Roots
Urban jargon
Deepti

The urban jungle has today become more literal than metaphorical with the recent discovery of certain plant and animal species that prefer the city to the jungle. And now, comes another neologism for urbanites: megalopolis. This is a term coined by geographer Jean Gottman to identify the sprawling Boston-New York-Washington economic power corridor. The word grew and now it stands for any region that has grown more than the country it is located in; for example, the region stretching from Bangalore to Hyderabad. Neologisms are not just possible entries in the dictionary; the coinages that figure here today hold the mirror to urban life.

An ‘urban tribe’ is a group of city dwellers who have formed a bond through a common interest, such as work or a social or recreational activity. Keeping the landscape in mind, that activity could be ‘parkour’, a sport in which participants run, climb and leap over urban structures. In 2005, parkour developed in the suburbs of Paris when sneaker-clad teenagers began navigating public spaces with or without the skateboard.

‘Parkour’ comes from the word parcours, which is French for ‘circuit’. The sport soon reached England, from where it travelled to Finland and Singapore. A person who practises the sport is called a ‘parkourist’ or a ‘traceur’. These urban athletes borrow moves from gymnastics and martial arts to tear through urban landscapes using obstacles like walls, ledges and stairs as springboards and catapults.

Another interesting one is the sport of retro running. Ron Austin, a fitness instructor from Kentucky, created this one when he was grounded because of a hamstring injury. One afternoon at the running track, he found that he could keep pace with his wife’s slower jogging if he ran backward and on doing so, he discovered that the retrograde motion was less painful than a forward spring. Thus, another neologism was created.

‘Sightjogging’ is the invention of Carolina Gasparetto, who has teamed her love of Rome with her job as a personal trainer by combining the activities of jogging and sightseeing. She takes tourists sightseeing by guiding them through a jogging tour of Rome.