Know your English | Do we say ‘cool drinks’ or ‘soft drinks’? Premium

A column in The Hindu which helps you learn English

If ‘good boy’ means ‘a boy who is good’ and ‘city boy’ means a ‘boy who is used to city life’, logic suggests that a ‘whipping boy’ should be someone who likes to whip — someone who enjoys whipping or beating others. This, however, is not the case; he is someone who gets whipped. In everyday contexts, the expression is mostly used to refer to someone who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong in an organisation or a household. Someone else may have made the blunder, but it is the poor individual who gets blamed; he is punished or reprimanded for no fault of his. The word can be used with people and things. The expression ‘whipping boy’ is not heard very often nowadays; it has been replaced by ‘scapegoat’ and ‘fall guy’.

As usual, it was the poor coach who became the whipping boy for the team’s terrible performance in the tournament.

Whenever the company doesn’t do too well, it’s the marketing department that becomes the whipping boy!

In the past, a boy from a poor family was usually chosen to be with a prince; this companion participated in all the daily activities of the prince. Like the prince, he lived a life of luxury — he dined on good food, wore good clothes, and perhaps what is more important, he studied along with the prince. He was given a free education. The problem was whenever the prince committed a mistake, it was the poor boy, and not the prince, who was punished. He was the one who received a beating from the master! Hence the term ‘whipping boy’.

The word consists of two syllables; the first sounds like the ‘a’ in ‘china’, while the second is pronounced like the word ‘cost’. This word of Latin origin is pronounced ‘a-COST’ with the stress on the second syllable. It comes from the Latin ‘accostare’ meaning ‘come up to the side’; so, when you ‘accost’ someone, you approach an individual. Nowadays, the word is mostly used to suggest walking up to a stranger in an aggressive manner and speaking to him rather rudely. Do not use the word to mean ‘to greet someone’. You usually accost someone you are not familiar with.

On her way to court, Revathi was accosted by three gang members.

Whenever you step out of any temple these days, you’re always accosted by beggars.