Till a year or two ago I rarely thought of that dread word `millennium.' Nowadays I find that I've already thought of it several times by breakfast. Sometimes it wakes me up in a pre-dawn sweat.

Once I reach office, the incidence of the m-word peaks. I join Geeta Rao, my colleague in copywriting and columny, as she gently assuages her account director's angst over advertising moisturiser to the millennium woman. I start sweating again. The account director thinks it's the moisturiser. She doesn't know I have my own angst about the millennium. Is it two I's or one? Two `n's or one? Copywriters like Geeta and myself hunt down words to describe accurately, colourfully, memorably whatever we need to convey to our target audiences. Often, it's a matter of dusting out old words. But at times it requires invention. `Millennium' belongs to the former category. But much that the new millennium will bring falls in the second.

While Geeta speaks to the aforementioned accountdirector in glowing terms about the nineties man, my thoughts turn to a new problem: How will we refer to the next decade? Will we call it the zeroes? The naughts? I refer to the wizard of idiom, Richard Lederer. His recommendation: Call it the ohs. It sounds cheerful. And it ``conveys the sense of wonder and infinite potential that awaits us.''

However, as Lederer points out, our problems don't end there. What about the following decade? You could call it the teens. But that would be unfair to 2010, 2011 and 2012. Any suggestions?

Talking about the nineties man and the millennium woman, naturally my thoughts turn to love. How will we describe the new-style relationships of the future? In '90s English, we seem to be limited to the all-purpose word love. We love our brothers, our sisters, our dogs. We love McDonalds french fries. We love Hum Dil De Chuke Hai Sanam. All equally, it would seem. It becomes difficult to get a handle on the precise nature and degree of the attraction. Perhaps we couldexpand our English vocabulary with Indian words: pyaar, prem, pranay, preeti... It would make English more passionate. And the path to incorporating words has already been cleared by precedent: pundit, pukkah, purdah.

Although we haven't as yet reached the ohs, we're already at a loss for words. We're not quite sure how to describe our girlfriends, lovers, partners, mates, whatever. In the next decade, more and more of us will live together without being married. How will our significant others be addressed? As companions, cohabitors, consorts?

Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle columnist, coined the term ummer for live-in lover. As in ``this is Anita, my son's...ummer..'' Words like this could make it easier for us to deal with our children's modern ways of living, when they hit their teens in the teens of the next century. And if you don't like ummer, Lederer supplies us with `covivant.' This word combines Latin and French to give us a felicitous synonym for cohabitor.

Ledererquotes this eulogy to the word:
Were you to be by my covivant
You'd never need a restaurant
I'd feed you any food you'd want...
A shrimp fondue, a cheese croissant--
Cuisine to please a dilettante
(At least you'd not be lean and gaunt).
--Beverly McDonald

Many are the experiences for which we lack words. But every day, inventive minds are at work, tackling the task of bridging the gap. The internet has thrown up web site, chat room, netizen. Advertising has given us teleshopping, sunscreen, hi-fi. In The Meaning of Life (Pan Books and Faber & Faber), authors Douglas Adams and John Lloyd have coined words for many of those happenings in life which we can instantly relate to but heretofore have not had words to describe. Perhaps these words will come into common parlance in the ohs and teens. Till then I leave you with a few of my favourites.

Farrancassidy (n.) A long and unsuccessful attempt to undo someone's bra.
Hagnaby (n.) Someone who looked a lotmore attractive in the disco than they do in your bed the next morning.
Kalami (n.) The ancient Eastern art of being able to fold road-maps properly.
Longniddry (n.) A droplet which persists in running out of your nose.
Nacton (n.) The `n' with which cheap advertising copywriters replace the word `and' (as in ``fish `n' chips,'' ``mix `n' match,'' ``assault `n' battery,'') in the mistaken belief it is chummy and endearing.