Links

1. Vikas Gupta: 13 interesting political wall posters from JNU campus [season 2009, monsoon semester].

2. Ben Zimmer in NYTimes: How Fail Went From Verb to Interjection.

   Time was, fail was simply a verb that denoted being unsuccessful or falling short of expectations. It made occasional forays into nounhood, in fixed expressions like without fail and no-fail. That all started to change in certain online subcultures about six years ago. In July 2003, a contributor to Urbandictionary.com noted that fail could be used as an interjection “when one disapproves of something,” giving the example: “You actually bought that? FAIL.” This punchy stand-alone fail most likely originated as a shortened form of “You fail” or, more fully, “You fail it,” the taunting “game over” message in the late-’90s Japanese video game Blazing Star, notorious for its fractured English.

3. Charu Sudan Kasturi in The Telegraph: Coaching aid for minorities:

   India plans to launch free residential coaching schools to help students from minority communities, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and women crack examinations to enter civil services and other government jobs. The human resource development ministry has finalised plans to start a chain of the coaching schools and is preparing to unveil the programme as one of its 100-day achievements, top government officials have said.

4. Let's close it out with Suvrat Kher's nice catch from Jon Stewart's Daily Show: Human's Closest Relative: Chimps Or Orangs? [Video].