“How do you pronounce c..l..e..r..k? Does the ‘er’ rhyme with the ‘ar’ in ‘dark’ and ‘park’?”
“Well, that’s the way the British pronounce the word. The Americans, on the other hand, pronounce the ‘er’ like the ‘er’ in ‘perk’ and ‘jerk’. Both pronunciations are acceptable.”
“That’s good to know. I always get confused about the pronunciation…”
“Did you know that ‘clerk’ actually comes from ‘cleric’? It’s…”
“Cleric? You mean a priest? What’s the connection between…”
“In the old days, priests were among the few people who could read and write. So, they were often hired by kings and noblemen to write letters and maintain accounts.”
“I’m going to tell Sujatha this when I meet her on next Friday. She’ll be...”
“When you use ‘next’ and ‘last’ with the days of the week, you don’t use ‘on’. I met Kapil last Monday. You don’t say, I met Kapil on last Monday.”
“I’ll be meeting Sujatha next Friday. I think I’ve understood. What did your boss think of your proposal? Did he say it was terrible or did...”
“On the contrary, he liked it. He said that some of the ideas proposed were exciting. But he felt that they were not going to fly. Not right now, anyway.”
“What are you talking about? Ideas don’t fly, do they?”
“When you say that something is ‘not going to fly’, what you’re suggesting is that it’s not likely to succeed. It’s unlikely to work in a given situation.”
“I see. How about this example? You’ve given me a good reason why you deserve a raise. Do you think it’ll fly with your boss?”
Risky business
“I don’t think it’ll fly with the boss. My cousin Suresh is in the film business. Writers send him scripts. He says that most of them just won’t fly.”
“Making films is a risky business. So, what’s your boss going to do with your proposal? Is he going to throw it away or…?”
“Since he likes it, he might just decide to put it on the back burner. You know just…”
“Put something on the back burner? Does it mean keep it in cold storage?”
“Something like that. When you put something on the back burner, you’re delaying doing something. You’re not going to act on it because it doesn’t require your immediate attention. My cousins are coming over next weekend. So my plans of going to Kodaikanal with my friends have been put on the back burner.”
“It doesn’t mean you’re cancelling your trip, right?”
“No! It means that I’m merely postponing it. I won’t be going next week, but sometime later. Both ‘not going to fly’ and ‘on the back burner’ are used in informal contexts.”
“Because the students have been on strike, teachers have been compelled to put the unit tests and the assignments they give at this time of the month on the back burner.”
“Good example.”
“But tell me, what does this back burner refer to? Is it…”
“It refers to the burners on a stove. Sometimes, you have two burners in the front and two in the back. Items that don’t require the cook’s immediate attention are usually put on the back burner.”
“Could you make use of one of the front burners to make me a cup of coffee, please?”
* * * * *
“When nothing is going right, go left.” — Anonymous
The author teaches at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. upendrankye@gmail.com
