Media

  • Da iawn, Athro!

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media

    Welsh schoolteacher Stephen Mason has set up a YouTube channel called So You’ve Moved to Wales (SYMTW) specifically for non-Welsh speaking schoolchildren moving to a Welsh school and having to catch up on Welsh language studies, Nation Cymru reports.

    Mr Mason works at Queen Elizabeth High School in Carmarthen and has 25 years’ service at the chalkface.

    Explaining his motive for setting up the SYMTW channel, Mr Mason told the paper:

    Moving home and changing schools when you are a teenager is a stressful time. A new country, a new school and a new language can easily become associated with an unhappy or stressful life episode. I therefore decided to make a series of videos for Welsh teachers to share with latecomers to their subject that would help them settle into their new surroundings more easily.

    The first of Mr Mason’s videos is embedded below.

  • Thank you Viz

    Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics

    When Viz comic first emerged onto the British media scene in 1979 its content was based on parodying British children’s comics, notably The Beano and The Dandy (both of which your ‘umble scribe read as a child. Ed.) – of the post-war period with the extensive use of obscenity, toilet humour, black comedy, surreal humour and generally sexual or violent storylines.

    It is therefore no surprise that Viz has been taking aim at – and having fun with – part-time alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and his government of high-functioning imbeciles (the only funny-bone ticklers having a hard job mocking Bozo and his clowns are the satirists. Ed.).

    Viz's targeting uses as its vehicle the long-running classic British Carry On film franchise series.

    Spoof cinema poster for Carry On Covid

    Nevertheless, there seems to have been some mis-casting in the Viz version: Sid James has more competence in his little finger than Bozo the Clown has in his whole anatomy, whilst Priti Patel is more noted for her lack of humanity than an ability to deliver a double entendre.

  • Ambiguity corner – latest

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

    For the second time this week, Reach plc’s Wales Online title graces this blog with its presence due to its journalists’ failure to understand the word ambiguity, let alone recognise what it means and how avoiding it is crucial for members of the fourth estate.

    Today sees a classic ambiguous headline for this story.

    Headline reads; Boy, 15, approached woman in woods armed with log and said 'give me all your stuff'
    Who was armed with the log? Take your pick!

    Amongst other things, the Guardian and Observer style guide states that ambiguity is a common problem in headlines”.

  • Welsh sheepdog lives to 89?

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

    Another day, another confusing headline from a Reach plc title, this time the Daily Post/North Wales Live, with this story about an 89 year-old sheepdog, an 89 year-old man with werewolf proclivities or something else, which escapes your ‘umble scribe’s imagination for the time being.

    Headline reads: 89-year-old who caught Covid has just made the Welsh national sheepdog team
    For a sheepdog, he looks remarkably human!

    I’m perplexed!

    However, there is one upside to the policy of Reach titles to cram the whole story into the headline, i.e. one normally doesn’t have to waste time reading the article.

    ~Are Reach titles operating on the TL:DR principle?

    Answers in the comments please!

  • Bristol Post exclusive: Journalist eats catering establishment

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    Today’s Bristol Post website features another of modern journalism’s highlights – the hidden exclusive (posts passim), although this particular style of hackery is not itself peculiar to publications in the Reach plc stable.

    Yesterday’s Bristol Post hidden exclusive features Mark Taylor, allegedly the title’s food, drink and restaurant critic, who seems to have eschewed protein, carbohydrates and fat for a more substantial diet, in this case the shipping container housing the soon-to-open Choux Box Patisserie down by the city docks. At Wapping Wharf shipping containers replace the construction materials of more traditional eateries.

    Headline reads: Delicious new patisserie to open in Bristol

    There’s only one place I know of where eating buildings is not unusual and that’s the tale of Hansel and Gretel, first published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm.

    Hansel, Gretel, the witch and the gingerbread house
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    For some reasons known only the the residents of the Temple Way Ministry of Truth, Mr Taylor’s piece is strangely quiet about the quality of the ingredients used for the shipping container. 😉

    Finally, your ‘umble scribe must remark that given his constitution, Mr Taylor may like to start training for food challenges of the Man v. Food reality show variety, of which there are plenty to punish his palette in Bristol.

  • Mail muddles linguists

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

    Members of the fourth estate being unable to distinguish the difference between translators and interpreters has a long history – one which has occasionally been highlighted by this blog.

    The latest publication’s staff to show their ignorance work – if that’s the correct term – for the Daily Mail which today published this report with the headline shown below.

    Headline reads Raab was 'too busy' on holiday to help brave translators

    The copy alternates between translators and interpreters when referring to the victims of alleged Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s lack compassion for people who’ve served this country at great risk to their own lives and those of their families – a clear sign that the author, John Stevens, the Mail’s deputy political editor is ignorant of their different skills.

    Should he happen to alight on this article, I can only recommend Mr Stevens extends his visit to this blog by following my recommendation that he reads this handy guide to the difference between translators and interpreters, which has some useful illustrations to explain the difference, as he clearly has difficulties in understanding words. 😀

  • Celtic languages prove popular on Duolingo

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Tech

    The pandemic and associated lockdowns have been good for online learning in general and for the online learning two Celtic languages in particular.

    Yesterday Welsh news site Nation Cymru reported that Welsh is one on the most popular languages on the Duolingo language learning platform. Duolingo logo

    Duolingo company boss Luis von Ahn remarked that Welsh was still the company’s fastest growing language in the UK on the learning app – which has over 40 million worldwide users.

    According to the 2020 Duolingo Language Report, the app’s new Welsh learners increased by 44 per cent – outstripping those learning French, Hindi, Japanese and Turkish.

    Interviewed by the BBC’s Today programme, von Ahn stated that 1.62 million people are using the app to learn Welsh – with 474,000 active learners.

    On St David’s Day earlier this year, Duolingo announced it would align its course content and share knowledge with the National Centre for Learning Welsh to help the Welsh Government reach its target of one million speakers by 2050.

    Furthermore, Scots Gaelic has also received a boost from Duolingo and these unusual times. There are currently some 400,000 people learning Scots Gaelic on the app – that’s 10 times the number of Scots Gaelic speakers.

  • How to confuse the reader

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

    The output of the English Empire’s free and fearless press has in recent decades undergone several changes: and so it should; they are working with something that is dynamic and ever-changing – language.

    One of the most recent of these changes appears to be to attempt to get all the salient facts of a story crammed into its headline. This could have the saving grace of readers being spared plodding through paragraphs of more dreadful prose.

    Which brings us neatly to yesterday’s Daily Mail and the fine example below of an overstuffed headline.

    Headline reads: Christine Lampard is left in hysterics as Dr Amir Khan's mother calls him while he's live on Lorraine... before a fly shoots up his nose as he drinks Victoria Beckham 'moon water'

    Are you sure you didn’t leave out any minor detail that could still have been crammed into the headline, Mail Online? 😉

  • Stormy afternoon

    Steve WoodsBristol, Media

    Bristol suffered heavy rainfall and a thunderstorm yesterday afternoon, resulting in some local flooding and power outages according to the Bristol Post/Bristol Live.

    And guess who was out in it?

    Never mind. It resulted in a spectacularly atmospheric photograph taken a few minutes from home and shown below in glorious black and white for additional impact.

    The shot was taken looking westwards from the top of Eastbourne Road, Easton towards the higher ground of Cotham and Clifton.

    The view looking west from Eastbourne Road in Easton
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