“YOU’RE LATE again!”

“I know! I know! The Guptas are moving out. They wanted me to help them pack. You know they are disposing some of their old things and .....”

“ .... disposing of.”

“What?”

“They are disposing of some of their old things. When you use ‘dispose’ in the sense of ‘to get rid of or give away,’ it is usually followed by ‘of’. You don’t ‘dispose’ something, you ‘dispose of something.

“I see. Can I say, my mother disposed of all my old clothes?”

“You certainly can. Here’s another example. The murderer had disposed of all the bodies by the time the police arrived.”

“Maybe he’ll come after you now!”

“If he does, I’ll give him your address.”

“Thanks. With friends like you, who needs enemies? Devi disposed of all his shares three weeks ago.”

“He is very lucky. The market crashed a week ago. I need to dispose of these old newspapers.”

“Some of our politicians want judges to dispose of their cases very quickly.’

“I doubt if that will ever happen.”

“I don’t think anyone expects it to happen.”

“That’s true. Do you think you’ll miss the Guptas?”

“I am not really sure. Mrs. Gupta is a wonderful cook. I’ll miss her samosas. But it’s no fun talking to them, though. They smell garlic all the time.”

“They smell garlic all the time! You mean the Guptas have garlic in their hand which they keep sniffing while they are talking to you?”

“Of course, not! That would be a silly thing to do.”

“Then how do you know they smell garlic all the time?”

“Because when they open their mouth, I can smell the garlic.”

“Oh, I see what you mean. They don’t ‘smell’ garlic, they ‘smell of garlic.”

“You mean to say there is a difference between the two?”

“Of course, there is. When someone smells garlic from time to time, they take a piece of garlic to their nose and smell it.”

“It’s like smelling the flowers while one is out in the garden!”

“Exactly! But when you ‘smell of’ garlic, it means as soon as you open your mouth, everyone knows that you have eaten garlic.”

“In other words, you stink of garlic.”

“I guess you could say that. John smelled the food before putting it in his mouth.”

“You mean ‘smelt’, don’t you?”

“Smelled. Smelt. Both are equally acceptable.”

“I see. When Gautham came home, he smelled of whisky.”

“He had too much to drink, perhaps?”

“That’s right. The old man smelled of raw onions.”

“That’s a good example. Are you referring to Dr. Sudhakar?”

“Yes, I am. He eats non-stop.”

“Dr. Sudhakar is a foodaholic, isn’t he?”

“Foodaholic? What does it mean?”

“What does ‘workaholic’ mean?”

“A workaholic is a person who loves to work. Usha, for example, is a workaholic.”

“Similarly, a ‘foodaholic’ is someone who loves .... ”

“ .... someone who loves to eat. Someone who eats all the time.”

“Excellent! Anand, I am told, is a foodaholic.”

“Sudha is a foodaholic. She had three large pizzas for dinner last night.”

“Good grief! Is Mr. Gupta a foodaholic?”

“He isn’t! But Mrs. Gupta is. She loves two things in life. Eating and watching cricket on TV.”

“Cricket! Why would anyone want to watch our bunch of losers?”

“Mrs. Gupta believes that we had such a rotten luck in Sharjah.”

“We had such rotten luck, not such ‘a rotten luck’. Luck is an uncountable noun. We don’t use ‘a’ before it.”

“I see. Which is why we say, ‘We wished the team good luck’ and not ‘We wished the team a good luck’!”

“Excellent! Saroja has had bad luck all week.”

“The Australians, on the other hand, have had wonderful luck all summer. They have kept winning.”

“How do we change our team’s luck?”

“My cousin thinks we should choose eleven different players for every match.”

“You mean to say that we’ll win then?”

“No! But this is one way of making sure that every cricket player in the country ends up making some money!”

“I wear my wife’s eyeglasses because she wants me to see things her way.” - Jason Feinburg

Published in The Hindu on April 11, 2000