Bengaluru
I thank the readers for ‘excusing me’ and being kind enough to appreciate FC 219 and post their comments.
Tarun Kunzru puts it succinctly: “Excuse me is truly a powder puff & an ahimsa term. It substitutes pardon me, forgive me, sorry, etc. It truly ensures a soft landing and blunts the raw edges of anger, disagreement, and irritation. It helps deliver the message—let's agree to disagree in a very digestible way. Even an involuntary sound after a heavy meal is allowed to pass, literally!!”
Lakshmi Raman: “I like all the examples of how 'excuse me' is used in India. It is also a connector to starting or building a relationship 'Excuse me, but haven't we met before?' or 'Excuse me, I remember your face but have forgotten your name.' The idiom can be a bridge between people and sometimes, the bridge between hearts.”
Krupa Murthy: “Some people cannot pronounce 'excuse me'! It could be highly embarrassing when I've heard people say 'ezkizz me' and even worse 'esquiz me'.The brew is brilliant and balmy despite your jet lag!! Welcome Back.”
Radhika Prasad: “Excuse me is humble and instantly conveys supplication, metaphorically making getting one’s foot in the door easy. The idiom has similar terms in various languages, but what stands out is the Sanskrit expressions ‘Kripaya Kshamatam’ or ‘Kshamantu’.”
🗣️ Buttonholed
An article titled Buttons, published in the weekly All the Year Round on 28th June 1862, had this:
And there is the man who is button-holed, or held, poor wretch! and must listen to half an hour’s harangue about nothing interesting, while his friends are waiting for dinner, or his wife is sitting in her diamonds and opera cloak, sullenly expecting him to escort her. The man who button-holes another is a ruffian, not fit for civilised society, and ought to go out to the long-winded savages who have not yet learnt that brevity is the soul of wit.
As one can infer, to be buttonholed is to be caught in a situation where a person engages you in a conversation against your will. I have been in such a situation many times. The one I must remember took place on a train journey from Bangalore to Bombay (as it then was) where I was headed to take up my first corporate job.
It was a 3-Tier compartment, running to full capacity compelling three people on either side to sit across each other during the day each hoping to clamber up to the assigned berth as night descended. For readers unfamiliar with the route, it goes via Miraj to Pune and then on to Mumbai.
As the train pulled out of the platform, we settled down and I was seated at the window opposite a man who was sitting cross-legged (my granddaughter says “legs cross applesauce”) looking quite comfortable. I made the monumental mistake of smiling at him and saying “Hello, are you also headed to Bombay?” I had given him such an opening that a monologue disguised as a dialogue followed.
His questions, tested by today’s standards, were highly intrusive and violative of personal privacy. But back then in the late 70s, all questions were game even if you felt you were the hunted. I was buttonholed. I understood later in life the import of the term. Back then, I was cornered and when I looked for help, the co-passengers pretended to be either reading or nodding off but I had a lurking suspicion that they had an ear to the ongoing inquisition.
He started off with fairly standard innocent questions like: “Where do you live in Mysore?”, “What takes you to Bombay?” etc. The questions meandered into the kind of job I had, my family, and my salary. When I stonewalled the salary bit and warded it off by saying “I will know when I report for duty.” He was aghast and started sharing the bad experience his friend had who took up a job only to be told later that he would be paid a lot less than what he had imagined. I should have just thrown a number at him. From the corner of my eye, I could see that my co-passengers were rather disappointed at not knowing my salary.
Hoping fervently that my inquisitor would ease off if given a break, I got up saying I needed to go to the washroom (in the train jargon, lavatory) and stood at the door of the compartment. Few moments of breeze and quiet, my inquisitor was tapping on my shoulder. When I looked at him with a bit of annoyance, which he did not notice, he told me ‘Why Saar, you did not go to the toilet? Go, it is vacant”. I never felt so toilet trained in my life.
I got into the toilet as if to seek refuge and when I emerged, my inquisitor was standing right there, smiling at me. He tells me that he too wants to go to the toilet. No one has ever asked me permission to do their things in the toilet and here I am wondering what to say. All I could say was "Please go” but refrained from adding “I hope you fall through that hole”.
He comes back and for the next 20 minutes he holds forth on the state of toilets in trains, how the steel tumbler attached to the chain questions our honesty and integrity. His exposition is so vivid that even my co-passengers can’t help nodding now and then but they are careful not to address him.
Dear Readers, I can go on and on about this guy and how he kept me trapped in his endless inquisition. Let me end this by telling you what he said as we alighted at Dadar. He gives me a dog-eared card with his name and a landline number and tells me “If you feel lonely and want to talk, give me a ring”. He walked off leaving me awash with a sense of relief.
Why do some people buttonhole us? Is it because they are garrulous? That’s a possibility. But in most cases, the buttonholer is persistent with his line of questioning or is keen to narrate something to an unwilling listener. Journalists are known to buttonhole a politician or a celebrity and try to elicit from them a response. The art of ducking the questions and getting away from the buttonholer is best known to politicians. Where the buttonholer has been successful in getting a response that could be sensationalised, the politician would accuse the buttonholer of twisting the response and reporting it wrongly.
During my practising days, I have come across lawyers who buttonholed a witness during cross-examination with a barrage of questions but it was more to impress their client than to get anything meaningful out of the witness's mouth. The Judge would intervene and ask the lawyer to not badger the witness. Not to be outdone, the lawyer would later tell his client “I had the witness by the collar but the judge intervened and put paid to my efforts”.
Buttonholing is also resorted to by people who are curious cats. They unobtrusively pry into others’ affairs. They make roving enquiries about you, your family, your health and even your earnings. They don’t even notice or care if you are feeling awkward and embarrassed. If you show reluctance to engage with them, they complain that you are a rude stuck-up person.
Some buttonhole you with no questions but by downloading onto you a lot of information or narratives that you are least interested in. Some of their downloads may involve gossip. It does not bother them that they are imposing themselves on you. They unabashedly corner you and compel you to listen. You may be able to ward off some who are not in the same strata as you, but if it is some elder whom you respect, you end up having your ears chewed up.
Some believe they are more informed and presume that you need to be educated or that you have inadequate knowledge or understanding of a given situation. They launch into a long-winded explanation of just about anything and everything. They don’t even care if in the process they are underestimating your intellect. One must be careful not to ask a question of such guys. If you did then you better be prepared to have your brains blanched. Colloquially, bheja fry. Enthusiastic salesmen fall into this category.
I should also mention the idiom “to talk someone’s ear off” which is synonymous with buttonholing. The origin of this idiom is traced to a passage in the 1837 novel, ‘Spinoza’ by a German-Jewish author, Bernard Auerbach, which reads:
“The daughter is said to be worse than the father. She can talk the devil's ear off in seven different languages.”
The Hindi equivalent is “kaan pak gaya”. Some people speak a lot and tire you out. Health freaks can wear you out and leave you gasping. So do other fitness and dieting enthusiasts. ‘Talk the ears off a brass monkey’ is a variant of this idiom which needs no explanation. There are ‘experts’ who claim to know everything about cell phones and if you ask one of them if you should buy a particular model or choose between Android or iOS, they will hold forth till you regret not buying the earbuds first.
Speaking of cell phones, the all-new Apple iPhone is making waves. So it is apt to tell you that Adam & Eve were the first ones to ignore Apple's terms and conditions.
Until next week, send in your comments, take good care of yourself and look out for the buttonholer who may be lurking in the shadows. Ciao!
ತಲೆ ತಿನ್ನೋದು ಅಂದ್ರೆ ಇದೇ ...
Excellent analysis of the two idioms in English with examples and anecdotes. I would brand two categories of people who indulge in these annoying attitudes. The first category, as you have rightly mentioned would be apt to most of the journalists who try to buttonhole the person interviewed unmindful of the other's discomfiture. A classic example was the interview I had watched between the well known Karan Thapar, who hosted the "Devil's Advocate" and the Iron Lady Jayalalitha. However, he had to eat a humble pie at the end when she refused the customary 'hand shake' with a parting remark that it was "not a pleasure" being interviewed by him! The second category of the attribute "talking some one's ear off" is indulged in by most of the marketing executives who engage in a monologue of the quality and value of the product without bothering to know whether the customer needs the product or not. Instead of winning over the customer such executives end up loosing the business by over indulgence of unwanted information forcing the customer to quit without making any purchase.