Image via Wikipedia It all started with a hurried blog post on our other blog. (My true intention was to test whether the "read more" tag was working.)
A "Yateendra" commented to point out many errors in the text and in also styling the format. Since his profile was not accessible, I searched for a possible Yateendra and wondered if he were the "Yateendra Joshi," who writes the Editage blog and is the author of 'Communicating in Style' - the book praised by John le Carré, well-known British spy novelist, as "A gem. Courteous, unfrightening and essential. A perfect companion to Fowler’s A Dictionary of Modern English Usage for today’s communicators."
With any mention of John le Carré, I am invariably reminded of his 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy', the first one of his books I had chanced to read. Eventually I read the other ones, but this remained as one of my favourites. The title is an adaptation of the famous rhyme. You can read the various versions of the cherrystone rhyme here.
It seems that the rhyme has inspired many an author. Another work I chanced to refer was P. R. Wilkinson's "Thesaurus of Traditional English Metaphors."
Entries in this compilation are arranged under a highly original scheme following this old rhyme 'Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief' with the additional categories 'at home' 'at school and 'at play'.
This also illustrates how the consciousness of a region is a storehouse of its trades and the thesaurus aptly illustrates how these find expression in the language the people there use.
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