Warrier's Collage January 8, 2022

Welcome To Warrier's COLLAGE On Saturday January 8, 2022 Good Morning There'll be no regular (morning) issues of Collage from today (January 8, 2022). Efforts will be made to share responses and readers' Contributions through email/Blog and select WhatsApp messages. Thanks for cooperation. Nice Day M G Warrier A Responses 1) V Babusenan Thiruvananthapuram Let me add something to the interesting discussion on Kakkassery Bhattathiri. In the argument with Uddanda Sastri, the boy succeeded in controverting everything that the great Sastri said. Sastri's admiration for the boy reached its pinnacle and he said : "Mataa pativrathaa". The boy controverted that too to the consternation of all those assembled there. "According to the sastra" he said quoting the lines, "a woman, on marriage, first shares her wedded life with the divine beings and then only shares the bed with the man that married her. That being the case, how can you say that my mother is a pathivratha? " Consternation gave way to astonishment. ( True, Sir 🙏 I thought, Kaakkasseri's parents can be let free. Sastry also said he (Sastry) was more handsome. He faced an uncomfortable repartee : "Acchan Makan Sundaran" (Meaning : "Son who resembles his father is considered handsome!"-Warrier) B V Babusenan's Column : A K Ramanujan (Continued) The third category of the' Akam' poems is the Palai(wasteland) based ones. Being part of the Kurunthokai Anthology, these are short poems. One such poem, translated by Ramanujan, is given below: 'What He Said in the Desert' "The marauding wolf Has gouged here and drunk Of this little stagnant water, Now mantled over By the wild jasmine. How I wish my girl, My heart's mistress, her hands of bangles, Were here with me, To share even this: but it would be pitiful if she were." It seems, there cannot be a worse desert scene. One Chiraikkudi Aanthayar is the poet. The name indicates that he is Anthai belonging to the place Chiraikkudi. C Purpose of life 1) Speaking Tree https://www.speakingtree.in/article/what-is-the-purpose-of-life-712787 2) Warrier's Views https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/warriersviews/purpose-of-life-27707/ D Why? : Received from A P Ramadurai Origins of some of our strange customs... 1. WHY: Why do men’s clothes have buttons on the right while women’s clothes have buttons on the left? BECAUSE: When buttons were invented, they were very expensive and worn primarily by the rich. Since most people are right-handed, it is easier to push buttons on the right through holes on the left. Because wealthy women were dressed by maids, dressmakers put the buttons on the maid’s right! And that’s where women’s buttons have remained since. 2. WHY: Why do ships and aircraft use ‘mayday’ as their call for help? BECAUSE: This comes from the French word _m’aidez_ – meaning, ‘help me’ – and is pronounced, approximately, ‘mayday.’ 3. WHY: Why are zero scores in tennis called ‘love’? BECAUSE: In France, where tennis became popular, the round zero on the scoreboard looked like an egg and was called ‘l’oeuf,’ which is French for ‘the egg.’ When tennis was introduced in the US, Americans (naturally), mispronounced it ‘love.’ And then the word stuck on. 4. WHY: Why do X’s at the end of a letter signify kisses? BECAUSE: In the Middle Ages, when many people were unable to read or write, documents were often signed using an X. Kissing the X represented an oath to fulfill obligations specified in the document. The X and the kiss eventually became synonymous. 5. WHY: Why is shifting responsibility to someone else called ‘passing the buck’? BECAUSE: In card games, it was once customary to pass an item, called a buck, from player to player to indicate whose turn it was to deal. If a player did not wish to assume the responsibility of dealing, he would ‘pass the buck’ to the next player. 6. WHY: Why do people clink their glasses before drinking a toast? BECAUSE: In earlier times it used to be common for someone to try to kill an enemy by offering him a poisoned drink. To prove to a guest that a drink was safe, it became customary for a guest to pour a small amount of his drink into the glass of the host. Both men would drink it simultaneously. When a guest trusted his host, he would only touch or clink the host’s glass with his own. 7. WHY: Why are people in the public eye said to be ‘in the limelight’? BECAUSE: Invented in 1825, limelight was used in lighthouses and theatres by burning a cylinder of lime which produced a brilliant light. In the theatre, a performer ‘in the limelight’ was the centre of attention. 8. WHY: Why is someone who is feeling great ‘on cloud nine’? BECAUSE: Types of clouds are numbered according to the altitudes they attain, with nine being the highest cloud. If someone is said to be on cloud nine, that person is floating well above worldly cares. 9. WHY: In golf, where did the term ‘Caddie’ come from? BECAUSE: When Mary, Queen of Scots, went to France as a young girl, Louis, King of France, learned that she loved the Scots game ‘golf.’ He had the first course outside of Scotland built for her enjoyment. To make sure she was properly chaperoned (and guarded) while she played, Louis hired cadets from a military school to accompany her. Mary liked this a lot and when she returned to Scotland (not a very good idea in the long run), she took the practice with her. In French, the word cadet is pronounced ‘ca-day’ and the Scots changed it into caddie. 10. WHY: Why are many coin collection jar banks shaped like pigs? BECAUSE: Long ago, dishes and cookware in Europe were made of dense orange clay called ‘pygg’. When people saved coins in jars made of this clay, the jars became known as ‘pygg banks.’ When an English potter misunderstood the word, he made a container that resembled a pig. And it caught on. And now you know the origins of some of our strange customs!!!… E Inspiration Team Work : Vathsala Jayaraman A Businessman gets stranded on a lonely highway in the US.The tyres of his car get stuck badly in a mud pool. He looks around for help and finally finds an old farmer. The businessman goes to him asking for help to get his car out of the mud. Farmer gauges the situation, and agrees to help him and says, let us take the help of warwick, an old bull at the farm. The farmer ties the bull to the car and start shouting loudly, "FRED, PULL!... JACK, PULL!... JOHN, PULL...WARWICK, PULL..." As the farmer keeps shouting these words, the bull Warwick gets the car out of the pool of mud. The Businessman is relieved but has a doubt in his mind. He thanks the farmer and asks him, "You said the bull's name was Warwick, and he was alone, then who were Fred, Jack & John?" The Farmer answered, "See, Warwick is old and is also blind. He does not know he is pulling this car alone. The moment he hears the other names, he thinks he is in a team, and he gives his best". So is the case with all of us. The very thought that there are others in this same situation as we are,, gives us a great deal of comfort, hope, confidence and enthuses us to put our heart and soul into any task that we undertake. It's not without reason that the very word TEAM is said to stand for "Together Everyone Achieves More". F Leisure The Rule of Ablautreduplication* Why doesn’t `tock-tick' sound right to your ears? Ever wondered why we say : tick-tock, not tock-tick, or ding-dong, not dong ding; King Kong, not Kong King...? Turns out it is one of the unwritten rules of English that native speakers know without knowing! The rule, explains a BBC article, is: “If there are three words then the order has to go... I, A, O. If there are two words then the first is I and the second is either A or O." Mish-mash, Chit-chat, Dilly-dally, hilly-shally , Tip-top, Hip-hop, Flip-flop, Tic-tac, Sing-song, Ding-dong, King Kong, Ping-pong.“ There's another unwritten rule at work in the name Little Red Riding Hood, says the article. “Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: Opinion - Size - Age -Shape - Colour -Origin - Material -Purpose - Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest... you'll sound like a maniac.“ That explains why we say “little green men“ not “green little men,“ But “Big Bad Wolf “ sounds like a gross violation of the “opinion (bad)-size (big) noun (wolf)“ order. It won't, though, if you recall the first rule about the I-A-O order...!! Got it..? That rule seems inviolable: “All four of a horse's feet make exactly the same sound. But we always, always say clip-clop, never clop-clip.“ This rule even has a Technical Name...! If you care to Know it... 👇 the Rule of Ablautreduplication! But then... Life is Simpler, Knowing that we Know the Rule... Without Knowing It. *Contributed by A P Ramadurai G Collage in Kerala THRISSUR https://www.tripadvisor.in/Attractions-g735202-Activities-Thrissur_Thrissur_District_Kerala.html