ÿþ<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Love Your Language </TITLE> <TITLE> Good Grammar </TITLE> <TITLE> Plain language </TITLE> <TITLE> Plain English </TITLE> <TITLE> Good language style </TITLE> <META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="EditPlus"> <META NAME="Author" CONTENT=""> <META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT=""> <META NAME="Description" CONTENT=""> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css" /> </HEAD> <BODY> <b><a href="INDEX.html">Return to main portal</a></b> <p> <title>plain English</title> <title>plain language</title> <title>Love Your Language</title> <h1>Love Your Language</h1> <h2>Samples from a book written or compiled by Paul Bennett Publishing</h2> <p><b>Our mission statement</b>: <i>Leveraging robust publishing solutions whilst progressing the parameters of client centric core requirements</i> <p> <p>This book shows how our language is changing day by day, and gives examples of how silly we sound when we try to sound dignified or up to date. I wrote down notes as they happened, and they came from authors of books and government documents, people overheard on trains and buses, people broadcasting, and from the occasional incredulous email or phone call from others in the frustrating business of book publishing. <p> <h3>Thanks to my wordspies and © holders</h3> <p>I thank my wordspies Robert Doolan, Dianne Bollen (Tosh), Darinka Copak, Mary Weaver, Isobel Bennett, Brian Nott, and Glen Whitaker. Thanks also to these writers for giving me permission to reproduce their © material: Tim Fay ("Niggardly"), Christine Lindop ("Doubling consonants"), and Emma Tom ("Death of a student").<p> <h3>Notice to commercial publishers</h3> <p>The two publishers I approached going backward do not seem to want to approach me going forward. If you are a commercial publisher and want to pay me to publish this 40,000-word ebook between the covers of a real book going sideways, send an email <A HREF="mailto:pbpub@bigpond.com?subject=Please state your subject"> from here.</a> <a name="contents"><h2>Contents</h2></a> <p>This is the complete Contents, but I am supplying only a few samples. Over time, I will add more samples and remove others.<p> <font size=-2> Abbreviations<br> A or an?<br> <a href="#address">Addressing the issue of <i>addressing the issue</i></a><br> Adverbial problems<br> <a href="#advise">I advise you not to advise</a> <br> And, or, and and/or<br> <a href="#arse">Arseicons<br></a> Assist vs help<br> Attorney-generals or attorneys-general?<br> <a href="#basis">There's no basis for on this basis</a><br> <a href="#begging">Begging the question</a><br> Bob s who s uncle?<br> Books: interesting bits (in capitals), dodgy grammar, proofreading mistakes, and language now-outdated by social rules<br> <a href="#bureau">Bureaucratese: publishing people s second language</a><br> <a href="#colon">Colons & semicolons</a><br> Competency  what relevancy is it to your performancy?<br> <a href="#death">Death of a student by vowel play and consonants</a><br> Diminutive  cello<br> <a href="#doubling">Doubling consonants</a><br> <a href="#euphemism">Euphemisms, unhelpful</a><br> Fluck me<br> Freelance or bound?<br> Foreign charms<br> <a href="#foreign.affairs">Foreign affairs</a><br> <a href="#foreign.plurals">Foreign plurals</a><br> <a href="#for.me">For me: do it just for me</a><br> Four words ending in -dous<br> <a href="#groupthink">Groupthink<br> Hangers-on<br> Homo sacer and Camp X-ray<br> <a href="#draws">Keep yer drawers on</a><br> <a href="#irony">irony: which word did you really want?</a><br> <a href="#jokes">Jokes</a><br> <a href="#lucy">I love Lucy</a><br> Lavatory policy<br> <a href="#Leafblowing">Leafblowing your mind</a><br> Literally literally<br> <a href="#love.long">Love of the long word</a><br> <a href="#malaprop.1">Malapropisms 1: Being slightly wrong, or a mixture of right things, or genuine ignorance, and I guarantee each was heard from real life by one of our wordspies<br></a> <a href="#malaprop.2">Malapropisms 2: Get it wrong, get it right: Being something said wrong, but that could also be right, and again, guaranteed heard or seen by one of our wordspies</a><br> <a href="#masters">Masters of Barbaric Abstractitis (MBA)<br></a> Me, myself and I; and him and he, and so on<br> Mentee, anyone?<br> Mischievious misuse of mischievous<br> <a href="#mission">Mission statement generator<br></a> <a href="#names.1">Names that match the job (happy families)<br></a> <a href="#names.2">Names, funny, and that should not have been allowed<br></a> Meat pie anyone?<br> Cat pee<br> A sh*t of a name<br> Don t have these in your kitchen<br> <a href="#new.words">New words, and old ones resurrected</a><br> <a href="#niggardly">Niggardly<br></a> Nominalisation<br> <a href="#numbers">Numbers' days numbered<br></a> Old lags and new<br> <a href="#opposites">Opposites: one phrase, two opposite meanings</a><br> Overdriving overdrive<br> <a href= "#owing.to">Owing to problems due to due to, because of and owing to, we don t use them<br></a> Oxford comma<br> Pairs and snares<br> <a href="#Paris">Paris Hilton is down-to-earth and useful<br></a> Passionate about superlatives<br> Place names<br> Plain language<br> <a href="#quotes.PC">Quotations: PC, funny, wrong, or "official" language</a><br> <a href="#quotes.heroes">Quotations: language heroes</a><br> <a href="#quotemarks">Quotemarks, double: why should you prefer them to single?<br></a> <a href="#sex">Sex or gender?</a><br> Shortening words, portmanteau words, recipe for blending words<br> Standing Committee for Disability<br> <a href="#Syllabilitis"><i>Syllabilitis verbis</i></a><br> That: leaving out  that <br> <a href="#themself">Themself, themselves, or more timewasting s/he/it</a><br> <a href="#usage">Using <i>usage</i> instead of <i>use</i></a><br> <a href="#VET">VET howlers</a><br> Vogue phrases<br> Whither Wikipedia?<br> Words from the S.P.E.W. factor website (2004)<br> Yeah, no<br> Website wonders<br> <a href="#word.thieves">Word thieves<br></a> </font> <h1>Samples</h1> <a name="address"><h2>Addressing the issue of <i>addressing the issue</i></h2></a> <p>In the early 1990s, the term <i>address the issue</i> to cover things like <i>investigate the trouble</i> or <i>solve the problem</i>, became more common. By the mid-2000s, the term had killed off just about every other, more accurate phrase. This article traces it back to the first appearances that I and my wordspies can find, and it gives a typical example of how even respected journalists have given way under its force.<p> <h3>Early appearances</h3> <p> Smart, Barry 1976, <i>Sociology, Phenomenology and Marxian Analysis: A critical discussion of the theory and pracitce of a science of society</i>, Routledge. On p.188, in the notes to pages 23 52: "11. Gouldner is not unaware of the heterogeneity of Marxism although he does not address the issue directly & "<p> Freund, James C 1977, <i>Lawyering: A Realistic Approach to Legal Practice</i>, Law Journal Press, p.316: "Not that the purchaser's counsel suspects a particular violation of law exists, but merely that the potential harm from a material violation warrants having your firm address the issue."<p> Salter Ainsworth, Mary D 1978, <i>Patterns of Attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation</i>, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p.116: "In this chapter we address the issue of whether individual differences in strange-situation behavior are related to stable individual differences in behavior in the natural environment."<p> Tannenbaum, Percy H. (ed.) 1980, from <i>The Entertainment Functions of Television</i>, papers based on a conference organised by the Committee on Television and Social Behavior of the Social Science Research Council, Paper 1: "An unstructured introduction to an amorphous area", p.3: "We had earlier discussed the desirability of a more broadly based collection of scholars who would address the issue of entertainment from the perspectives of a wider variety of disciplines."<p> Findlay, Janice, January 1986 "Mathematics criteria for awarding exit levels on achievement" in <i>ROSBA: Discussion papers 1 21</i> (the ROSBA report), Queensland Board of Senior Secondary School Studies, 1987:<p> Rather than these minimum standards, could trade-offs such as "S6 on one criterion with at least S5 on the others" make better sense in practice? Inevitably one will also question the role of "marks", and in particular SSAs for use in the derivation of TE Scores. This has not been addressed here, but is considered in a Discussion Paper by D R Sadler entitled <i>A Method of Deriving SSAs without Marks.</i> <p> Immerman, R. 1987, "Between the unattainable and the unacceptable", <i>Reevaluating Eisenhower</i>, Melanson & Mayers, eds, University of Illinois Press, page 126: "The second, however, would address  what should be done to prepare against & "<p> Marilyn McMeniman, January 1987 "Towards a working model for criteria and standards under ROSBA" in <i>ROSBA: Discussion papers 1 21</i> (the ROSBA report), QBSSSS, 1987.<p> End-of-course criteria and standards are addressed, but the paper stands back from proposing the sub-structure necessary for awarding the five end-of-course categories of achievement to students who exit after 1 or 2 semesters.<p> <h3>Sample</h3> <p>Sally Sara, ABC correspondent, speaking from Lebanon on 14 August 2006: "& [damage] that hasn t been assessed, let alone addressed."<p> This one-size-fits-all verb produces boring, vague, language. If you want your writing to produce more than a yawn, select what you mean from among the words in my address list:<br> <p> <p><TABLE width="400" border="1"> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> accounted for </FONT> </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> acted upon </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> allayed </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> analysed </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> answered </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> attended to </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> avoided </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> cared for </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> catered for </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> challenged </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> avoided </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> come to </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> confronted </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> considered </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> covered </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> dealt with </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> debated </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> detailed </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> discussed </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> examined </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> faced </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> fixed </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> grappled with </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> handled </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> highlighted </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> improved </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> included </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> investigated </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> looked at </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> mentioned </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> met </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> outlined </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> presented </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> probed </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> proved </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> raised </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> recognised </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> rectified </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> redressed </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> reduced </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> reflected </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> related to </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> remedied </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> resolved </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> responded to </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> reviewed </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> seen </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> shown </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> solved </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> stated </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> tabled </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> tackled </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> talked about </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> tested </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> thought about </TD></FONT> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> took action on </TD></FONT> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE="-1"> wrestled with </TD></FONT> <TD> </TD> <TD> </TD> <TD> </TD> </FONT> </TABLE> <a name="advise"><h2>I advise you not to advise</h2></a> <p>Bureaucrats love to <i>advise</i> you instead of tell you. <i>Advise</i> goes with soft and spongy personalities. You should not advise anyone unless you are giving advice. Instead of <i>advise</i>, say: <i>tell</i>, <i>inform</i>, <i>report</i>, <i>comment</i>, <i>indicate</i>, <i>state</i>, <i>remark</i>, <i>point out</i>, <i>suggest</i>, <i>think</i>, <i>believe</i>.<br> When Francene Norton read the ABC News at 0700 on 10 April 2006, advising us that some women got lost on a bushwalk in Queensland, she said:  They called police on their mobile phones to advise they were lost. What did they say when they rang the police?  Hello, is that the police? We advise that we are lost in bushland. ?<p> <a name="arse"><h2>Arseicons</h2></a> <p>I wish I'd invented these, but they were sent to me by my friend Letitia.<br> You know those computer symbols called emoticons, like  <br> : ) means a smile and<br> : ( is a frown?<br> Well, these are arseicons:<br> <TABLE border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <TD align="left" valign="top"> <TABLE width="125" border="0"> <TD align="left"> <font size="-1">(_!_) arse<br> (__!__) fat arse<br> (!) tight arse<br> (_x_) kiss my arse<br> (_½_) half arse</font> </TD> </TABLE> </TD> <TD align="left" valign="top"> <TABLE width="200" border="0"> <TD align="left" valign="top"> <font size="-1">(_E=mc2_) smart arse<br> (_o_) worn-out arse<br> (_?_) dumb arse<br> (_ _) dead arse<br> (_$_) money coming out of arse</font> </TD> </TABLE> </TD> </TABLE> <a name="basis"><h2>There s no basis for on this basis</h2></a> <p>What <i>is</i> going on with adverbs? On the radio this morning I heard three different educated people say <i>on a daily basis</i>, <i>on a regular basis</i>, and <i>on a compassionate basis</i>. An example is an ABC RN  Breakfast presenter, 1 March 2005, discussing Dick Smith s visit to a detention centre to publicize the plight on an individual case:  Do you think this indicates that opponents of mandatory detention are now approaching the issue case by case & er & on a case-by-case basis? <br> Why can t these oafs say <i>daily</i>, <i>regularly</i> or <i>compassionately</i>? Has the purpose of the adverb been obscured by academicspeak, forcing people to make the longest possible line out of something simple?<br> If you work near an <i>on a basis</i>-er, get a piece of cardboard, write a big sign saying ADVERBS, put it on their desk and wait for them to ask what it means.<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="begging"><h2>Begging the question</h2></a> <p>The  correct meaning of <i>begging the questio</i>n, as described by Henry Fowler, is  the fallacy of founding a conclusion on a basis that as much needs to be proved as the conclusion itself . Ernest Gowers, the editor of Fowler s 2nd edition, gave this example:  capital punishment is necessary because, without it, murders would increase . Today the term almost always means  to give rise to the need for a question as in  Fred Bloggs s incorrect condemnation of the writer s grammar begs the question of how much grammar Fred himself understands .<p> Gowers tells us that by 1966, <i>Begging a question</i> had been distorted to also mean avoiding giving a straight answer. By 1992, when Oxford published Professor Burchfield s 3rd edition, <i> begging the question</i> had three meanings: the original, avoiding a straight answer, and giving rise to the need for a question. Neither of the two newer meanings were mentioned in the 1926 Fowler, so we can assume that the first distorted meaning cropped up between 1930 and 1965, and the second between 1966 and 1992.<p> Not many older people enjoy unnecessary changes to perfectly good expressions, but it s nothing new. Ignorant people, including university-trained news reporters, will continue to do it. The obvious answer is to avoid the phrase entirely, replacing it by something people cannot misunderstand. BUT, <i>Begging the question</i> wasn t a very good phrase to start with, was it? It was hard to understand and this made it easy to distort. Its latest meaning possibly makes a bit more sense than the others.<p> Confusing interpretations of language by uncaring or uneducated people will always win over correct definitions. That s why language changes, and that s why agonised cries for help from pained readers will not result in anything useful. I hate this sort of thing, but I m no King Canute. Begging the question is one good example of how a meaning has evolved, but there are dozens more, and new ones crop up every month.<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="bureau"><h2>Bureaucratese: publishing people s second language</h2></a> <p>This was written for publishing editors, but it can also apply to anybody who deals with businesspeople, teachers, or government departments. Within a few minutes, I will prove to you that publishing people must have bureaucratese as their second language because, without it they:<br> " take too long on a job, charge too much and go out of business<br> " cannot speak to their writers in the only language they don t understand<br> " cannot begin to understand the history of the other naturally non-compos-mentis languages they will be asked to work in: educationese, sportspersonese, and entertainmentese.<br> Watch Indian TV, or a bit of Bollywood, and you ll hear sentences, made by a native for another native, that are made up of two languages stirred up together. This is the natural way, and it happened because of their history  they didn t go out to learn it specially. I recently saw an Indian film made in the early 50s, and it was the same then as it is now.<p> <h4>Taking too long on a job, charging too much, not being respected, and going out of business</h4><p> <p>All of us in the publishing trade have chosen to work with words in a society whose appreciation of elegant language has fallen away to nothing, where information is distributed in tiny, media-useful wordbiscuits, and where everyone above the rank of floorsweeper has to have an MBA to even get an interview. Once inside an organisation, MBAs, just like cane toads, kill off everything else. They do it by attrition because they will select only their own kind, and as an organisation s elegant writers retire, they are replaced by more and more MBAs. And as they fire good editors who know something about good language, they ll replace them with  communications persons who understand and blow-out the sort of wordfarts that MBAs love to use. If you want to survive in this unglamorous trade, if you are to earn a living by checking the words of writers who have trouble getting their own surnames right, and if you are to proofread at speeds over 500 words per hour, you are going to have to be fluent in the abstractions, wordfouling, half-truths, euphemisms, lies, showing-off, long variants and neologisms that is our second language, or perhaps our first language. We entrust the education of our children to people who speak only -eses, and so we owe it to our children to understand what these people say. <h4>Speaking to your writers in the only language they don t understand</h4> <p>Let s say you have to comment on this piece (which one of my friends had to do in 2005): "The emanation of innovation from synergies of various stakeholders working together to solve problems and issues is another focus of this publication .You could then click your  Comments button and write:  As this is a stakeholder-focused annual report, do you think it s an idea to leverage the interest of corporate readers by transitioning the sentence to the more strategic and powerful: "The way that various stakeholders working together have developed cooperative ways to address issues is another focus of this publication?" They couldn t refuse because your translation has shown your mastery over the form, and they ll crumple at your feet.<p> <h4>Inability to understand the history of the other non-compos-mentis languages that will become more important going forward</h4> <p>As you strategically progress your career in editing, you ll be asked to work on other forms. How about the rich tapestry of sportspersonese such as this from the sporting poet defending the throat-cutting gesture in the All Blacks Hakka, new in 2004:  I think it s completely appropriate. These gladiators are running the tightrope on the cutting edge of their sport. <br> How about Hollywood? You mustn t flinch when you re asked not to change this, seen in a screen starburst, during a million-dollar trailer in 2005:  Sean Penn in another exciting and imploding performance. <br> How about law?  A male person who was in the house at the time of the fire is deceased at this stage (Police spokesman reporting on a NSW house fire on ABC News Radio, 14 October 2004.<br> How about the military?  After the man ignored orders, which were given in Arabic, the soldiers engaged him with rifle fire. (Australian Defence Force spokesperson, ABC radio 26 January 2005, commenting on the death of an Iraqi shot dead by Australian forces in Iraq in January 2005.)<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="colon"><h2>Colons and semicolons</h2></a> <p>Source: <i>The Times Literary Supplement</i>. Subheading: NB. Byline: J.C. Issue Date: Friday 15 November 2002. Page: 16.<br> [While] marking the proofs of <i>Seven Pillars of Wisdom</i> for [T. E.] Lawrence & [George Bernard] Shaw felt compelled to spell it out:  When a sentence contains more than one statement, with different nominatives & the statements should be separated by a semicolon when the relation between them is expressed by a conjunction. When there is no conjunction,  use a colon . Shaw gave some examples:  Luruns [Lawrence] said nothing; but he thought the more. Luruns could not speak: he was drunk. The correspondence is also with Shaw s wife, Charlotte: she sent Lawrence parcels. They often included copies of the TLS; but he failed to acknowledge them. <i>Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw 1922 1926</i> is the first volume of the Lawrence Letters: eight more will follow. Availability is limited; but enquire of Castle Hill Press, White Cottage, Woodgreen Common, Hants SP6 2BD.<p> <a name="death"><h2>Death of a student by vowel play and consonants</h2></a> <p><i>Emma Tom, Australian journalist, author, broadcaster and musician, wrote this article for </i>The Australian<i> of 5 May 2004. She has kindly given me permission to reproduce it. See more of this stunning superwoman at her website <a href="http://www.emmatom.com.au">emmatom.com.au.</a></i><p> The transnational dissemination of mass-mediated culture is, given the hegemonic strength of global capitalism in today s world economy, an irreversible process that cannot be structurally transcended, at least not in the foreseeable future. But this does not mean that it is not actively and differentially responded to and negotiated with in concrete local contexts and conditions.<p> When I experienced my first homicidal impulse towards Perth academic Len Ang, I consulted my handy university survival guide for assistance.  During your studies you might find it necessary to get a part-time job, it read.  Also, try not to drink too much beer. <p> As a mature-age student, you get used to finding university survival guides a little off the mark. The hilarious idea that working might be optional, for instance. Or that excessive beer drinking is something you d have time to do after spending every non-working minute of the day trying to get a grip on the difference between structural and non-structural transcendence.<p> Still, you d think there d be at least one reference to dealing with academic writing-related psychopathy.<p> It was just bad luck that Ang copped the brunt of my sudden new interest in professorcide. Plenty of her peers were equally infuriating. But chapter nine of her book <i>Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World</i> happened to be the first piece I had to read from my official university reader.<p> Here s the thing: While I understood most of the individual words in isolation, the way they d been arranged in relation to each other rendered them completely incomprehensible.<p>  If, in other words, the global is the site of the homogeneous (or the common) and the local the site of the diverse and the distinctive, then the latter can  in today s integrated world systems  only constitute and reconstitute itself in and through concrete reworkings and appropriations of the former. <p> Um. About half past three?<p> I felt like that man who mistook his wife for a hat in Oliver Sack s book of the same name. Hat Man was a musician able to register parts but not their sum. When presented with a glove, he identified it as a continuous surface that appeared to have  five outpouchings and was  infolded on itself . Thus, for me, Ang s reference to a  structure of temporal synchronicity was little more than a bunch of vowels and consonants in groupings of nine, two, eight and thirteen.<p> Unlike Hat Man, I was unable to accept my condition with dignity and grace. Instead, I threw myself into the whole temporary insanity thing, stopping only to quote the recent defence of everyday English by <i>The Spectator</i> s Lloyd Evans.<p>  It s true that an arcane word has a dictionary meaning, Evans wrote in a condemnation of Will Self s verbal wankery.  But this is purely hypothetical. In practice, it has no meaning at all. It s like putting <i>tlfdtjdtx</i> in the middle of this sentence. <p> It s five weeks into semester one and I ve ploughed through enough idiot guides on critical theory to be able to read  as opposed to merely observe the outpouchings of  my required texts. Casual references to  Gramscian resonance no longer leave me at risk of a restraining order and I can even understand enough of Ang to realise she makes some fascinating points. (Happily, my initial reaction to her book turns out to be a differential response negotiated from my concrete local context and is therefore completely legitimate.)<p> What I can t understand, however, is the argument that complex ideas require complex language.<p> In a world where public debate has degenerated into simplistic either or idiocy (you re either a supporter of the occupation of Iraq or a Saddam Hussein flunky), we re in dire need of the sort of philosophical complexity academics are rather good at.<p> What they need is encouragement  and I realise now this should probably be of the non-violent variety  to express themselves a little more accessibly. Or at least to offer a plain English translation for the masses. Because big, multi-dimensional ideas are way too important to leave to tlfdtjdtx.<br> <p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="doubling"><h2>Doubling consonants</h2></a> <p>(Extracts and modified text from an article  Finer points by Christine Lindop, in the UK editors journal CopyRight, October 2000.) <h4>One-syllable adjectives and verbs</h4> <p>When the word ends with one vowel followed by one consonant, double the consonant before -er, -ing and -ed:<br> " fat, fatter, fattest<br> " thin, thinner, thinnest<br> " clap, clapping, clapped<br> " grin, grinning, grinned<br> " fur, furry<br> " cat, catty<br> " run, runner<p> <h4>Verbs with more than one syllable</h4> <p>As before, verbs must end in one vowel followed by one consonant. But there is a further condition: consonant doubling only takes place if the final syllable is stressed. So:<br> " regret, regretting, regretted  but: fidget, fidgeting, fidgeted<br> " defer, deferring, deferred  but: offer, offering, offered.<br> " begin, beginning  but deepen, deepening, deepened; and: focus, focusing, focused.<p> <h4>Odds and ends</h4> <p>W and y after a vowel at the end of the word are part of the vowel sound and are not doubled:<br> " slow, slower, slowest<br> " stray, straying, strayed.<p> X is never doubled:<br> " box, boxing, boxed.<p> Verbs ending in a c add a k rather than another c, and do so regardless of stress:<br> " panic, panicking, panicked.<p> Adjectives ending in ic use more and most rather than er and est:<br> " the most basic requirements. <h4>Exceptions</h4> <p>Like all good rules, there are exceptions. Something in the English and Australian souls (but not necessarily US souls) rebels against a single l or a single p before these endings, so, sometimes regardless of stress or number of vowels:<br> " cancel, cancelling, cancelled; but US canceling, canceled<br> " dial, dialling, dialled; but US (usually) dialing, dialed<br> " travel, travelling, travelled; but US (usually) traveling, traveled<br> " trial, trialling, trialled; but US (usually) trialing, trialed<br> " kidnap, kidnapping, kidnapped but US (also) kidnaping, kidnaped<br> " worship, worshipping, worshipped but US (also) worshiping, worshiped.<p> Finally, an exception to the double ls above. There seem to be enough ls in parallel to satisfy everybody, so when parallel is used as a verb, the final l is not doubled. parallel, paralleled, paralleling, unparalleled.<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="euphemism"><h2>Euphemisms, unhelpful</h2></a> <p>In April 2006, Jack Straw, splendidly named British government minister, said that Iraq s failure to come up with a strong, workable government was  unhelpful to the security situation . Once upon a time, using a word like <i>unhelpful</i> would have been called diplomatic but, in this case, I think Jack simply followed the pack by using a recent trendy new euphemism.<p> I have noticed now that many people, especially nice people who may not have the courage to stand by what they say, use <i>unhelpful</i> every time they want to say <i>damaging</i>, <i>dangerous</i>, <i>uncooperative</i> or any other word that might sound like it means something. It s an exact copy of the reason people started to say <i>issue</i> when they meant problem, or <i>inappropriate behaviour</i> when they meant bad behaviour.<p> If anyone accuses me of standing in the way of progress, I can tell you a story of how <i>issue</i> has deliberately been unnaturally wrenched from <i>problem</i> by word thieves. I worked in a Queensland Government agency, and one of our publishing staff had been invited by another government agency to spend two weeks working on a publishing project in Papua New Guinea. She showed me the invitation. I asked her why the writers had continually used <i>issue</i> when they clearly meant <i>problem</i>. She replied that, when she went up there once before, she and other staff had been particularly asked to avoid the word <i>problem</i> when they were referring to a problem, because it might possibly alert the people they went there to help (assist) might have a problem. This, of course, immediately insults the people they were trying to be nice to, by assuming that the poor devils don t know they have a problem. I m sure they do.<p> Old-fashioned euphemisms that might soften a blow, such as <i>pass away</i>, <i>passed on</i>, <i>took her own life</i>, <i>cull</i>, <i>put him to sleep</i> can be personal and helpful, and you d use them if you knew the other person was sensitive to a too-blunt reference to a recent tragedy  but who do we think we are we kidding by saying <i>unhelpful</i> instead of rude, <i>assist</i> instead of help, and <i>issue</i> instead of problem?<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="foreign.affairs"><h2>Foreign affairs</h2></a> <p>The world is divided into two: people who are polite and people who are not. When I say polite, I m not talking about the force that makes people remember to say  Have a nice day or  Safe home , or toot their damned car horns on leaving at midnight even though they have already said goodbye at the door: I am talking about deep-down politeness, the sort that good people naturally have, the sort that makes it unnecessary for them to have to learn to be socially correct. <p> Polite people do not make others uncomfortable. They would hit you if you imitated speech defects of someone else in the room: they wouldn t dream of copying a limp to honour someone in the room with one leg shorter than the other. So why is it that these well-meaning people make the blunder of trying to imitate the sound that natives make when pronouncing the names of their towns or other things indigenous to their country? Not only is it an insult to the people who speak the language naturally, it s also an insult to anyone else in the room who has not studied foreign languages and who simply cannot be expected to know that a double <i>l</i> (that's "el") in French or Spanish is pronounced like a <i>y</i>. But because the 21st century has apparently been earmarked as the time when we must abandon English pronunciations of foreign place names, we continually hear <i>Chee-lay</i> for Chile, <i>Nich-waugh-waugh</i> for Nicaragua , <i>Timor Este</i> for East Timor, <i>Barthelona</i> for Barcelona, <i>Seveeya</i> for Seville, <i>manzaneeya</i> for manzanilla, and <i>semi-yon</i> for semillon. A senior wordspy, Glen Whitaker, heard the wonderful <i>con-duee</i> for conduit in March 2008. I often hear people talk about <i>Turbo Street</i> for Turbot Street in Brisbane, and many still say <i>Suncor</i> and <i>Tabcor</i> as if the <i>cor</i> sound in these corporations is short for <i>corps</i>. If people pose like this, why don t they say <i>Paree</i> for Paris, <i>Veen</i> for Vienna, or <i>Roma</i> for Rome?<p> In Queensland a few years ago, Mr T. E. Morris started a vineyard, winery and restaurant. Spelling his name backwards, he called it Sirromet and  knowledgeable people in Queensland pronounce it  Sirromay , an embarrassing piece of ignorance or pretentiousness.<p> As usual when looking for politeness in speech, we turn to Fowler. He puts it better that I can in his article  Didactism (in which he lumps foreign-language pronunciation with the unnecessary use of technical terms):  If English is not entitled to give what form it chooses to foreign words & why do we say <i>Germany</i> and <i>Athens</i> instead of <i>Deutschland</i> and the rest, or allow the French to insult us with <i>Londres</i> and <i>Angleterre</i>? &  Seriously, our learned persons and professors should not, when they are writing for or speaking to the general public, presume to improve the accepted vocabulary or pronunciation. When they are addressing audiences of their likes, they may naturally use, to their heart s content, the forms that are most familiar to both parties; but otherwise they should be at pains to translate technical terms into English. And what is of far greater importance, when they do forget this duty, we others who are unlearned, and naturally speak not in technical terms but in English, should refuse to be either cowed by the fear of seeming ignorant, or tempted by the hope of passing for specialists, into following their bad example without their real though insufficient excuse .<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="foreign.plurals"><h2>Foreign plurals</h2></a> <p>The Oxford English Dictionary defines<i> curriculum </i>as a course of study as at a school. Their first record of this word in English was in 1633, and so it is not that old  we must have been happy with  course , or  course of instruction before then. The word comes from the Latin<i> curriculum </i>meaning a race, race track, chariot, course of action; and its plural<i> was <i>curricula.</i><p> </i>After a word from another country or a dead language has first been taken into English, we keep it at arm s length by putting it in italics, using all its accents and frills, and spelling it and its variants the way it was spelled at home. After a while, when we get used to the word, we consider it has paid its dues, we release it from italics, and we apply English plural forms. One example is<i> bureau</i> which is now a fully paid-up immigrant meaning no more than<i> office</i>, and, in regular English use, the French plural<i> bureaux </i>would look quite odd. Despite this, many people hang on, perhaps in an attempt at sounding educated, and even make fools of themselves. My friend heard an Australian announcer on Channel 7, during the Olympic Games in China in August 2008, and he not only said: "These issues are the current <i>foci</i> for these atheletes", but he pronounced his <i>foci</i> as foe-sie!<p> There are, of course, several foreign plurals so well entrenched that nobody would think of changing them from their native state  nobody says<i> datums </i>or<i> stratums</i>. Some foreign plurals have remained to help us differentiate between different meanings, so<i> mediums </i>means a collection of people who deal with spirits of the departed, but<i> media </i>means a group of people from the newspapers, magazines, radio and television. <p> Despite the strong, long-term drift away from foreign plurals, some writers still use foreign plurals even when the English version is well known and accepted. A good example is<i> curricula </i>instead of<i> curriculums</i>. The dangers in continuing this way are that the writer can appear precious, too clever, or simply old fashioned; and<i> curricula </i>and<i> curricular </i>sound the same and are easily confused.<p> <i>Curricula</i> is not entrenched; it s sort of fifty-fifty. The<i> Education (School Curriculum P 10) Act 1996 </i>(Qld), uses both forms, one each! Australia s foremost guide to consistency, <i>The Macquarie Dictionary</i>, gives both forms, but it puts<i> curriculums </i>first and<i> curricula </i>second. If we follow the guideline in the<i> Australian Government Style Manual</i>, we must choose the form mentioned first.<p> <h3>Authoritative people who lean towards English plural forms</h3><p> Henry Fowler, the doyen of grammarians, in<i> Modern English Usage </i>(1926), at the end of his article  Latin plurals : <br> <FONT SIZE="-2">All that can safely be said is that there is a tendency to abandon the Latin plural, and that when one is really in doubt which to use, the English form should be given preference .</FONT><p> In 1966, Fowler s reviser, and famous grammarian, Sir Ernest Gowers, did not alter a word of it in the 2nd edition.<p> Professor R.W. Burchfield, Fowler reviser (3rd edition, 1992):<br> <FONT SIZE="-2">& In scientific work, <i>foci</i>, <i>formulae</i>, <i>indices</i> and <i>vortices</i> are regularly used, but in general writing, the ordinary plural forms in <i>-s</i>, <i>-es</i> are more usual . </FONT><p> <i>Usage and Abusage</i>, by Eric Partridge:<br> <FONT SIZE="-2">The general rule is: Add<i> c </i>(or, to nouns ending in <i>s </i>or<i> x</i> in the singular,<i> es</i>). Therefore <i>nucleuses </i>and <i>chrysalises</i>. <i>Indices </i>differs from<i> indexes</i>. The plural of<i> formula </i>is<i> formulas</i> (not<i> ae </i>much less<i> æ</i>). & This rule applies not only to Greek and Latin words (<i>octopus</i>, <i>octopuses</i>; <i>rhinoceros</i>,<i> rhinoceroses</i>), but to words from modern languages: thus, the plural of <i>stiletto</i> is<i> stilettos</i>; not, as in Italian,<i> stilett</i>i.</FONT><p> The<i> Australian Government Style Manual</i>, latest (6th) edition, 2002:<br> <FONT SIZE="-2">For non-specialist writing, the first spelling in either The<i> Australian Oxford Dictionary </i>or<i> The Macquarie Dictionary</i> should be adopted and used consistently throughout a document & Of the Latin loan words ending in<i> a </i>in the singular, the Latin (<i>ae</i>) is preferred only for those words strongly associated with science; examples are<i> larvae and<i> vertebrae</i>. </i>For the words<i> curriculum</i>, <i>memorandum </i>and<i> referendum</i>, the English plural is preferred  <i> curriculums</i>, <i>memorandums </i>and <i>referendums </i>.</FONT><p> David Crystal in the <i>Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language</i>: <br> <FONT SIZE="-2">Nouns which have been borrowed from foreign languages pose a particular problem. Some have adopted the regular plural ending:  They sang another two choruses (not chori). Some have kept the original foreign plural:  More crises to deal with (not <i>crisises</i>). And some permit both:  What lovely cactuses/cacti! There are no rules. Some people have to learn which form to use as they meet the words for the first time, and must become aware of variations in usage. Where there is a choice, the classical plural is usually the most technical, learned, or formal, as in the case of<i> formulas </i>vs<i> formulae </i>or<i> curriculums</i> vs<i> curricula</i>. </FONT><p> <h3>Do we choose English or classical plurals?</h3><p> It s a courageous person who would argue against the mighty forces assembled in the previous section. And the point that was made more than once is that the classical form is much more likely to be reserved for scientific, medical or  learned journals. Documents dealing with general aspects of education are rarely scientific, so there is no strong argument to continue with classical endings. If we have to choose, it may be wiser to stay with the one that is bound to continue to increase in popularity over the next few years.<p> <i>Reasons to use classical</i><br> Sounds more  learned to some<br> Well known by most readers in education<br> When it differentiates (<i>media/medium</i>)<p> <i>Reasons to use English</i><br> Sounds less starchy<br> Well known by all readers in education<br> Follows current trends<br> Curricula regularly confused with<i> curricular</i><br> Scarcity of people familiar with Latin or Greek<p> <h3>Curricular</h3> <p>We need a word that means  pertaining to curriculum . One long-accepted version is <i>curricular</i>, as in <i>extra-curricular activities</i>. But there s no reason for us to insist on <i>curricular</i>  why shouldn t we use <i>curriculum</i> as an adjective, too? (We already use the noun <i>education</i> as an adjective.) Even though there s nothing wrong with <i>curricular</i>, it still sounds like <i>curricula</i>. Plumping for <i>curriculum</i> as an adjective overcomes that problem.<p> One of many precedents for using <i>curriculum</i> adjectivally comes from the <i>Education Act 2004</i> (C wth):  30 Curriculum (1) The chief executive must decide the curriculum requirements .<p> <h3>Suggestions</h3> <p>Use <i>curriculums</i>, not <i>curricula</i>.<p> Use <i>curriculum</i> as an adjective, not <i>curricular</i>, but don t edit people who have already written <i>extra-curricular</i>.<p> Use Australian (English) for all plurals instead of Latin, Greek, French and Italian, if it s not a scientific work (e.g.<i> cellos</i> makes more sense in English than<i> celli </i>because a cello is a very ordinary thing in this country, not a new, strange foreign instrument).<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="for.me"><h2>For me: do it just <i>for me</i></h2></a> <p>There s a newish, genteel and unnecessary niceness among medical assistants. Here is just one huge sample taken from just one assistant, during just one eye test for my mother (who had just one eye). I was in the room and I jotted these notes down without the assistant seeing me do it. I don t need any more examples because this assistant covered the whole plot in just one go:<br> Please come in here for me.<br> Just take a seat here for me.<br> Grab a tissue for me.<br> Leave your glasses on for me.<br> Tilt your head back for me, please, right back.<br> Please read the second line of the sight chart for me.<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="groupthink"><h2>Groupthink</h2></a> <p>Pedants grow on nutrients scattered from newspapers, radio and TV. If a newsreader says  the couple was in the garden then the pedant will be strengthened in their belief that <i> the couple</i> is singular. If a TV ad says that <i>Ford Motor Company are to introduce a new model</i> the pedant will be strengthened in their belief that <i> the company</i> is plural. Pedants then bully their weaker associates and, quick as a flash, everyone has a fixed idea on what is plural and what are singular.<p> Elegant language, however, has no strong rules to bind it as tight as a pedant and we are all pleased to learn that <i>couple</i>, <i>group</i>, <i>committee</i>, <i>company</i>, <i>staff</i> and other such words are sometimes singular and sometimes plural, and common sense decides whether we put <i>is</i> or <i>are</i> after them. Don t take my word. Listen to these simple explanations from <i>Collins Dove Guide to Australian Usage and Punctuation</i>:<p> <ul><p> "A lot of" or "a couple of" & strictly speaking & are singular nouns. But anything other than plural & verbs to go with these & is nowadays nonstandard:<br> A lot of them are happy. [obviously good]<br> A lot of them is happy. [obviously bad]<br> A couple of my friends are here. [obviously good]<br> A couple of my friends is here. [obviously bad]<p> & "group", "team", "staff", "government" are singular in form but they contain the idea of collections of individuals & If the context suggets that you are dealing with the collection <i>as a whole</i>, a singular verb is always suitable:<br> The orchestra is in good form. The firefighting team is on its way.<p> If the context suggests that you are dealing with the <i>individuals</i> of the group & you can opt between singular or plural verbs:<br> The staff is expressing different views on the subject<br> The staff are expressing different views on the subject.<p> </ul> For my money, if the staff expressed different views, it would <i>always</i> be  the staff <i>are</i> expressing different views because the staff members are not united as they would be if they all expressed the same view. United = <i>is</i>, divided = <i>are</i>. <a name="draws"><h2>Keep yer drawers on</h2></a> <p>The IT department of a Queensland government agency sent this note to its staff in April 2007:  Please note that draws are all being removed on Thursday in your section. <br> ABC RN news at noon on 24 January 2006 told us that the Australian Open Tennis Championship will continue this afternoon  with differences between men s and women s draws . <br> It all <i>sounds</i> the same.<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="irony"><h2>Irony: which word did you <i>really </i>want?</h2></a> <p>Everybody says <i>ironic</i> when they mean <i>unusual</i>, or <i>quirky</i>, or <i>funny</i>. The reason we say <i>ironic</i> is that our language <i>needs</i> a word that means  kind of odd, in a funny way and <i>ironic</i> fits comfortably. <i>Ironic</i> technically does/did not mean that. Let s look at what Fowler said about <i>ironic</i>, and what it really meant, then look at some other words we might think of using, if only to break the monotony of <i>ironic</i> in its new, slightly suspect, sense.<br> Fowler (1926): "The word <i>irony</i> is one of the worst abused in the language & any definition of irony  though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted  must include this: that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same& "<p> So you might like to try these once in a while: <i>bitter</i>, <i>harsh</i>, <i>wry</i> (bitterly amusing), <i>droll</i> (amusingly odd), <i>sarcastic</i>, <i>sardonic</i>, <i>mocking</i>, <i>comical</i>, <i>strange</i>. I have tried them all here, but they don t all work:<p> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how <i>ironic</i> that he died of a sudden heart attack.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; a <i>bitter</i> twist, then, that he died of a sudden heart attack.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how <i>harsh</i>, then, that he died of a sudden heart attack.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how <i>wry</i> that he died of a sudden heart attack.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how <i>droll</i> that he died of a sudden heart attack.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how <i><s>sarcastic</s></i> that he died of a sudden heart attack.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how <i><s>sardonic</s></i></i> that he died of a sudden heart attack.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; his death from a sudden heart attack, then, made a sad mockery of his advice.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how <i>comical</i> that he died of a sudden heart attack.<br> He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; <i>strange</i>, then, that he died of a sudden heart attack.<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="jokes"><h2>Jokes</h2></a> <h3>Rearrange the letters  very clever (email, unknown origin)</h3> <p>Dormitory: dirty room; Presbyterian: best in prayer; Astronomer: moon starer; Desperation: a rope ends it; The eyes: they see; George Bush: he bugs gore; The morse code: here come dots; Slot machines: cash lost in me; Animosity: is no amity; Election results: lies  let's recount; Snooze alarms: alas! no more z 's; A decimal point: im a dot in place; Eleven plus two: twelve plus one; Mother-in-law: woman hitler. <h3>AWB scandal, as seen by wordspy Glen Whitaker</h3> <p>The ABC says:  Some Liberal backbenchers want AWB stripped of its wheat export monopoly . I can't help thinking it should be <i>threshed</i> from its monopoly, or perhaps the executives could be winnowed. <h3>Not a joke, but clever and funny</h3> <p>The name on the door of a medical practice in Woolloongabba, Brisbane ( the Gabba ), and the way it is written:<br> <i><b>G</b></i>abba<br> <i><b>A</b></i>naesthetic<br> <i><b>S</b></i>ervices<br> <h3>Mum and dad</h3> <p>You concentrate on Dad; I ll have a stabat Mater. <h3>Limerick</h3> <p>A lovely young lady from Ryde ate too many apples, and died The apples fermented inside the lamented and formed into cider inside her. <h3>A bit rude</h3> <p><i>I cannot vouch for this but it s funny anyway. It was sent to me by email. The story is that this was broadcast by Ronnie Barker on BBC TV in the 1970s, but I find it hard to believe. The story goes that they received no complaint, which I can t believe either.</i> <p>This is the story of Rindercella and her sugly isters. Rindercella and her sugly isters lived in a marge lansion. Rindercella worked very hard frubbing sloors, emptying poss pits, and shivelling shot. At the end of the day, she was knucking fackered. The sugly isters were right bugly astards. One was called Mary Hinge, and the other was called Betty Swallocks; they were really forrible huckers; they had fetty sweet and fetty swannies. The sugly isters had tickets to go to the ball, but the cotton runts would not let Rindercella go. Suddenly there was a bucking fang, and her gairy fodmother appeared. Her name was Shairy Hithole and she was a light rucking fesbian. She turned a pumpkin and six mite wice into a hucking cuge farriage with six dandy ronkeys who had buge hollocks and dig bicks The gairy fodmother told Rindercella to be back by dimnlight otherwise, there would be a cucking falamity. At the ball, Rindercella was dancing with the prandsome hince when suddenly the clock struck twelve. "Mist all chucking frighty!!!" said Rindercella, and she ran out tripping barse over ollocks, so dropping her slass glipper. The very next day the prandsome hince knocked on Rindercella's door and the sugly isters let him in. Suddenly, Betty Swallocks lifted her leg and let off a fig bart. "Who's fust jarted??" asked the prandsome hince. "Blame that fugly ucker over there!!" said Mary Hinge. When the stinking brown cloud had lifted, he tried the slass glipper on both the sugly isters without success and their feet stucking funk. Betty Swallocks was ducking fisgusted and gave the prandsome hince a knack in the kickers. This was not difficult as he had bucking fuge halls and a hig bard on. He tried the slass glipper on Rindercella and it fitted pucking ferfectly. Rindercella and the prandsome hince were married. The pransome hince lived his life in lucking fuxury, and Rindercella lived hers with a follen swanny. <h3>Neologism contest </h3> <p>Once again in 2005, <i>The Washington Post</i> published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply other meanings for common words. The winners were: 1. Coffee (n.) the person upon whom one coughs. 2. Flabbergasted (adj.) appalled over how much weight you have gained. 3. Abdicate (v.) to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. 4. Esplanade (v.) to attempt an explanation while drunk. 5. Willy nilly (adj.) impotent. 6. Negligent (adj.) describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown. 7. Lymph (v.) to walk with a lisp. 8. Gargoyle (n.) olive-flavoured mouthwash. 9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller. 10. Balderdash (n.) a rapidly receding hairline. 11. Testicle (n.) a humorous question on an exam. 12. Rectitude (n.) the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists. 13. Pokemon (n) a Rastafarian proctologist. 14. Oyster (n.) a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms. 15. Circumvent (n.) an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="Leafblowing"><h2>Leafblowing your mind</h2></a> <p>I write this article, which has nothing to do with language, in mid-2008. I write it because I have never seen a mass-media article on it, and I beg senior press people to take this matter up for all enbrained people who are going around the bend from the very idea of the leafblower, or "power broom".<br> At dinners now, people no longer talk about real estate or the sharemarket: they talk about the worldwide insanity that has moved crude oil from $20 to $130, permitted a politically inept president to single-handedly run the world's most dangerous nation two terms in a row, seen a global religious split similar to the Crusades but with weapons that make Richard the Lionheart's sword look floppy, and doubled the price of wheat and rice, causing worldwide food riots and widespread hunger. It wasn't long ago we shook our heads over shiploads of excess grain being dumped at sea to avoid spoiling the market pricing system, and some governments paying their farmers to <i>not</i> grow food.<br> There has never been insanity like it and by diligent research I have found the exact point when this madness started: it was the day the leafblower was invented.<br> There has <i>never</i> been a more useless, self-defeating, pointless, annoying, noisy invention and there have <i>never</i> been so many unthinking, mindless people prepared to use them in full view of other people. <br> You don't need me to list the reasons why they are pointless, and I don't have to prove that my assertions hold water, as long as you admit that you, too, have seen people "sweep" their leaves and dust even during windy weather.<p> Instead of blowing, why don't they suck, as their owners do? <a name="lucy"><h2>I love Lucy</h2></a> There are too many columnists using the word <i>I</i> too much, and they are often boring. Does anyone read them? There is one, however, who I love madly because she is right to the point, sharp, acidic, funny, and awake to the slimy abuse of English. Her name is Lucy Kellaway, and she writes for Britain s <i>Financial Times</i>, and, if you listen to the BBC news overnight in Australia, you can sometimes hear her reading her articles.<p> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="love.long"><h2>Love of the long word</h2></a> <p>I borrow Fowler s subheading to present some of the most common longwordisms from the early 2000s. These are not ponderous words from ponderous people; they are what just about everybody seems to prefer, even down at the very few public bars we have left:<FONT SIZE="-1"> <TABLE border="1"> <TD width="100"> <i><b><FONT SIZE="-1">Long, popular</FONT></b></i> </TD> <TD width="100"> <i><b><FONT SIZE="-1">Short, rejected</FONT></b></i> </TD> <TR> <TD valign="left"> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">allude</FONT></i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">refer</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">purchase</FONT></i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">buy</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">falsify</FONT></i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">lie</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">inclement</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">bad</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">respiratory arrest</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">stop breathing</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">commence</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">start</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">terminate</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">end</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">donate</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">give</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">reiterate</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">repeat</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">recycle</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">re-use</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">preowned</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">used</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">embolism</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">blood clot</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">edema</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">swollen ankles</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">locate</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">find</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">nexus</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">connection</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">interregnum</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">gap</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">hiatus</FONT><i> </TD> <TD> <i><FONT SIZE="-1">gap</FONT></i> </TD> <TR> <TD> </FONT> </TABLE> </FONT> <a href="#contents">Return to Contents</a><br> <a name="malaprop.1"><h2>Malapropisms 1</h1></a> <h3>Being slightly wrong, or a mixture of right things, or genuine ignorance, and I guarantee each was heard from real life by one of our wordspies</h3> <p>On 11.00 am news on Radio National, 30 May 2008, about flooding in Hervey Bay: "We are deviating traffic."<p> At a website for Queensland government jobs, smartjobs.qld.gov.au, we find a job for "Cleaner's" at the Sunshine Coast TAFE. They don't want just cleaner's: they want someone who wants to "Contribute to an enhanced system of vocational and further education and training by providing quality cleaning services to the Institute". The role's key accountabilities are a bit more down to earth though: "Clean and mop toilet areas".<p> My daughter Isobel is a wordspy, cares a lot for plain language and regularly reports on deviations. She used to be a barista (a new word, sounding just like <i>barrister</i>) and dealt with smart young men taking smart young women for <i>a caffé</i>, this word being written in signs outside several caffé boutiques, whereas when I was last in France, the word for <i>coffee</i> had just one <i>f</i>.<p> Beauty parlours are an occasional source for mistaken beliefs about French, too. My best one so far was in Station Street, Nerang (the sign, alas, now taken down), with the name "Le Beaut e Venue". Surely there s more to it than ignorance? They got the gender wrong, and the <i>t e</i> attempt for an acute-accented <i>e</i> must have been be done for fun & please?<p> At a seminar at Queensland's DPI on Friday 7 March 2008, one of the presenters said: "You may have a hurdle to climb". Someone during the break at this seminar told our wordspy that something was "inoffensual" instead of "inoffensive".<p>  The house was completely unindated (ABC news report, 6 January 2008) <p> He always keeps his nose to the grime-stone <p> She s been absconded to another department. <p>A friend was explaining how her husband was investigating a company he was thinking of buying, and she said: "He s done quite a bit of investigation, but he still has to do a dewdilliance report [due diligence]. <p>(written in an email)  I like the poco-dotted bow tie on the dog [in one of the pictures] . <p>Obviously under the influence of Harry Potter, a woman on 27 July 2007, said:  It's a load of hogwarts. <p> I don t know about my husband & I think he s going into early salinity. <p> Who was it your brother in law married? <p> I prescribe to that magazine. <p> I bought a new cadenza for my office. <p> & then purify the tomatoes and add them to the sauce. <p> If I m not better by Monday, I ll consultate the doctor. <p> I m just the bread in the sandwich in this affair. <p> We thought we d got the house, but somebody gazunted us. <p> My friend s terrible & she keeps getting her menopause mixed. <p> It s Turandot, that opera by Fettucini. <p> My boyfriend always brought me a cortege when we went out to a dance. <p>My daughter works for a phone company, and she had a customer in April 2007 explaining that her phone was being troublesome, and said that  it gets a little sentimental (temperamental). <p>Someone told one of our wordspies that he was reading a famous book, and that it was fictational. <p> It s in the pipeworks. My friend s nephew telling my friend he had another job lined up. <p> He recorded a respectful time of 1 minute, 13 seconds. Commentator at the Red Bull Air Race, Channel 10, 10 September 2006. <p> The first of these challenges is the inertia of old paradigms fuelled by our inherit resistance to change. (In this report of 150,000 words, <i>inherit</i> was used instead of <i>inherent </i>three times, and by two different writers. I think it might become a new version of <i>alternate</i> for <i>alternative.</i>) <p> I thought it was only the flu, but we found out she had ammonia. <p> I tried the new menu. I ordered some sort of spaghetti with bacon-and-cream sauce on it. It was spaghetti carburettor, or something like that. <p> Carole sent a card from Egypt and it s got those hydroglyphics on it. <p> It hadn't worked out so they had to go back to the square board. <p>A person talking about the charisma of some politicians against the dull personality of others:  I met him once and I was quite disappointed; he was not at all enigmatic. <p>About transport enthusiasts not being able to seek out a particularly unusual vehicle to photograph it:  These [vehicles] were seen around the [transportation] system from time to time, but often alluded the enthusiast who looked for them. <p> She doesn t know what is happening at the cold front. <p>Notes accompanying a presentation by Ricoh, of  PrintWise , Brisbane in 2002:  In Australia, email has attributed to a 40% increase in printing in the past three years. <p>Presentation by Ricoh:  Mr   , Emirutus President of Intel. <p> A friend of mine nearly lost his job as senior accountant because he made a serious mistake on a big account, but, in the end, they delegated him to a lesser position. <p> I always had trouble making a pavalova, but it's even harder now because I ve bought one of those convention ovens and it doesn t bake as well as the old one. <p>A friend told me that when she first moved to Brisbane someone suggested she should look at a house at Cleveland, but when she went to Cleveland she didn't like its mud-flaps. (For out