“I thought you were bringing your classmate with you. What happened?”

“He’s gone to the mall for something. But he should be here soon. By the way, Vineet isn’t my classmate. He was senior than me in school. I think he was…”

“You don’t generally say ‘senior than’. It’s usually ‘senior to’. For example, Raju does everything Lina says because she is senior to him.”

“How about this example?

Yogesh looks like a kid, but he’s been working in this branch for a long time. He’s senior to everyone here.”

“Sounds good! Similarly, we say, ‘junior to’ and not ‘junior than’.”

“ Sunitha doesn’t like to be told what to do by those who are junior to her.”

“That’s a very good example. But sometimes, listening to people who are junior to you may prove to be very beneficial.”

“That’s true. I’m junior to Vineet, but he always listens to my ideas patiently.”

“That’s good. But why has Vineet gone to the mall? Is he buying something for …”

“Before I answer that question, tell me how ‘d..i..v..o..r..c..e’ is pronounced.”

“You’re not even married! Why are you worried about…”

“Vineet and I had a disagreement about how the word is pronounced. So,….”

“Many people in our country tend to pronounce the first syllable like the word ‘die’. They pronounce the word as ‘die-vorce’. But that’s not how native speakers of English pronounce it.”

“Then, how do they pronounce the first syllable?”

“They tend to pronounce the ‘i’ like the ‘i’ in ‘sit’, ‘pit’ and ‘hit’. They rhyme the second syllable with ‘force’ and ‘course’. They pronounce the word ‘di-VORCE’, with the stress on the second syllable.”

“Quite a few of my friends got a divorce within a year after getting married.”

“The marriage lasted close to a year? That’s a big achievement these days.”

“I suppose it is. Tell me, can the word ‘divorce’ be used in contexts other than marriage?”

“It certainly can. The word can be used with any kind of separation between two things. For example, I wish we could divorce religion from politics.”

“There’s no chance of that happening in our country.

Nobody takes Jai’s ideas very seriously. They are completely divorced from reality.”

“That’s a wonderful example. Now tell me, why has Vineet gone to the mall?”

“The poor chap bought a watch a couple of days ago. But it’s been giving him a lot of trouble. He’s gone to see if he can exchange the watch with a new one.”

“You generally don’t exchange something ‘with’ something else. You usually ‘exchange for’ something. The fridge we bought six months ago is not working properly. We want to exchange it for a new one.”

“The shirt that my mother bought for my birthday was a very tight fit. I went to the store and exchanged it for a kurtha.”

“They allowed you to do that?”

“The kurtha and the shirt were the same price. So, they had no problem with the exchange.”

“I see. Here’s another example. The homeless couple agreed to work on the farm in exchange for food and shelter.”

“I just hope they’re not made to work there for the rest of their life!”

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