Should he throw his hat in the ring

If Arvind Kejriwal threw his hat in the ring, he would give several politicians a lot of headache.

The best way to improve your English speaking is to treat it as a skill that it is. Practice, exposure and some more practice – that’s what you need. Exposure to get to know new ways of saying something and practice so that you know how to use different ideas you learn.

Regular reading of the BodhiSutra blog gives you healthy exposure of a variety of ways to express yourself.

The phrase we discuss in this post is, “Throw one’s hat in the ring”. Let’s begin with some examples – read them and try to figure out what the phrase could mean:

1. When people became fed up with corruption and inaction of political parties over it, Arvind Kejriwal’s party decided to throw its hat in the ring. The road is long and difficult but the country needs a political party which thinks in a different way about the people.
2. Everyone thought Sameer would be elected the college student union president unopposed. However, at the last moment, Sushma threw her hat in the ring and upset his calculations.
3. When the date for the Swayamvara came, several knights and princes and brave men threw their hat in the ring for the hand of beautiful Draupadi.

It would be quite apparent by now that throwing the hat in the ring means entering the competition, especially in a formal way, with pomp and show. When someone declares their intent to compete for something, you’d say he has thrown his hat in the ring.

Let’s take some more examples:

1. Several leaders have thrown their hats in the ring for the post of prime minister. However, they need to realize that first, they have to fight the election and win it.
2. Several companies threw their hats in the ring when the program for auction of 3-G spectrum was announced.