Have you been bangalored recently?

I listened to an interesting programme of BBC Radio 4 this morning in which there was discussion of some of the new words that have entered the English language recently. One such word is the verb to be bangalored, which is defined on WiseGeek as follows: “To be Bangalored is to be unceremoniously replaced when one’s job is sent overseas.” Bangalore (ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು), the capital of Karnataka State in southern India, is one of the centres of outsourcing.

Another example of a place name being used like this is the expression ‘to be shanghaied’, which Wikipedia defines as ‘the practice of kidnapping men to serve as sailors by coercive techniques such as trickery, intimidation, or violence. Those engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as crimps.’ The verb ‘to shanghai’ was used from the 1850s and was a result of Shanghai being a common destination for ships with shanghaied crews.

On the programme they commented that there aren’t many place names that are used in this way. Can you think of any others, in English or other languages?

If your home town / current place of residence were to be used as a verb, what kind of action might it describe?

What could ‘to bangor’ or ‘to be bangored’ mean, I wonder? The latter might refer to the state one achieves after imbibing too many intoxicating beverages – e.g. he was completed bangored last night.

I will be londoning (visiting London) this weekend, and then rebangoring (returning to Bangor).

4 thoughts on “Have you been bangalored recently?

  1. In recent years my town has been the home of a failed bomber, home to an underground Brazilian canary fighting ring, home of a man caught doing unspeakable things to a cow, and home of a highschool kid kicked out of the prom for asking his date to go with him by hanging a huge mural on the side of the school. And those are just the things that have made national news. So…I’m not even going to speculate what the verb might mean.

  2. In recent years my town… Would that be Ashland, Massachusetts?

    Anyway, I’m not sure how generally in this way is to be taken. Does it have to be about things that happen to people? If not, then japan would probably qualify.

    As for my home town, I fear that marseilled is in danger of coming to mean murdered with a kalashnikov, but fortunately only drug traffickers seem to get marseilled at present. Ordinary people are not affected.

  3. Are you aware Simon that you can get bangored in France too, as there is a village called Bangor on the isle of Belle-Île in Brittany ?

  4. michel147 – I didn’t known that. There are a few other Bangors around the world – in County Down in Northern Ireland and in Maine in the USA, for example.

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