“Wow! Looks like you’ve been really busy. This room looks so different.”
“My sister is arriving tomorrow morning. So, I decided to spruce the place up.”
“Spruce up? Does it mean to make the place clean and tidy?”
“Exactly! When you spruce something up, you’re making its appearance much better than what it was. We’re planning to spruce up the building with a fresh coat of paint.”
“My mother wants to spruce up the garden by planting some roses. Tell me, can the expression be used with people?”
“Yes, of course! For example, Vijith always spruces himself up whenever he goes out with Kavitha.”
“What about Sujatha? Do you spruce yourself up when you have to meet her?”
“Not really. While we’re on the subject of Sujatha, how was lunch with her? Did you guys have a good time?”
“I certainly didn’t. She made me so angry that I walked out while we were eating the French fries.”
“Leaving her to pay the bill, I suppose? That wasn’t very nice of you.”
A hog
“Calling me a pig wasn’t very nice of her.”
“Sujatha called you a pig? I don’t believe it.”
“You’d better believe it. She called me pig! A male pig, in fact. She said that I was a hog.”
“That was probably because you were eating her share of the fries.”
“Really? Tell me, how do you know that we were sharing a plate of French fries?”
“Sujatha called you a ‘hog’ because in informal contexts, the word is usually used to refer to someone who is greedy. Someone who takes more than his share of something.”
“So, when Sujatha said ‘Don’t be a hog’, she meant don’t be greedy. She wanted me to leave some fries for her.”
“Exactly! ‘Hog’ can be used as a verb as well. Like the noun, it’s mostly used to show disapproval. Whenever my dad is at home, he always hogs the TV remote.”
“In other words, he’s always watching something, and prevents others from watching what they want to. How about this example? I didn’t enjoy the party because Mukund and Sanjay were hogging the conversation.”
“That’s a good example. People who hog the conversation are often referred to as ‘conversation hogs’. I’m told that my new boss is a conversation hog.”
“I don’t like people who want to hog the limelight all the time.”
Do away with ‘back’
“I don’t think anyone does. When are you leaving for Kolkata?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll be returning back on Saturday.”
“That’s a pretty long trip. By the way, you don’t have to say ‘return back’ — ‘return’ will do. The word ‘back’ is unnecessary. I’ll be returning on Saturday. Or you could say, ‘I’ll be back on Saturday’.”
“I see. The children are expected to return from the park around 2:30.”
“That’s a good example. The same is true of ‘replied back’ as well. The word ‘back’ is unnecessary here as well. The company hasn’t replied to my earlier letters.”
“It took Shyamala several weeks to return the money she’d borrowed.”
“At least, she returned it. Most of my friends never return the money.”
“That’s not unusual. You’d better spruce up before picking up your sister at the station tomorrow.”
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Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal . — Winston Churchill
The author teaches at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. upendrankye@gmail.com
