1. Gayatri, What’s this about the cup and the lip?

There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip—that’s what it is. You may think that you have worked out thoroughly the solution to a problem but unexpected developments may foil your efforts.

This idea is captured in the homely idiom given above. Before the tea or coffee can reach your lips, so many things can happen. A fly may fall into the cup; the cup may slip from your hand and fall down, a gust of wind may blow a sheet of newspaper on to your face…and you may not, after all, taste the tea or coffee. 

The proverb neatly captures the uncertainties of life.  But for these unknown and unknowable factors, insurance companies would not have been in business.

Speaking of cups and lips, Gayatri has another question: What is lip service?

Lip service is an insincere support for some cause or other.  The most prominent (and numerous) votaries of this form of devotion are the politicians. Their professed cause is ‘service to Daridra Narayana’.

But their activities, aimed all the time at enriching themselves, have left D. Narayan poorer than ever. Lip service is also paid to uphold the rule of law, to achieve universal health care /education, etc.  No one takes these professions seriously. The charade continues.

White collar crime (Gayatri again) A white collar worker is one who does not perform manual labour. 

He is a salaried person working in an office. His opposite is a blue collar worker, who works with his hands on an hourly wage. These terms originated in America.  The white collar worker’s counterpart in Britain is a black coat.

White collar crime is crime committed by people who work in offices and government establishments; e.g. doctoring (or causing to disappear) documents, falsifying accounts, etc. This crime is not (usually) violent in nature.

The terms white collar, blue collar obviously derive from the clothes worn by these people. On the same lines a construction worker is a hard hat.

Time was when political workers in India donned the Gandhi cap. It is a pity this article of clothing has become somewhat scarce now. Otherwise we could have aptly identified a class of criminals who do more harm than anyone else.  A phrase like g-cap crime would have been a valuable contribution to IE.

2. Satish Chandra.   Dressing

‘My father presented me this new dressing. / I have lot of dressings with me’. Are these correct?
Many among us use shirting and dressing in the sense of ‘material suitable for a shirt/suit’

These usages are not found in English. Dressing is usually found in such phrases as salad dressing (a liquid mixture made from oil and vinegar, put on salad to make it tastier) and dressing a wound (using a special cloth to cover and protect a wound. The dressing is soiled.  It has to be replaced.)

The word also occurs in the context of clothes as in power dressing (where the colour and styling of your clothes emphasise how important your job is). And then there is window dressing (literally the clever, attractive arrangement of goods on display in a shop window).

Figuratively this phrase means ‘creating a false and favourable impression about a plan, project, etc by clever manipulation of facts. The government report about slum clearance is nothing more than an exercise in window dressing.

As a first member in some compounds dressing appears in: dressing gown, dressing room (in a theatre, for actors to change) and dressing table.

Satish Chandra, It should be clear by now that your father couldn’t possibly have presented you with a new dressing.

To continue with some more useful phrases: you can dress up for a special occasion; a marriage reception, for example. Young men and women on such occasions dress to kill (‘to make a glamorous impression’). But it could also be for fun- a fancy dress competition where you might dress up as a Himalayan bear.

Some who are quite well- to- do and can afford the best clothes, usually dress down. I once met a Prince in Gujarat who would always turn up in a jubba and kurta. He had a degree from Oxford.

This apart, a dressing down is a severe reprimand. The Manager who went to see the boss for a raise got a severe dressing down.  

The writer can be contacted on ksyadurajan@yahoo.com

Maxims & Observations of Kay S. Wye.
Evil prospers only because the good are indifferent.