Rahul Gandhi's 'Modilie' Backfires; Publisher Of Oxford English Dictionary Calls Out Tweet

Oxford University Press, publisher of Oxford Dictionaries, replied to a tweet by Congress President Rahul Gandhi calling out his bluff that a new word "Modilie" had been included in the English dictionary.

Gandhi had tweeted on May 15, 2019 a morphed screenshot of Oxford Dictionaries' website including their logo.

The tweet, that was political satire, showed the definition and usage of the word 'Modilie' - a mashup of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surname and the word 'lie'.

The screenshot also included an ad for the Indian National Congress's 'Nyay' scheme.

A simple search on the website oxforddictionaries.com showed it was not true.

Gandhi later deleted the tweet following flak from the prime minister's supporters who tagged Oxford Dictionaries' official Twitter handle.

He again tweeted about Modilie but this time with a screenshot that did not include Oxford's name.

But Oxford University Press' handle replied to the new tweet saying it was fake and that none of its dictionaries included the word.

That reply alone has received over 20,000 Likes and over 13,000 retweets at the time of writing this story.

We can confirm that the image showing the entry ‘Modilie’ is fake and does not exist in any of our Oxford Dictionaries.

— Oxford Dictionaries (@OxfordWords) May 16, 2019