The other day at work I was really chuffed for a couple of hours. Chuffed because I came up with a phrase that I was really pleased with. Only a couple of hours because I Googled my newly-coined term and found that it was not so new after all, and several places were already using […]
Entries Tagged as 'Language'
Some more useful prejudices
August 11th, 2016 · Comments Off on Some more useful prejudices · Life
A little while ago I wrote about some of my favourite prejudices, but it was far from an exhaustive list, and I have a few more things to add to it. Obviously these are just pedantic pet peeves, and I am not going to stop paying attention completely to somebody who, for example, writes”shouldn’t of”, […]
Tags: Language
Lets hear it for prejudice
May 31st, 2016 · Comments Off on Lets hear it for prejudice · Life
We all like to think we are not prejudiced, but I will happily confess to a few little prejudices. Mind you a prejudice is supposed to be an unreasonable opinion and, like all prejudiced people, I think these are perfectly reasonable and they save time. The first regards outward appearance. I know you should not […]
Tags: Language
Wordy Rappinghood
July 5th, 2015 · Comments Off on Wordy Rappinghood · Life
No matter how many times I read this I can’t make it make sense: While the process was laborious, for, as is often the case, because the computer systems managers have specified don’t report data of this kind, it resulted in atitudinal changes amongst engineers. I think you have to remove “for” and put the […]
Tags: Language
So
November 17th, 2014 · Comments Off on So · Life
The last few months have seen the regular annual influx of new graduate joiners at work, which means two things: a temporary tendency for the building to smell of Lynx and a permanent increase in the number of people who start every answer to a question with the word “so”. This habit used to be […]
Tags: Language
Being a pioneer
April 20th, 2014 · 3 Comments · Life, Politics
I don’t usually join the Daily Mail/UKIP rant about political correctness gone mad or nanny state health & safetyism. As Stewart Lee says, political correctness is basically just being polite and respectful, and as far as H&S complaints are concerned I always want to ask the complainer whether it is safety or health that they […]
Tags: Language
Terminology
August 18th, 2012 · Comments Off on Terminology · Technology
Quick question: what to you call one of these? I have captioned it as a USB stick, but they are also called flash drives, pen drives, thumb drives, memory sticks, USB memory cards, and various combinations of those names. How is it that a device can become so ubiquitous so quickly and we can’t even […]
It isn’t even a real word
July 12th, 2012 · 1 Comment · Life
In these austere times I’m sure we all find ourselves leaning away from brands a little bit and towards supermarket own label foods. One thing I’m eating at the moment is ASDA ‘Wheat Bisks’ but seeing the box something struck me: the name doesn’t actually mean anything officially. Look up ‘bisk’ inthe dictionary and all […]
Guid tae see ye
December 7th, 2011 · 4 Comments · Life
I love the fact that, amongst all the different language versions of Wikipedia, alongside French, Spanish, Russian, German, Finnish and all the rest there is a Scottish version of Wikipedia. This is not in Gaelic or anything like that, but written in Scottish dialect. Of dubious actual value, but that is why it is so […]
Tags: Language
National stereotypes
June 30th, 2011 · Comments Off on National stereotypes · Life
Being amused by national stereotypes can be a bit of a minefield, and ethnic stereotypes even more so, but I do like it when I come across something that I had previously though was just a staple of bad impressionists. Today I had to call BT’s Glasgow call centre and spoke to a Scotish bloke […]
Tags: Language