Farrago
This rather formal word is pronounced ‘fe-RAA-go’ with the stress on the second syllable.
The word ‘farrago’ is normally used with things to show disapproval. A few weeks ago, many on social media were talking about this word thanks to Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor’s tweet. When a news channel did an expose on him, Tharoor wrote: “Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies...”
When someone says that an article is a farrago of lies and half-truths, s/he is suggesting it is an odd or even confusing mixture of the two.
The word comes from the Latin ‘far’ meaning ‘grain’; the word was originally used to refer to ‘fixed fodder’— mixture of grains used to feed cattle. Strange isn’t it? Two tweets from Tharoor that received considerable attention were related to cattle — ‘cattle class’ and ‘farrago’. Nowadays, the word is used to suggest ‘assortment’ or ‘medley’ — things put together in a haphazard manner.
- As expected, the Minister told the police a farrago of lies. - ‘Either way, it's a farrago of highly dubious nonsense.’
