IZ #25.159 - [#SundaySpecial] Some Tharoorisms

#SundaySpecial #Language

On Sundays, I post multiple questions on a theme. All previous Sunday Specials here.

Can Tharoorisms counter terrorism? After the events of April and May 2025, Dr Shashi Tharoor took centre-stage as India’s charmer-in-chief, traveling the world, engaging countries one selfie at a time, and showing them what the King’s English could really do.

Some years ago, my colleagues and I had come up with a quiz format called ‘Tharoorified’: where we turned popular proverbs into something that Dr Tharoor might say. As a quizzer himself, he ought to approve.

So identify the proverb given its Tharoorified version:

1. All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.

2. Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.

3. Male cadavers are incapable of rendering any testimony.

4. Freedom of incrustations of grime is contiguous to divinity.

5. Surveillance should precede saltation.

6. Where there are visible vapours having the prominence in ignited carbonous materials, there is conflagration.

7. A temporally appropriate suture conserves the square root of eighty one

---

#interludez

---

Answers

1. All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.

ANS: All that glitters is not gold

2. Sorting on the part of mendicants must be interdicted.

ANS: Beggars cannot be not choosers

3. Male cadavers are incapable of rendering any testimony.

ANS: Dead men tell no tales

4. Freedom of incrustations of grime is contiguous to divinity.

ANS: Cleanliness is next to godliness

5. Surveillance should precede saltation.

ANS: Look before you leap

6. Where there are visible vapours having the prominence in ignited carbonous materials, there is conflagration.

ANS: There’s no smoke without fire

7. A temporally appropriate suture conserves the square root of eighty one

ANS: A stitch in time saves nine

ICYMI: