The English language is awash with expressions and proverbs, some more complex than others, with colourful and intriguing origins. The pandemic, which has consumed all forms of the media, has contributed its own clutch of such expressions; and a light hearted tangential approach to the subject may be less stressful. After all, we haven’t a clue about specific therapy; a vaccine remains a doubtful distant dream; and the progress of the pandemic is anything but reassuring.
It is a completely new entity, leaving us groping for solutions. Consequently, the proposed remedies are a case of the blind leading the blind. Curiously this expression can be traced back to the Upanishads. “Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind”.— Katha Upanishad[4]. The knee-jerk reaction was of mild panic with a sudden and total lockdown. This “solution” produced its own tale of miseries; a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water, or losing something valuable in the process of getting rid of something unwanted. Its origin surprised me. In the old days a bath was something of a ritual, often annual. The bath water would be prepared and the man of the house would bathe first; other members of the household taking their turn in an established hierarchy. By the time it was the baby’s’ turn, the water was so dirty that the baby could barely be seen. Hence the mothers had to take care that when the time came to throw the bath water out, the baby was not thrown out with the water!
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The lockdown brought misery to thousands who were left miles away from home, with no money, food, or a place to stay; with the authorities initially turning a blind eye to their predicament. The expression simply means ignoring ground realities and goes back to Admiral Horatio Nelson and his patch over one blind eye. He was signalled to stop attacking the Danish fleet. When informed about the signal he put his telescope to his blind eye, said “I do not see the signal”, continued with the attack, and was victorious. When the lockdown was first ordered, we were reassured that the virus “would be defeated in 21 days”. Obviously, someone pulled a fast one i.e. we were conned. Part of the un-lockdown exercise was to open up the liquor shops. Why they were closed in the first place is beyond me, but the resumption of sales was marked by queues that were longer than at grocery shops. Undoubtedly in the course of that evening, if the sales figures were anything to go by, there were many who were three sheets to the wind, or uncontrollably inebriated. The expression comes from sailing; the sheets refer to the ropes that bind the sails to the boat. If the sheets are left loose to the wind, the boat is totally out of control, like a drunk.
The guidelines directed us to sneeze into our sleeves to avoid spreading the virus; there was no mention of the common custom of saying “God bless you”. This practice has multiple and strange explanations. In Roman times the person who sneezed was actually saluted, suggesting that the act of sneezing was considered a significant event. The most intriguing explanation is that sneezing forced ones’ soul out of the body and the blessing protected the soul from being captured by Satan till it re-entered the body. Of course, if one is soulless, the discussion is immaterial.
Some aspects of the current scenario are particularly obnoxious. There is a duplicity of standards in recommending guidelines for the common man and the privileged class. The aam admi must wear a mask and maintain social distancing. Yet our leaders can exercise special privileges in inaugurating grade separators by congregating without masks and to hell with social distancing. It was allowed as a “special exemption”. Surely anyone watching the spectacle would justifiably say to themselves “if they can do it so can I”; or “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”. The word “sauce” often replaces the word “good” with the same interpretation. Different standards for the privileged few whether breaking rules at airports, or bypassing testing guidelines and certification must be condemned. It puts the community. To add insult to injury, one government declared that any resident doctor who got infected with the virus would be penalised for being negligent. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
We have a US president, no less, who puts his foot in his mouth every time he opens it to speak; with offensive, tactless, foolish or embarrassing comments. The expression is thought to have derived from the older version of putting your foot in mud or faeces, or related to foot-and mouth-disease. In any case most of what he utters is cock and bull. Here lies an interesting tale. The current A-5 was an old Roman road going north from London with Stony Stratford an important stopping-off point for mail and passenger stage coaches. They would stop at a coaching inn named “The Cock” on the way out and at “The Bull” on the way back; both of which exist even today. In an age when news travelled largely by word of mouth, the story goes that a piece of news would leave “The Cock”, but by the time the same news returned to “The Bull” it was so colorfully embroidered that it bore no resemblance to the original version. Locals swear by this explanation for the term “Cock and Bull” which has come to mean a concocted tale or an over elaborate lie passed from one to another.
As they say, keep the faith baby, for this too shall pass.
(The writer is a founder member of VHAG)
