Four ‘mapillais’ come up with an online compendium of the desi-isms that never make it to regular dictionaries Peter, as any practising Tamilian would know, is not merely a Western name. On the parochial streets of Chennai, it is almost an insult. Here, adolescent boys and girls like to cheekily admonish unsuspecting men who converse in English, saying, "Oh, don't be such a Peter". If the culprit is a woman, she is called Mary, of course. These, and other gems from Chennai's colloquial glossary, such as porki (an unrefined slothful being), America mapillai (an eligible Tamil bachelor who works abroad) and paavum (pitiable one), are now spreading their linguistic wings beyond South India. At least that's what Samosapedia, a fast-growing online dictionary of South Asian neologisms, would like them to do.
This quirky new website calls itself the definitive guide to South Asian lingo and currently boasts around 2, 800 terms that can at best be defined as kitschy.