Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Of Flannelled Fools and Muttered Oaths…
Many have been the unfair, unfounded and unkind allegations that have been levelled against me in the long and arduous years of yeoman service to the Corporate World. While the more tangential and obtuse have been hitherto water off a duck’s back, there are some that rankle and ravage far longer than the momentary import of the words thus u., u. and u. blurted.
In the past seven days, three people who know me ( ought to have known me by now !) have proferred their thoroughly unsolicited opinion which is -- while a welter of emotions might bubble up within me, a torrential stream of sentiment might just escape frothing over and lie dormant, I am not one of those who yields to the power of invective, expletives are beyond the pale and in the matter of the spoken word, I am as abstemious as an owl.
Hear, hear !!
Twas not long ago that I was considered the Sultan of Swearing and my dear ones had to advise continued caution in these matters. It has been a character flaw that hasn’t been remedied and perhaps never will.
I do remember that in Standard 7 – the same year I joined the Scouts, the honourable Class 7A of the venerable K.V.Sagar, ran an internal competition ( open only to boys, methinks !) for an entire year which ranked folks on the severity, tenor and originality of their mouthed cuss-words. As detailed as any modern rule-book, participants were rated as High Power A, B, C…etc –meticulous scores were maintained and the choicest abuses were freely shared. After all, as the avuncular Sanskrit teacher informed us, True Knowledge is only enhanced by Sharing. To cut a long story short, I managed a B which would be roughly about the 70th percentile. Even now, I can mentally construct an entire paragraph ,where one set of expletives form the preamble, another set harks to the opening gambit, a still better one spells out the central idea and a final one rounds off the piece with appropriate salutations.
A happy ending though. After eight minutes of my company, the gentleman who made the third allegation broke into a smile, the sun came out from behind the clouds and he grinned, why, you .., you also swear, you are…., just like…. us . Indeed, was that ever in doubt?
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In the past seven days, three people who know me ( ought to have known me by now !) have proferred their thoroughly unsolicited opinion which is -- while a welter of emotions might bubble up within me, a torrential stream of sentiment might just escape frothing over and lie dormant, I am not one of those who yields to the power of invective, expletives are beyond the pale and in the matter of the spoken word, I am as abstemious as an owl.
Hear, hear !!
Twas not long ago that I was considered the Sultan of Swearing and my dear ones had to advise continued caution in these matters. It has been a character flaw that hasn’t been remedied and perhaps never will.
I do remember that in Standard 7 – the same year I joined the Scouts, the honourable Class 7A of the venerable K.V.Sagar, ran an internal competition ( open only to boys, methinks !) for an entire year which ranked folks on the severity, tenor and originality of their mouthed cuss-words. As detailed as any modern rule-book, participants were rated as High Power A, B, C…etc –meticulous scores were maintained and the choicest abuses were freely shared. After all, as the avuncular Sanskrit teacher informed us, True Knowledge is only enhanced by Sharing. To cut a long story short, I managed a B which would be roughly about the 70th percentile. Even now, I can mentally construct an entire paragraph ,where one set of expletives form the preamble, another set harks to the opening gambit, a still better one spells out the central idea and a final one rounds off the piece with appropriate salutations.
A happy ending though. After eight minutes of my company, the gentleman who made the third allegation broke into a smile, the sun came out from behind the clouds and he grinned, why, you .., you also swear, you are…., just like…. us . Indeed, was that ever in doubt?
