Not too long ago, when Meghan Markle went on to marry Prince Harry the world looked on in amazement. Now, when she has gone from a Duchess to a verb, the wonder just growsIt’s all verbal!

Mona

rom a Hollywood princess to a difficult Duchess; a go-getter, bi-racial, independent, feminist, modernist to manipulative and ‘Me Gain’, The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has been called by many names of late. But what the world wasn’t ready was to have her as a ‘verb’.

#Megxit has led to a situation so far unknown in the centuries’ old monarchy with no one having a clue on how to handle it. Trust Meghan, who at 12 challenged patriarchy by questioning a detergent brand for its sexist advertisement, to push boundaries. With as much a share of her admirers as detractors, the ‘no-more Her Highness’ is currently trending as a verb!

New coinage

‘To Meghan Markle’ is now a legitimate verb that means ‘to value yourself and your mental health enough to up and leave a room/ situation/ environment in which your authentic self is not welcomed or wanted’. So next time you feel out of place in a family gathering, feel free to Meghan Markle yourself! Here’s another way to use newly minted verb:

Where is Natasha?

Oh! She Meghan Markled herself from board members’ social do!

There’s an alternative definition of this verb too, for ‘ghosting or disposing people once you have no use or benefit from them anymore without any regard to genuine human relationships’. For example — She did a Meghan Markle on her friends as soon as she became famous!

However, certain quarters are not happy at Meghan being made a hero when she’s clearly shunned away from her responsibilities as a senior member of the royalty.

Given that social media has made celebs part and parcel of our lives like never before, many celeb moments have made it to common language use. Here are a few more:

Rahul Bose moment

# RahulBoseMoment trended big time when JW Mariott charged the actor Rs 442 for two bananas! One tweet and netizens literally went bananas – some justifying the five-star policies, others lambasting them. Have a look: ‘My Rahul Bose moment was paying 125 rupees for one masala paapad. Or ‘My Rahul Bose moment was when I paid Rs 3,000 for a hair-cut’; even better, ‘I don’t have Rahul Bose moments because they don’t pay me as much.”

I dare you

Greta Thunberg is another Meghan; it was her heavy- duty UN Climate Action Summit speech in New York that stole the limelight and ‘I dare you’ became a word of common parlance. The girl, who showed the world how to question, found support in celebs like Priyanka Chopra, who posted, “How dare we fail you… … At the end of the day, we only have this one planet. #howdareyou.” Alia Bhatt, posted, “Listen. Learn. Think. Act!! @gretathunberg.” Her support wasn’t limited to women alone, Shoojit Sricar wrote, “I wish Mahatma Gandhi or Swami Vivekananda were alive to hear your appeal… Then a U-turn was possible for climate change. We are committing a sin and we will suffer… Myself feeling helpless and shameful.”

To Pull A Kanye

The stage was big, as were the stars. At 2009 MTV Video Music Awards rapper Kanye West praised Beyonce, even as Taylor Swift won the award for best female video. Since then, it refers to interrupting someone while they are talking and then using that moment to voice your praise about someone else.

To do an Alia

This one’s rather old, but when Alia Bhatt instantly answered Prithviraj Chavan when asked on who was the President of India on Koffee with Karan, hell broke loose. ‘To do an Alia’ became an expression for anything foolish said in full public view. The ace actress did become a butt of jokes, but who had the last laugh — the bright girl with a spoof video that she did with AIB!

mona@tribunemail.com