Surprisingly, FC # 129 fetched very interesting comments. I feel very compelled to share all of them with you, even if it takes up more space than usual. I am sure the readers will enjoy the comments as much as they enjoy my post.
My American friend John Nelson from Greenwich, Connecticut writes: Pras, I am very happy to have you as my friend. As I read that sentence, I realize that without the word very - had I said "I am glad to have you as a friend" it would have had an entirely different connotation.
S G Murali says: It is Very good you chose to write about Very. It was very interesting because you came up with very good examples and made it very interesting. I read this when I drank a very good cup of coffee in the morning. I could not go out for a morning walk as it was very cold.
Krupa Murthy says: Filter coffee 129 was interesting as always, and I am of the opinion any emotion expressed with too much emphasis loses its efficacy! Like this sage advice: “Eat not to dullness, drink not to elevation, Moderation is the magical word!!”
Manivannan says: ‘Very’ nice. While it’s ‘very’ compelling to let go ‘very’, there is not ‘very’ much I can do, as I’m ‘very’ hooked on to it as a simple way of emphasis, instead of scouting the dictionary for alternatives 🙂
Lakshmi Raman says: I’m so delighted to read you first thing on Sunday mornings! I enjoyed your blend of analysis and humour which made a simple ‘very’ (overworked in India) so very interesting read. 😊
Prabha Prasad says: It’s a BEAUCOUP... to say in a different language. I am grateful for this word for letting me express my appreciation in any context! Hats off to you Prasanna. I am VERY VERY amazed at the way you choose VERY interesting topics to write about every week.
Padmanabha Vyasamoorthy says: I realised that I use VERY too much indiscriminately and unconsciously. Verily, many thanks for this exposure. I found 80+ synonyms for that word - https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/very
Shahji Jacob says: It’s very heartening that you could write so much on so small a word as “very”. I am indeed very impressed. Who needs ChatGPT when we have Pras? Please ignore the term very used here. Just realized (courtesy Pras) that it won’t make a difference.
Tarun Kunzru says: The beauty of strong communicators is using the appropriate word to describe a thought, feeling or idea. "Very" is often a diluted effort. About forgetting your wedding anniversary.... Forget "very", no words can bail you out. It's time to "worry" about being assigned to the dog house.
Radhakrishna (my brother) says: Maybe" very" could be replaced with" verily". Instead of saying “I very much agree with you” one could say “I verily agree with you”. It may be very very apt.
The 26th of January marked the 74th R-Day. In one of my earlier posts, I dwelled on this topic. Please read it: FC #030
🫂 A Person in Your Corner
The boxing ring is not a ‘ring’ in its true sense, but is square-shaped. The name "ring" originated with contests fought in a roughly drawn circle on the ground, and this can be found in the 1743 boxing rules called ‘The London Prize Ring Rules’. The oxymoron “square ring” came about in 1838 when it was introduced by the Pugilistic Society. Some called it a ‘squared circle’. The term "ringside seat" came to be used apparently in the 1860s. You often hear people saying, “I had a ringside view of the proceedings,” meaning close proximity (again, a redundant oxymoron).
The boxers’ corner is the place within the ring where they are given advice and encouragement. If a boxer returns after losing a round, his coach will do everything to infuse confidence in him and eggs him on to do better. The coach is the boxer’s mentor, and guides and provides him with physical & moral support.
Our life is like a boxing bout. There are innumerable rounds. Some are good and some are bad. While the going is good, we thank our stars and when it becomes bad to worse, we blame it on the stars. In one of my earlier posts, I quoted a Japanese saying “Put faith in your own abilities and not in the stars”. Please read this post when you have the time: FC #024
The analogy between life and boxing is not misplaced. There are situations in your life when you tread cautiously and avert an unpleasant outcome or defuse a confrontation. In such situations, you are clearly wearing ‘kid gloves’.
The word kid also means a young goat or a lamb. Its skin is fine and soft. Gloves made of this skin were associated with aristocracy, who were believed to behave with dignity in any given situation. Around the end of the 19th century, “handle with kid gloves” was the expression used to indicate treating someone or some problem carefully and discretely. After all, discretion is the better part of valour!
The opposite of ‘kid gloves’ is the term “the gloves are off” which means no restraint or mercy will be shown and that the treatment will be harsh and relentless. This expression is used in situations when a gentleman would take his gloves off if he was required to give the ‘treatment’ to a chap who has misbehaved with him. This idiom is also about taking the gloves off for a bare-knuckle fight, not to mention the serious harm that can be caused by knuckledusters, which are metallic weapons worn over the knuckles to inflict serious injury.
The phrases, kid gloves, velvet gloves, gloves are off, are all metaphors to describe our own behaviour in given circumstances. It is not necessary that a physical confrontation should involve either taking off or wearing gloves. The idioms are equally applicable to hurling verbal abuses or diffusing abusive behaviour. So, from our own experience, we can say that in politics the gloves are always off and no one wears kid gloves 🙂
The compromise seems to lie in velvet gloves. Iron fist in a velvet glove is an expression to indicate that to the best extent people or situations will be handled in a gentle and friendly manner and if that does not help then an iron fist will come down. In other words, if reasoning fails, the rules are applied.
Now, why have I spent so much space discussing the different forms of gloves? The reason is to demonstrate how important it is to have ‘a person in your corner’ who will stand by you in happier and difficult times and counsel you and provide you with that sage wisdom that eludes most of us. Friends are of many kinds, and it is not easy to find a friend who will be that person in your corner of the boxing ring of life. I wrote about friends in one of my earlier posts. Please read: FC #026
The person in your corner during the boxing bout called ‘the life’s struggles’ is all about that person who can be your sounding board, a mentor or a person who counsels you to undertake or not to undertake a particular course of action. An angel in disguise is someone who is always ready and willing to help others. There are people who are devils in angel disguise who appear to be very caring and friendly but have ulterior and harmful motives.
The person in your corner is the one whom you implicitly trust and who is a person of great personal integrity and loyalty. The person should be your ‘go-to’ person. The person in my corner is my wife. She is very intuitive, and her feminine instincts often temper my masculine impulses. It is not that she would always prevent me from doing what I set out to do. She would either endorse it or point out any collateral damage that my action may cause.
I am sure each of my readers has a person in his or her corner, or perhaps is that person in someone else’s corner. The person will always root for kid gloves and dissuade you from taking the gloves off. It is so comforting to know that you have that person in your corner and that he or she will stand by you and support you while standing in your corner.
A boxing bout has as many as 12 rounds, but the bouts you face in life are often countless. In a boxing match, at the end of each round, the boxer returns to his corners where he takes a breather, hydrates, receives tactical instructions, and his ‘cut man’ applies soothing balm on the lacerations. Most of the time at the end of each bout in real life, we get angry or hurt and our own person in the corner, who can be our cut man helps us overcome the angst, and heals the wounded heart and mind with his soothing words, and you are ready for the next bout, but not knowing when that will be.
The bouts in life are played in different rings - ordinary life occurrences, business dealings, your profession, relationships, financial matters and so on. If you have the right person in your corner for each of these bouts, you will find solace in that person who can be your friend, philosopher and guide, just as Aristotle was to Alexander. One of many quotes attributed to Aristotle would fit in nicely here: “The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.”
I came across the song ‘Man in your corner’ by Sleepy Man (before 2014 known as Sleepy Man Banjo Boys), a bluegrass music band from Lebanon Township, New Jersey, United States. You can listen to the song here: Sleepy Man - Man in Your Corner. I found the following lines very relevant to this post:
All I hope for you is every day
Is met with smiles and happiness
Devotion, warmth, and gratefulness
Gonna be your rock and your boulder
The man in your corner, lean on my shoulder
If one is cornered in life, one will surely think of a person who can be in your corner. One has to make an effort to find that person who will be in your corner and never let that person go!
I know that this post is a bit longer than usual, but the topic has nuances that I had to deal with. Besides, I needed to compensate for the previous two posts, which were shorter than normal.
Let me end this in a lighter vein:
I got a new pair of gloves today, but they’re both ‘lefts,’ which on the one hand is great, but on the other, it’s just not right.
"That dress fits you like a glove; it sticks out in five places"
The Russian Agency of Research and Automation (RARA) commissioned by Putin to develop a new robot to make gloves for the pandemic, called it :
RA RA RAsPutin, Russia's greatest glove machine.**
Ciao! Take care & be safe!
**A spoof on Boney M. - Rasputin
corner can be comforting or disconcerting depending on the situation. in he corner of the boxing ring one may find a trainer trying to inculcate confidence in the boxer. take out his teeth guard, fan him with a towel, give water and at the same time give hints how not get kayoed.
In our daily life we always look for an invisible corner to feel comfortable, God , a friend or wife to get solace.for a child, mother is the best comforting corner.
No one wold like to get cornered. many get themselves painted to a corner.
Portia cornered Shylock by agreeing to his demand of pound of flesh only and not a drop of blood more. His goose was cooked.
Denis, the menace, many times is made to sit in the corner by his mother
When i am typing this my wife is eyeing me with the corner of her eye so let me stop here
Nice one.. thanks to the man in the corner for the family.. 👏