They want to curry favor with us..

Sometimes, politicians pit one community against the other to curry favor with one of them.

In order to improve English speaking skills, Sumit tries to be very attentive in his Professional communication class. He sits in the front row, finishes all assignments in time and answers the teacher’s questions in class. His classmates misunderstand his sincerity and think he is trying to curry favor with the teacher.

Curry favor means deliberately doing or saying things to win the support of someone. Thus, if someone tries to flatter you or insincerely support your cause in the hope that you would help or support him in something – he is trying to curry favor with you.

Curry favor usually has negative connotations – you indicate a certain amount of disapproval when you say he is trying to curry favor with them.

Let’s take some examples:

1. Congress leaders promised reservation quotas to the minorities in order to curry favor with them just before the elections.
2. SP announced free laptops and tablets in order to curry favor with the youth.
3. Your insincere efforts to curry favor with me through gifts and flattery will not succeed. What you have done is wrong and you have to pay for it.

One way to remember is to imagine feeding good spicy curry to someone in return for him to favor you. It signifies winning support not through the right means but through shortcut methods.

Let’s see some more examples:

1. Politicians try to rake up communal issues or try to pit one community against the other in order to curry favor with one of those communities. This had been going on for years now and we must see through this game.
2. Sudhir tries to curry favor with the professor through flattery. I doubt his tactics would succeed in the long run.
3. Sanjeev gifted an expensive piece of jewellery to the boss’s wife to curry favor with him. However, the boss suspected him of having an affair with her and got him fired from the job.