance) to exude moisture.
4.     (of something abstract, as information or courage) to appear or disappear slowly or imperceptibly (often fol. by out or away): His cockiness oozed away during my rebuttal speech.
5.     to display some characteristic or quality: to ooze with piety.

6. to disappear: His courage oozed away.

Discerning: Showing good or outstanding judgment and understanding: a discerning critic of French poetry.

to distinguish mentally; recognize as distinct or different; discriminate: He is incapable of discerning right from wrong.

Roulette : a game of chance played at a table marked off with numbers from 1 to 36, one or two zeros, and several other sections affording the players a variety of betting opportunities, and having in the center a revolving, dishlike device (roulette wheel) into which a small ball is spun to come to rest finally in one of the 37 or 38 compartments, indicating the winning number and its characteristics, as odd or even, red or black, and between 1 and 18 or 19 and 36.

to mark, impress, or perforate with a roulette. Retail roulette: Who has the best DJ Hero pre-order bonus?

Gorge: to stuff with food (usually used reflexively or passively): He gorged himself. They were gorged.
to swallow, esp. greedily.
to choke up (usually used passively).

The boys gorged themselves with chocolates.

He projected such a calm face despite his turbid feelings

Farce: a light, humorous play in which the plot depends upon a skillfully exploited situation rather than upon the development of character.
foolish show; mockery; a ridiculous sham.

The fixed election was a farce.

Tress: long locks or curls of hair/ braid

Rinny is blessed with beautiful naural tresses.

Mayhem: random or deliberate violence or damage/ chaos
a state of rowdy disorder: Antagonisms between the various factions at the meeting finally boiled over, and mayhem ensued.

The little women in the crowd was outraged by the mayhem.

Snail’s pace: an extremely slow rate

The work progresses at a snail’s pace.

• 82% of Indian men and women feel they have sufficient information to enjoy their sex lives to the full, and enjoy their sexual well being
• 52% say there’s ‘enough’ advice and information on sex
• 59% Indians rely on friends for sexual knowledge
• 58% get their information from magazines
• 60% of those who’ve had sex education, get it from the internet
• 43% of those who get sex education received it at school
• Only 18% say they were guided by parents
• Those who received sex education at school, 30% said that they didn’t learn anything about the emotional aspects of sex like love and respect
• 41% of Indians feel their formal sex education has missed
  out on the most

Now, dude, I gotta problem here. The percentage that they have stated depends on the kind of sample size they must have come across.

If you are living in the capital city of the country, you wouldn’t be surprised if a prying-khadi clad journalist comes up to you and shoots you with his inane questions.

“Do you think you have sufficient information to enjoy your sex lives to the fullest?”

“What?”

“We are conducting a survey to find out the sexual well beings of the Indians we if you could please lend us 2 minutes of your precious time?”

“OH!” You look at your spouse with your pleading eyes to get the approval.

And there you go. The reporters repeat the process with a few more people around and then they come up with these results.

It makes me feel sad that our newspapers and news channels are getting transformed to masala material. We open the newspapers and all we come across are the setamiest news on the front page that will include murders, rape cases, scams etc. Where we thought that Hindustan Times was still better than Times of India, we had been proved wrong. Both the news papers are in neck- tight competition with each other. If one publishes poppycock stuff, the other one wants to take a step further. After all, it’s all about the business, baby.In the end, every day people end up reading one bosh stuff after other.

Newspapers such as the Hindu end up making less sales. Why? They lack the real tang such as page 3 coverage and  umpteen lingerie ads.

Such is the world. I don’t know where are we heading to. Betterment or deterioration?

Rohan got a tattoo of incubus bird on his arm.

Precipitous- steep/ rainy

We had to climb a precipitous mountain during our trek.

Paroxysm: A violent fit/ grinding one’s teeth

Sid had a paroxysmal pain in his ankle while playing football; a paroxysm of laughter.

Rune: script used for writing the Germanic languages, esp. of Scandinavia and Britain, from c200 to c1200, or a script used for inscriptions in a Turkic language of the 6th to 8th centuries from the area near the Orkhon River in Mongolia.

ancient alphabet/ an aphorism, poem, or saying with mystical meaning or for use in casting a spell.

The jelling stones are the rune stones carved in the 10th century.

Several runic inscriptions say simply ‘kiss me!’

Nepenthe: a drug or drink, or the plant yielding it, mentioned by ancient writers as having the power to bring forgetfulness of sorrow or trouble.

anything inducing a pleasurable sensation of forgetfulness, esp. of sorrow or trouble.

We had to give her nephthe to help her overcome her father’s death.