A word as odd as odd, please?

Being a copywriter is fun. But more often than not, it’s a huge responsibility. Wordsmith that you are expected to be (and ideally, should be!) people think you must know every big word, every big phrase.

So it is only natural that I often have to serve as a translation dictionary when the technical team has to shoot a diplomatic mail, to a client frazzled by a technical snag in an application, thanks to a fickle-minded briefing by the client himself.

So, one such day P screams from his cubicle, ‘I want a word’

‘Shoot’ say I

‘How do I say that something is acting odd? One word please’

‘Odd is good enough’ I call back lazily

P gets up and says, ‘I have used that in so many mails. Something new, please.’

At this there is a chuckle from every corner of the office and all the guys are interested.

I roll my eyes and say, ‘How about strange?’

And then I go on to make many suggestions, all of which P rejects, ‘Weird, peculiar, queer, abnormal, funny, curious…’ nothing works.

‘What exactly do you want’ I ask, my own vocabulary exhausted along with MS Word synonyms and thesaurus.com.

‘I want something…something which conveys…well, you know, its acts odd, in the sense you never know how it will in the future.’, says P struggling to make me understand.

‘Unpredictable, you mean?’ I ask

‘Yes! But that’s not the word I want!’ he laughs, seeing my pained expression.

At this the Account Executive guy R says, ‘From the sound of it, the word you are searching for might as well be ‘Woman’’

The guys love digs of these kind and they all burst out laughing, patting R on his back.

Though the comparison tickles me, I put on a fake frown and say, ‘R, your comparisons are bizarre!’

‘Eureka! Bizarre, now that’s one word I have never used in any mail to a client. Thank you!’ P almost does a jig and I hear him typing away on his laptop.

I sit there with my mouth slightly open wondering what’s more bizarre, R’s comparison or the use of the word itself to describe a small technical glitch.

PS: Don’t’ ask me what happened to the mail or what the client’s response to it was. There was no brouhaha around it later, so I guess the client bought the ‘bizarre’ claim. ;)

Happy New Year folks!