MASTERING AN ACT...

TO DOCTOR IT…

What does it mean to doctor a thing? Isn’t it synonymous when I say “to tailor it?” When you tailor a thing to suit what you have in mind. Does it mean you sow a suit? No. but what has the connection between a doctor and a tailor?

We all know to tailor a thing means to “engineer it”. Somebody who tailors a thing might be called a tailor and an engineer is a profession also. Yet, they do two different things. What has the relationship between an engineer, and a tailor or with a doctor?

To engineer a thing is to fashion it. Yet, this has nothing to do with walking the runway. Someone who fashions something designs and directs it. And we all know a director directs. He organizes, but he is not an organizer. A director is in every way different from and engineer.

A director surely orchestrates. But he is not an orchestra. He manages, yet not called a manager. But he coordinates. He does not compose and he might not be a manager that coordinates his own composed music in an orchestra.

And yet to doctor something might mean to orchestrate it. Yet, medicine has nothing to do with music or rhythms.

To doctor a thing is to tailor it. Yes, if you tailor it, then you have engineered it, directed it, orchestrated it and managed it so well.

Teju duru is a freelance journalist.

No letters were harmed in the ‘making’ of this write up all words still retain their meanings as originally known by its uisers

© 2010