Not very long ago, a tweet by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor took the internet by storm. In a response to Republic TV editor Arnab Goswami, Tharoor used the phrase “Exasperating farrago of distortions” which quickly morphed into a number of memes.
It is undeniable of course that Tharoor is a very well-spoken person, whose vocabulary in day-to-day life could make you pick up a dictionary to understand what he is saying.
And recently something very similar happened, except that what Tharoor tweeted weren’t real words. Indeed, like many of us, Tharoor too became the victim of the autocorrect feature.
Speaking about the controversy surrounding the upcoming film Padmavati which stars Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor and Ranveer Singh, Tharoor tweeted “Education more important thang Hoog hats”.
Agree totally. The #Padmavati controversy is an opportunity to focus on the conditions of Rajasthani women today ¬ just of queens six centuries ago. Rajasthan’s female literacy among lowest. Education more important thang Hoog hats https://t.co/82rvGmkfwO
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) November 13, 2017
He was responding to another tweet where a woman who pointed out that Rajput women should be offended about the fact that their state “is at the bottom on women's conditions education, health, child mortality etc.” instead of protesting against the songs and dream sequences in the film.
While Shashi Tharoor clarified in a later tweet that “thang hoog hats” was meant to be “than ghoonghats”, people had already started looking up the former phrase, thinking it would add to their vocabulary.
Just realised that dreaded autocorrect has changed “than goonghats” to “ thang hoong hats”. Apologies. When I hit “tweet” I was still seeing the correct words I’d typed https://t.co/aQzEGfBuJq
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) November 13, 2017
The fact that even Google did not come up with coherent search results was no deterrent to them, for they kept looking for the meaning (some claimed they had spent half an hour on it!) until Tharoor clarified that it was a mistake, and was just “dreaded autocorrect”.
Check out some of the tweets here:
I googled the words n was trying to make sense out of them
— Saket Aloni (@SaketAloni) November 13, 2017
Hoong : Boy's name meaning, origin, and popularity
Thang: non-standard spelling of thing representing Southern US pronunciation, typically used to denote a feeling or tendency.
Hahaha! You do realize everyone's gonna start looking for the word "thang hoong hats" :)
— riddhi singh (@riddhineeta) November 13, 2017
Started looking up for thang* ,just because you'd tweet ! Haha.
— Anushree Arun (@anushreearun13) November 13, 2017
kya Sir, googling this word since half an hour. I thought its another farrago like word.
— Thoda Aur Dede (@0FFICE0FPAPPU) November 13, 2017
Sorry, he meant "thang hoog hats". It's not rocket science. It's farrago.
— TheOddfather101 (@TheOddfather101) November 13, 2017
And i thought 'thang hoog hats' is code word/secret message for some woman to call her about education in Leelavati palace. https://t.co/NoOo9flWlf
— NATIONALIST JOKER (@EkAkeleSbkoPele) November 13, 2017
Will Thang hoog hats break the internetz today? Will it displace covfefe?
— Kiran Manral (@KiranManral) November 13, 2017
*thang hoog hats*
— मङ्गलम् (@veejaysai) November 13, 2017
Half the country has already run through every possible dictionary maybe! https://t.co/UopLheZLvo
Thanks to his 'thang Hoog hats,' we now know that the redoubtable @ShashiTharoor too is fallible.
— (@rajubarthakur) November 14, 2017
And there we were, thinking you were teaching us some new English words
— sanjana singh (@princesssiggy) November 13, 2017
Earlier in March, after Tharoor’s tweet about “Exasperating farrago of distortions”, Google had been exploding with searches for the word ‘farrago’. There were many more funny reactions and memes about the tweet. Check them out here.