English usage | Steve Woods

Exclusive: Bristol Post changes name to Manchester Evening News

25/05/2018 Steve WoodsBristol, GDPR, Language, Media, Oddities

It’s official: the Bristol Post (or is it BristolLive? Ed.) is changing its name to the Manchester Evening News.

And the revelation comes in a piece from no less a personage than Mike Norton, the title’s editor in chief himself, and is hidden away in the details about the implications of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The relevant section is outlined in red in the image below. Click on the image for the full-sized version.

Whether production of the Post will be moved up north from the Temple Way Ministry of Truth is not mentioned.

Is Mike Norton guilty of copying and pasting without checking the actual wording?

In Private Eye’s immortal words: we should be told! 🙂
A fool and his money

25/05/2018 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

Q: Pictured below are 2 men: Winston Churchill, who some would argue was the greatest UK Prime Minister ever; and Piers Morgan, a man of no discernible talent apart from sycophancy to those on the extreme right wing of politics. What links them?

A: A cigar butt.

One of Churchill’s discarded cigar butts, to be precise.

Earlier this week, Piers Morgan bought said cigar butt at auction, as reported by the Shropshire Star.

Piers (affectionately renamed Piers Moron by Private Eye. Ed.) was so pleased with his purchase, he also tweeted about it.

Auctioneers Travanion & Dean of Whitchurch in Shropshire had been expecting the half-smoked historical artefact to sell for about £1,000.

Piers paid £2,600 for it.

Needless to say, the final bill would have been rather more than that once the auctioneers’ commission had been added.

He may have considered his action patriotic, but Piers’ action reminded your ‘umble scribe of an old adage, i.e. a fool and his money are soon parted.

That bit of folksy wisdom in turn set me researching its origins.

The King James version of the Bible published in 1604 has something similar to this saying in Proverbs 21:20, which states:

There is treasure to be desired and oil in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up.

However, for a rendition slightly closer to the wording in question, one has to look at 1573’s Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie by Thomas Tusser, reproduced below:

A foole & his money,
be soone at debate:
which after with sorow,
repents him to late.

The form of words commonly used in the present proverb were first just over a decade after Tusser. In 1587 Dr. John Bridges writes the sentence below in Defence of the Government of the Church of England:

If they pay a penie or two pence more for the reddinesse of them..let them looke to that, a foole and his money is soone parted.
What about the pictures?

22/05/2018 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

Read the screenshot below and do so carefully.

After reading the actual story, I found no mention of pictures being thrown into the River Severn in Ironbridge by vandals.

Did it actually happen? Or did the dread ambiguity that plagues so much modern journalism strike again?

When I was learning/being taught to write so many decades ago, we were always advised to steer clear of anything that could be misconstrued.

That concept is now obviously regarded as old-fashioned and no longer worthwhile by those who write today’s media (sometimes with the digital equivalent of a crayon. Ed. 😉 )
The thoughts of Michael Gove

21/05/2018 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics

Today’s Graunaid reports on the establishment of a new Tory think tank, erroneously called “Onward“.

However, it is firmly denied that this anodyne moniker is meant in any way to be an echo of “En Marche!“, the movement that propelled the right-of-centre Emmanuel Macron to power in France (and Andorra; he’s also the ex-officio co-prince of the Pyrenean principality. Ed.).

Those at the centre of the launch in the Gruaniad’s eyes are Scottish Tory leader Ruth “tractor quotas” Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, and Michael Gove, the man with the most punchable face in British politics and alleged to be the UK’s current Secretary of State For Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

Leaving aside the sordid details of the think tank’s launch, which were given far too much attention for my mind by the Gruaniad, what struck your ‘umble scribe was the following phrase relating to the boy Michael:

Gove, the environment secretary, who has long been one of the party’s most influential thinkers,…

The plain truth is that thinking doesn’t come naturally to Michael. In a previous incarnation as Secretary of State for Education, he’s on record as not understanding what an average is or how it works in this oral reply to the House of Commons Education Committee in 2012:

…we expect schools not only to be judged on the level of raw attainment but also in terms of making sure that children are on track and are not falling back-and, indeed, do better than the average.

Meanwhile in his present post, he has in the past had difficulty in remembering which country he’s in, singing the praises of Welsh lamb in a press release for a visit to Northern Ireland (posts passim).

Furthermore, there are also times when Michael Gove doesn’t think at all. He didn’t think of his son when he and his wife thought it acceptable to leave the 11 year-old at a hotel to go to a party.

Thinking is a skill that can be taught and acquired, but your correspondent has yet to see that Gove has gained sufficient quantities thereof in his education at public school and thereafter at Oxford University.

Then again, lack of talent has never been an obstacle to achieving high office for the Blue Team…
The GOP and the English language*

20/05/2018 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media

On Saturday, a certain Melania Trump was discharged from hospital following surgery for a kidney problem.

Needless to say her husband. one Donald John Trump, who occasionally resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. in between golfing trips, was delighted.

So delighted he sent the tweet below to his followers.

The reason why The Donald should misspell his wife’s name is unknown. Perhaps he had that pesky predictive text active on his tweeting device.

However, the 45th President of the United States is not the first Republican Party occupant of that office of state to experience problems with the use of the English language.

The 41st occupant of that office, one George Herbert Walker Bush, once quipped in an interview with Jim Lehrer on PBS: “They used to say English was my second language.”

George H.W.’s son, George W., who was affectionately known as “Dubya” and inaugurated as the USA’s 43rd president, was so inept with his alleged mother tongue that a term – Bushisms – was coined to denote his ability to engage both tongue and brain when speaking in public. Bushisms are defined as Dubya’s unconventional statements, phrases, pronunciations, malapropisms and semantic or linguistic errors in public speaking. Besides malapropisms, Bushism’s other common characteristics included the creation of neologisms, spoonerisms, stunt words and grammatically incorrect subject–verb agreement.

To conclude this brief excursion into members of the Grand Old Party’s difficulties with English, who can forget former Vice-President James Danforth Quayle’s erroneous correction of a school student’s correct rendition of “potato“? 😀

* = Apologies to the late George Orwell for the title.
More thoughts on monarchy and the royal family by Keir Hardie

19/05/2018 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Politics

Today, 19th May 2018, uncelebrated blues artiste Mumblin’ Harry Wales (posts passim) weds US actor Meghan Markle in Windsor.

Whilst I have no particular axe to grind against anyone wishing to get married and wish Mr Wales and Ms Markle every happiness, I do have objections to the undemocratic nature monarchy and the idea that the heads of state of this country should come down the birth canals of one particular family and one family only.

Then there’s the whole concept of the so-called royal family being somehow special or better than the rest of humanity.

In these objections I’m in fine company.

One of those who shares my republican ideals was James Keir Hardie (15 August 1856 – 26 September 1915), socialist, politician and trade unionist, who rose to become the first leader of the Labour Party.

In “Keir Hardie: His Writings and Speeches” edited by Emrys Hughes and published by Forward Printing and Publishing Company Ltd, Glasgow in 1928, Hardie is credited with writing the following on the occasion of Victoria von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha’s diamond jubilee in 1897. However, his remarks are still relevant today and reveal how far ahead Hardie was of the conventional establishment thinking of his time.

Even under a representative system of government it is possible to paralyse a nation by maintaining the fiction that a reigning family is a necessity of good government. Now, one of two things must be – either the British people are fit to govern themselves or they are not. If they are, an hereditary ruler who in legislation has more power than the whole nation is an insult. Despotism and monarchy are compatible; democracy and monarchy are an unthinkable connection.

If we are for the Queen we are not for her subjects. The throne represents the power of caste – class rule. Round the throne gather the unwholesome parasites who cling to the system which lends itself to their disordered condition. The toady who crawls through the mire of self-abasement to enable him to bask in the smile of royalty is the victim of a diseased organism. No healthy, well-developed people could for one moment tolerate an institution which belongs to the childhood of the race, and which in these latter days is the centre, if not the source, of the corrupting influences which constitute Society.

The great mind, the strong heart, the detestation of wrong, the love of truth whether in cot or palace will always command my respect. But to worship an empty form, to make pretence to believe a gilded mediocrity indispensable to the well-being of the nation – where is the man who will so far forget what is due to his manhood?

In this country loyalty to the Queen is used by the profit-mongers to blind the eyes of the people. We can have but one feeling in the matter – contempt for thrones and for all who bolster them up.
Lookalikes – a politics & sci-fi double bill

07/05/2018 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

Prime Minister Theresa May has the inhuman touch, an inability to relate to people that has led some unkind people to refer to her as the “Maybot“. Indeed, the Financial Times (the sporting pink for the casino economy. Ed.) even came up with a definition for his noun last December, i.e.:

A prime minister so lacking in human qualities that she soon requires a system reboot.

Ouch!

However, I wonder if our mainstream media have ever noticed the striking similarity between Theresa May and Twiki, the robot assistant of the eponymous hero of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century?

Twiki was mainly voiced by the late, great Mel Blanc, who provided the voices for the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, the Tasmanian Devil and many of the other characters from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons stables. If, in addition to these vocal talents, he could be brought back from the grave to speak well and lie badly, the Maybot might sound less like an automaton.

We of a certain vintage remember our reading included following Dan Dare’s adventures in space against his arch-enemy, The Mekon, who with his shaven pate, does a remarkable impression of Sajid Javid, the current Home Secretary, who has recently been ushered into 2 Marsham Street, London SW1 with his dustpan and new broom to clear up the mess the Home Office has created in recent years in relation to the so-called “Windrush generation“.

Incidentally, Javid is not the first Conservative Cabinet Minister to be compared to The Mekon. One of his partisan predecessors, the late Angus Maude, who was Paymaster General in the government of Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1981, was nicknamed The Mekon.
(Crab) apple blossom time

07/05/2018 Steve WoodsBristol, Language
On my way to the shops this fine May morning, my attention was caught by the beauty of the crab apple (Malus sylvestris) blossom on the tree in the small park that runs up the side of Bannerman Road in Easton, as shown below.

Crab apple blossom in Bannerman Road

According to the Woodland Trust, the crab apple is a native UK species which thrives in heavy soil in hedgerows, woods and areas of scrub. It’s one of the ancestors of the cultivated apple and individual trees can live up to 100 years and can grow to about 10 metres in height.

The common name “crab apple” derives from the tree’s often knarled and crabbed appearance, especially when growing in exposed places.

In the autumn our local tree produces a fine crop of crab apples, as this picture from autumn 2017 shows.

Bannerman Road’s crab apple tree bearing fruit in autumn 2017

Each autumn I tell myself I shall have to come and gather the fruit to make crab apple jelly. After all, it will be food for free (mostly!).

As an aide-memoire and incentive to myself, below is the recipe for (crab) apple jelly from my trusty 1950s vintage recipe book (hence the imperial measurements. Ed.).

Ingredients
- 4 lbs crab or cooking apples
- 2 pints water
- 1 stick cinnamon, or
- A few cloves, or
- Strips of lemon rind
- 1 lb of sugar per pint of juice obtained
Method
Wash the apples and wipe. Cut into quarters, but do not remove the skin or core. Put the fruit into a pan with the water and the cinnamon, cloves or lemon peel tied in a piece of muslin. Stew until the fruit is soft. Test for pectin. Remove the muslin bag. Turn the contents of the pan into a jelly bag and leave overnight to strain. Measure the juice and heat in a pan. Add 1 lb of warmed sugar to each pint of juice, stirring until all the sugar has dissolved. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly until the jelly sets when tested on a cold saucer or plate. Remove the scum. Pot and seal whilst still hot.

Before we leave apple blossom, your correspondent can’t help remembering and old song called “(I’ll Be With You In) Apple Blossom Time“, which he remembers being sung by The Andrews Sisters, which reached no. 5 in the USA in 1941.

However, the song is nearly 20 years older than the success enjoyed with it by Laverne, Maxine and Patty, having been written by Albert Von Tilzer and lyricist Neville Fleeson and copyrighted in 1920.
Local rag now employing greengrocers*

23/04/2018 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Social Media

Changes are taking place at the increasingly downmarket Local World group of regional newspaper titles owned by Trinity Mirror.

These changes are also being implemented at the Bristol Post, the city’s newspaper of (warped) record, whose online version now masquerades under the misleading title of BristolLive, as any signs of sentience have yet to be medically confirmed.

As circulation has declined, so have standards to the point where it appears that greengrocers (or should that be greengrocer’s? Ed.) are cheaper to employ than what passes nowadays for journalists – or even journalist’s. This desperate move is amply illustrated by the screenshot below for the latest story lifted from scanning social media.

In the meantime, locals can expect more news from Homophone Corner (that’s a site to be seen. Ed. 😉 ) and hard-hitting stories of the “Hartcliffe man stubs toe on Bristol Bridge” variety and barely concealed advertisements masquerading as restaurant reviews, mostly for places whose obituaries subsequently describe them as “popular” when they inevitably close down less than a year later.

* Or should that be greengrocer’s? 😉
English translation required?

21/04/2018 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

Although it’s not one of his regular local media reads, your ‘umble scribe might just start visiting the Oswestry and Border Counties Advertizer website more to keep up to date with dynamic, one could even say groundbreaking, developments in use of the English language, if the headline of the report shown below is in any way typical of modern journalism.

The same piece, by the same author, also appears in yesterday’s Whitchurch Herald, where similar sub-editing skills are in evidence.

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