When Republic’s Arnab Goswami accused Shashi Tharoor of being involved in Sunanda Pushkar’s death, the Congress MP struck back in true style – using the power of vocabulary.
Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations&outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalst
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 8, 2017
Such impressively verbose was his response that exasperated Indians (yes, we have also learnt this word now) forgot all about the allegations and instead were busy googling the word ‘farrago’. Needless to say, people went berserk inundating the internet with brilliant jokes and memes.
Even Tharoor trolled himself
Glad to have contributed “farrago” to the national conversation. As long as RepublicTV continues, we will need it.https://t.co/0Tcl0PXmpq
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 9, 2017
But amidst all this brouhaha, it has now come to light that the phrase ‘farrago of distortions, misrepresentations’ was not an exclusive usage.
Yes, it has been used before, by a British political journalist Mehdi Hasan in the year 2013 and Free Press Journal was the one to point out this coincidence.
When did Hasan say it?
Hasan was speaking at a debate held at the Oxford Union after the brutal murder of British Soldier Fusilier Lee Rigby’ by a Islamic fanatic in Woolwich. He was arguing for the motion “This House believes Islam is a religion of peace” and in his speech used similar sequence of words,
“An astonishing set of speeches so far making this case tonight. A mixture of just cherry-picked quotes, facts and figures, self-serving, selective… a farrago of distortions, misrepresentations, misinterpretations, misquotations….”
(Here is the whole speech, Watch from 3:01-3:07)
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