Why do we celebrate Mother's Day?

It is Mother’s Day today. The occasion is celebrated throughout the world by those who love their mothers. They buy gifts, send greetings and spend the day with their beloved mothers to honour them.

Though the origin of Mother’s Day is somewhat obscure, most of historians say that the practice must have been influenced by the Mother Goddess cult in Asia Minor as long way back as in 6000 BC. Later on the Greeks imported the cult which was subsequently copied by the Romans as well. This practice gradually crept into Christianity too in the form of Mothering Sunday, an occasion on which Christians belonging to certain denominations honour Virgin Mary and their mother church.

In modern times, Mother’s Day is celebrated by the majority of people on the second Sunday in May. Anna Jarvis, an American lady is credited with the establishment of Mother’s Day as a recognized holiday in 1914 though she embarked on her campaign in the year 1907 following her mother’s death a couple of years ago.

Soon, like anything of the American origin, the celebration spread across the world and in a few years’ time Mother’s Day started to get commercially exploited – something Anna Jarvis never expected! Companies started wooing people with expensive greeting cards and gifts, jewelry industry and hotels reported higher revenues on or before the Mother’s Day. Frustrated, Jarvis along with her sister spent all her inherited and acquired wealth to fight against the commercialization of Mother’s Day. Both the sisters died in poverty a few years later.

It is also interesting to note that Anna Jarvis neither married nor had any children!

KITCHEN CABINET

Becoming the premier or president of a country is one of the most ambitious and shining jobs in the world. But at the same time, while having been elected by the people in a democratic republic, such high profile leaders have to make very important decisions on various issues during their tenure in power to win the hearts of the citizens. And these decisions should also be wise enough to please the media and most importantly to silence the opposition.

In most of the cases, the head of a State does not make the decisions themselves. Rather, he or she consults a small group of people who are very close to them. This highly confidential group of people is called a ‘kitchen cabinet’. These unofficial advisors are not often politicians but the premiers implicitly trust them.

Why does the head of a state turn to kitchen cabinet for advice rather than depending on his own official cabinet? Perhaps, because the official cabinet consists of politicians – a species who are not meant to be trusted even if they belong to your own party!

The origin of the phrase ‘kitchen cabinet’ dates back to 1830s when Andrew Jackson was the President of the USA. Whenever an important decision had to be made, he would turn to three of his close friends whom he trusted the most. But the most interesting fact is that Jackson always let these decision makers enter the White House through the kitchen door as he did not want the media, the other ministers or the public to know the secret of ‘his’ decisions. It is also believed that most of their meetings took place in the kitchen – an activity that gave birth to a new phrase in English, 'kitchen cabinet'!

Today’s media also use a few other expressions to mean the same; ‘think tank’ and ‘brain trust’ being the most widely used ones.

So the next time your country’s premier or president is applauded for his people-friendly decisions, you can imagine how they made it possible!

Is the word 'PEOPLES' completely wrong? 'No...'

'People' is a word that a number of speakers of other languages misuse when they speak in English. Many of them, knowingly or unknowingly, use ‘peoples’ where ‘people’ must be used.

The word ‘people’ is a plural term, whose singular form is ‘person’. When you talk about human beings in general, you must use the term people. For example, it is incorrect to say, ‘I don’t like the peoples who talk a lot’. The sentence should be ‘I don’t like people who talk a lot’.

However, you cannot say that the word ‘peoples’ is totally meaningless or non-existent in English. When you use the word ‘peoples’ you are referring to several groups of people and each group shares a common culture e.g. ‘his latest book is about the varied peoples of West Africa’. The native peoples of Canada and their problems. In such sentences both ‘people’ and ‘peoples’ are correct. The latter is generally used where emphasis is necessary.

YOU ARE SUFFERING FROM PMD, AREN'T YOU?

Post modem depression (PMD) is a kind of depression that some people suffer from when they realise they are unable to access the Internet. In other words, it is the sadness that you feel when you are unable to access the Net.

If you are an Internet addict, you may go into a post modem depression on various occasions for example, if you have ever happened to stay with your relatives or friends who are living in a remote area where there is no Internet access, you probably have experienced PMD. You may also go into such a depression when you cannot access the Net on your PC or cell phone due to some technical snag.

In this modern era of aggressive social networking on Facebook, Twitter, Orkut etc, the number of people who suffer from PMD is increasing alarmingly. I am sure that many of you frequently suffer from bouts of post modem depression, don’t you? Frankly speaking, quite often, I do.

More examples of the expression:

“My cousin Mohan went into a post modem depression when he visited me in my village. He wanted to update his Facebook account, but he just couldn't log in. He was so depressed; he didn't talk to me for a couple of hours.”

“My colleague Sam is a Facebook-addict. He often suffers from PMD whenever his dial-up Internet connection is too slow or fails completely. I advised him to get a broadband connection.”

“Watching TV or listening to music is sometimes helpful in getting rid of post modem depression”