The bear goes to the White House

Tall and handsome, Obama is orally awesome. He would take the world, not with the missile launcher but with the teleprompter. He holds us spellbound, but his forebears really confound. Obama mixes ‘forebears’ with ‘forbearers’ and mashes them in his mouth. Replay his inaugural address, and you still won’t know whether he uttered the first word or the second. He slurred the last syllable, leaving the word indistinct.

He meant forebears, no doubt, but forbearers barged unchallenged into many newspapers. Editors offered no resistance, even at The New York Times and The Washington Post. The campaign web site barackobama.com posted the text as prepared for delivery. It had forbearers. The White House went by forebears a full day late.

Forbearers are people who forbear; they show restraint. Forebears are ancestors. If my forebears had shown some physical restraint I wouldn’t be around. If these F words were interchangeable, ‘forgerers’ would pass off as forgers. And 'fatherers' would stomp around as fathers. Sniff at the roots: forbearer comes from Old English ‘forberan’, meaning to endure. Forebear evolved from ‘fore be-er’, one who existed before.

Everyone is familiar with the prefix fore. It occurs in foreskin and foreplay, which women complain doesn’t occur often enough. After-play never occurs at all: forspent, the male flops over and conks out. To forego is to go or come before, to forgo is to do without. One may forgo sex and be a celibate, but desire doesn’t abate even if one deigns to ‘urbate’ the mast.

Obama had mauled forebears twice in the past: first in his Audacity of Hope address in 2004, and then in his Call to Renewal address in 2006. He uttered forbearers — distinctly. There is no slurring in the videos. Fault not his speechwriter Jon Favreau: he joined Obama after 2004. Favreau is a dab hand, which was last seen fondling the right breast of a Hillary Clinton cutout. Fowler, the usage martinet, would howl fouler if he saw this slip in the presidential address: “…there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.”

Bear descended from the word ‘beron’, meaning one that is brown—he now occupies 10 Downing Street. Blair has retired to his lair. Obama distrusts the Kremlin. The Russian word for bear is ‘medved’, honey-eater: ‘medu’ means honey, and ‘ed’ to eat. Medvedev, the president, is son of a bear. ‘Medu’ tastes the same in Sanskrit ‘madhu’. Ed is short for editor and erectile dysfunction, which these days are one and the same. A cure for the condition lies with Ursula Andress, whose first name means little bear, Ursa Minor. People saw stars when they saw her. Andress was more exciting than any presidential address. She played Honey Ryder in the film Dr. No in a bikini and won a Golden Globe. Unlike poles, like globes attract.


The I&B ministry repels. It released an ad in the papers on January 26: “Indian Republic Turns 60.” You turn 60 when you complete 60 years. The republic has a year more to go for that. No Hindu rate of growth for the misinformation ministry. It craves the rabbit rate.

Obama said his father might not have been served in a restaurant 60 years ago. Bearers in India would have welcomed him. Bearers work only in Indian restaurants. Others employ waiters. I am not cribbing. To crib is to copy at an exam or plagiarise somebody’s work. A baby sleeps in a crib, a cow eats from a crib, a prostitute may work in a seedy room called crib. Cribbing about others is an Indian thing. Others carp, crab, gripe, grouse or grumble. Our cribbing doesn’t exist in many English dictionaries.

India can offer the 44th American president new turns of phrases. Our cricket fans, who float ‘sixers’, would dub him Forty-Fourer. So help him God.

*This article appeared in the Indian news magazine The Week (www.the-week.com) in February 2009.