Daily Archives: Thursday, February 11, 2016

  • Welsh place names to be preserved

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    On Tuesday the Welsh Government website reported that legislation to improve the protection and management of Wales’ unique historic environment had been passed by the National Assembly for Wales.

    Once the Bill is law, Wales will also become the first country in the UK to put historic environment records on a statutory footing – a measure that many groups having been calling for across the UK.

    These records will allow advice on decisions by planning authorities and land managers to be based on sound information.

    The records will also provide access to the new list of historic place names in Wales – another first for Wales.

    Llanfair PG station sign
    Station sign at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch – Wales’ longest place name. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    Reporting on the place names records, the BBC states that the scheme will see the names of fields, river pools, caves and even ruined cottages collected and used to develop a definitive digital map. Furthermore, the names themselves will also make their way onto a National Library of Wales database.

    As a language, Welsh emerged in the 6th century from Common Brittonic, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish and the extinct language known as Cumbric, according to Wikipedia.

  • A new perishable commodity: nuclear missile submarines

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics

    It’s said that “to err is human“; and journalists are no exception to this.

    Some while ago, a hapless hack at the Bristol Post, disclosed to an unbelieving city readership that bridges have a shelf life (posts passim).

    Now it seems that bridges have been joined on the shelf by another perishable commodity – submarines carrying the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

    Reporting today on the pro-Trident stance of Bristol MPs Kerry McCarthy and Karin Smyth, political correspondent Patrick Daly lets the cat out of the bag:

    The four submarines, which carry nuclear warheads, are due to come to the end of their shelf-life by the late-2020s…

    A Vanguard class submarine capable of carrying Trident missiles leaving the Forth of Clyde
    A Vanguard class submarine capable of carrying Trident missiles leaving the Forth of Clyde. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    For those who need some explanation of the definition of shelf life, Wikipedia has a very useful article which starts as follows:

    Shelf life is the length of time that a commodity may be stored without becoming unfit for use, consumption, or sale. In other words, it might refer to whether a commodity should no longer be on a pantry shelf (unfit for use), or just no longer on a supermarket shelf (unfit for sale, but not yet unfit for use).

    As one of these four submarines is supposed to be at sea at all times, perhaps Mr Daly would care to explain to his readers, why the quartet is cluttering up the quartermaster’s stores instead. 😉

    Alternatively, perhaps Patrick could learn the definition of the term “service life“. 🙂

    Update 12/02/16: The piece has since been amended and the offending “shelf-life” replaced.