Playwright Oscar Wilde gave his character Lady Augusta Bracknell some memorable lines in his play The Importance of Being Earnest.
Of these, one in particular related to the difference between misfortune and carelessness:
To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
In the case of contractors working for gas supply company Wales & West Utilities in Abertawe/Swansea, carelessness seems to be their modus operandi, as per this report on the Swansea Bay News website.
On a job outside Llangyfelach Primary School, the utility’s contractors managed to spell school incorrectly as shcool. Sharp-eyed Cymraeg-speaking readers will aslo notice that its Welsh equivalent ysgol is also misspelt as ysool, although this appears to be from an earlier job, judging by the colour differences in the asphalt.
Image credit: Rob Jones
Speaking to the BBC, Wales & West Utilities said the cock-up had occurred during repairs to the local gas network. Its spokesman Phil Whittier said: “Unfortunately, (we) have misspelt the word ‘school'”. However, denied any responsibility for the misspelling of ysgol. The BBC reports that Swansea Council has been contacted about that incorrect spelling.
The error has gone around the world, being mocked as far afield as Australia, with some parents suggesting on social media those responsible be made to write school out correctly one hundred times.
As such it tends to repeat and amplify the dog-whistle racism and xenophobia embodied in the hostile environment that has characterised its attitude to non-British people, particularly if they are not white, since the Home Secretary was one Theresa May, who later went on to do bad prime minister impressions in the Westminster Palace of Varieties.
The post of Home Secretary is currently occupied by one Sue-Ellen Cassiana “Suella” Braverman, a woman of no discernible talent other than being incompetent and nasty.
Braverman is currently on her second term of office as Home Secretary, having been initially appointed as such under the premiership of one Elizabeth Mary Truss on 6 September 2022. However, like her boss, Braverman did not last long in post, resigning because she had made an “honest mistake” (a likely story. Ed.) by sharing an official document from her personal email address with a colleague in Parliament, an action which breached the Ministerial Code.
On 25 October, Braverman was re-appointed as the home secretary by the prime minister Rishi Sunak, in direct contradiction of his promise of “integrity, professionalism and accountability”. Does someone who broke the Ministerial Code have any integrity or professionalism?
Yesterday, the Home Office’s Twitter account finally admitted how dangerous the Home Secretary was, calling her “one of the greatest injustices in modern Britain” and calling for her end.
It has often been remarked that Britain and the USA are two countries divided by a common language.
However, let’s not forget that the spread of English around the world resulted in the development of different varieties of English around the world, all with varying degrees of (in)comprehensibility.
A prime example of something beyond the comprehension of your ‘umble scribe turned up this morning in his social media feed. It contains a fine example of some prime official gibberish from the state authorities of New South Wales in Australia.
If you, dear reader, can make any sense of it, please feel free to use the comment form below to provide a translation into British English; furthermore, please feel free to add any punctuation which you deem will aid comprehension as the original notice has none. 😀
the first of March is Saint David’s Day and Sheffield City Council decided to mark the Welsh patron saint’s day in its own inimitable way, as reported by Nation Cymru, by flying the wrong flag from the Town Hall.
However, by early afternoon the Scottish Saltire had been replaced above the Town Hall with the flag of St David – a yellow cross on a black background.
The council also put out a statement declaring: “We are really sorry that the incorrect flag was flown above the Town Hall today. As soon as we knew, we rectified this immediately. We want to wish all who celebrate a Happy St David’s Day.”
Nevertheless, this is not the first time this particular local authority has been guilty of seeing all Celts as alike. In 2019, the Council celebrated St Patrick’s Day by flying Y Ddraig Goch from the Town Hall, as the BBC reported at the time, as well as being posted on social media
One disadvantage of social media is it allows hard-of-thinking bigots a platform to express their prejudices.
However, this might not always work to the advantage of the prejudiced, as the exchange below between a Tennessee redneck and Customer Service for the Campbell Soup Company re homophobia illustrates.
According to Wikipedia, chicken soup – with or without noodles – ‘has long been touted as a form of folk medicine to treat symptoms of the common cold and related conditions. In 2000, scientists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha studied the effect of chicken soup on the inflammatory response in vitro. They found that some components of the chicken soup inhibit neutrophil migration, which may have an anti-inflammatory effect that could hypothetically lead to temporary ease from symptoms of illness’.
No research has yet been conducted into the curative properties of chicken soup on prejudice and homophobia.
However, Campbells could be onto something. In the words of the French chef and culinary writer Auguste Escoffier:
Soup puts the heart at ease, calms down the violence of hunger, eliminates the tension of the day, and awakens and refines the appetite.
An apposite quotation from Once in a Lifetime</em> off Talking Heads’ 1980 album Remain in Light captions this image which has now turned up twice this week in my Mastodon social media feed.
The stylebook of Associated Press (AP), the largest news agency in the USA is a highly regarded reference work for journalists wishing to improve their written English.
The same cannot be said of the AP Stylebook Twitter account which posted the tweet below on Thursday.
Before its deletion, the advice was widely mocked by Francophones and Francophiles. Even the French embassy in the USA joined in the derision, briefly changing its name to the “Embassy of Frenchness in the United States“.
Writer Sarah Haider responded that there was “nothing as dehumanizing as being considered one of the French” and that a better term was “suffering from Frenchness“, whilst political scientist Ian Bremmer suggested “people experiencing Frenchness” as a possible alternative.
Washington Post journalist Megan McArdle also joined in the fun: “The people experiencing journalism at the AP have their work cut out for them“.
After the tweet had been deleted, those in charge of the AP Stylebook Twitter account said their reference to French people had been “inappropriate” and that it “did not intend to offend“.
Following the announcement anti-trust action by the United States Department of Justice along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia against Google, Meta (owners of Facebook and Instagram), Microsoft and Twitter have all made statements seeking to defend their actions.
In their legal opinions, the big US tech giants, including Microsoft, Meta and Twitter, are warning the Supreme Court against amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). This would enable actions against content recommendation algorithms, French IT news site Le Monde Informatique reports.
One week after Google’s filing of a defence statement with the US Supreme Court warning that amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) “would upend the internet“, several companies including Twitter, Meta and Microsoft, have filed their own legal opinions. They support Google’s argument that a restriction of the law could have disastrous consequences for the content editors. By virtue of the 1996 CDA, the companies are shielded from liability for content posted by their users, including comments, criticism and advertising.
US Supreme Court. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and UpstateNYer
However, the Supreme Court has been asked to examine whether Section 230 was still pertinent and appropriate, given that it was promulgated before the internet became part of everyday life. The law was subject to a minute before the suit filed by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23 year-pld US citizen killed in Paris during the 13th November 2015 terrorist attacks claimed by ISIS. The Gonzalez family asserts that the algorithms should be regarded as editorial content not covered by the immunity from liability granted by Section 230 and thus Google’s YouTube subsidiary has violated the US Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) when its algorithms have recommended ISIS-linked content to users. The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the case on 21st February next.
Criticisms of the protections of Section 230 for websites
Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have criticised the protections provided for by the law. The Republicans believe that those in respect of liability make websites take partial decisions regarding content removal, whilst the Democrats would like the same sites to take more responsibility as regards moderation. In a statement President Biden has stated that his administration would support the position that Section 230 protections should not apply to recommendation algorithms. In its petition of 19th January, Microsoft asserts that if the Supreme Court makes amendments to Section 230, it would “strip these digital publishing decisions suit—and it would do so in illogical ways that are inconsistent with how algorithms actually work.“.
The company added that any decision aimed at restricting the law “thereby expose interactive computer services to liability for publishing content to users whenever a plaintiff could craft a theory that sharing the content is somehow harmful“. In its own petition Meta stated that the plaintiffs’ argument is “deeply flawed from a legal point of view”; by interpreting Section 230 as a means of protecting sites from liability for content posted by its users whilst removing protection from content “ignores the way in which the internet works“. The company continued by describing the plaintiffs’ position as “regrettable from a practical point of view” and by stating that a ruling in their favour would ultimately prompt “online services to remove important, provocative and controversial content on matters of general interest“.
Protection from liability essential for website operation according to Twitter
Twitter has said that the current interpretation of Section 230 “ensures that sites such as Twitter and YouTube can work in spite of the unfathomable amount of information they make available and the potential liability that might result from this“. Since Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk, the site has been criticised for having reinstated the accounts of people it previously banned, such as disgraced former president Donald Trump or alpha male par excellence and all-round amateur human being Andrew Tate who is currently under investigation in Romania for alleged human trafficking.
However, the review of several other high-profile cases will have to take place before the law is changed. Last week the Supreme Court was set to discuss its jurisdiction in two cases that challenge Texas and Florida laws prohibiting online platforms from removing certain political content. In addition, a Twitter vs. Taamneh case, which has many similarities with the Gonzalez vs. Google case, is due to oral pleadings on 2nd February. In this case Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are accused of having aided and abetted another attack claimed by Islamic State.
![Tweet reads Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus - Happy St. David's Day!
From [Sheffield City Council]](http://xislblogs.xtreamlab.net/slwoods/wp-content/uploads//sites/23/2023/03/sheffield_dewi_sant.png)
Following the announcement anti-trust action by the United States Department of Justice along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia against Google, Meta (owners of Facebook and Instagram), Microsoft and Twitter have all made statements seeking to defend their actions.