# 001 ‘ Uppukku chappani, Oorukku mankottai'
As is the case with many of the idioms in Tamil, 'Uppukku chappani, Oorukku mankottai' also got into a wrong usage. Original word was ‘Oppukku’. The change of this one word rendered first half of the saying totally meaningless. Oppukku means - ‘for the sake of agreement', (‘for name only’). Chappani means an 'unfit person'. Thus including a person (who is unfit to be an equal participant) in the team ‘for name only" came to be refered as 'Oppukku Chappani'. In due course Oppukku got changed (for what reason is not known) to Uppukku! But thankfully the ' Oorukku mangottai' portion remained in tact without getting distorted. Its meaning requires a little lengthy explanation. 3 people travelling together was considered inauspicious. So whenever, there was no other go but to travel as three, one of them carried a 'Mangottai' (Mango seed). This served as a substitute for one more person making it not a three person team thus avoiding t...