Schedule

Occasionally on this blog I have the odd rant about language, and in particular about creeping Americanisms. There’s nothing wrong with Americans or their language in the right place. It just doesn’t belong here. English people who use American spellings or pronunciation on the other hand are, quite frankly, idiots!

One word that is all too often mispronounced by English people is schedule. I am often irritated by this. Weren't these people taught the correct pronunciation at school?

Recently I was creating a piece of music that I felt needed some words to go with it. Schedule, the track, was born.

Compass point musings

Where the hell are we?

I didn't do geography at school. I couldn't find the classroom!

Boom, boom!

I'm not even going to pretend to try and define where the border between north and south is. It's far too controversial. Anyway I'm not really a greater one for borders; fortress mentality is for knobheads quite frankly. But it's useful to know where you are and it's useful to know where other places are in case you need to visit them. It's also useful to know a bit of geography when listening to the weather forecast.

I shout at weather forecasts; mostly because of the geography. Although I also shout when Aberdeen is going to be warmer than Norwich, which are more days than you would imagine. I know the meteorologists can't help that but it makes me feel better to vent my anger that way. I live in East Anglia. East Anglia is most definitely not the south. It's east. We have the most easterly point on the British mainland. There's a clue in the title of East Anglia. Nowhere does it say south on the label. I sympathise with those that think of themselves as northerners* when the weather forecasters (and media in general) approach everything in such a London centric/southern sort of way. There are more parts to the country than the south**. I also get angry when they refer to 'West Wales' when what they really mean is 'The West of Wales'. West Wales is now called Cornwall. It is not what we now know as Wales. The border varied but it was known as West Wales from around the 5th to 9th centuries and possibly before that. Sloppiness on the part of media types prevails.

*Special note to those that call themselves Northerners. As a Scots person said to me once, "you English are all Southerners!".

**We have such economic regional divides in this country because of government policy. We have a London centric economy and media because government sits in Westminster. It would be far better to permanently move parliament to a more economically deprived centre and spread government departments around the country. If the centre of power was moved the money would start to follow. Housing might become more affordable in London, job would be created in places that have suffered from unemployment and infrastructure investment would shift to more places that needed it. There would be so many benefits. It would also alleviate the need to build extra runways at either Heathrow or Gatwick. Just think how that would boost the overall economy.

But, we continue to live in blinkered Britain.

Visual Verse

Visual Verse is a website that publishes a picture and asks writers to write a short piece inspired by that picture. It's ekphrasis again! I submitted a contribution which you will find here. I hope you like it.

Ekphrasis

At the creative writing course I attended today I learned a new word; ekphrasis. It is a piece of writing that comments on or is about another art form. I don't ever remember coming across it before but it is a technique I have employed occasionally over on my other blog 'if you feel it, it's real'.

I'll leave that with you to ponder upon and to contemplate how best to drop it in to everyday conversation. Perhaps it could even be utilised to break the ice at parties.

Anti-American sentiment

The occasional visitor to my blog might be forgiven for thinking that my odd rantettes about American language mean that I’m in some way anti-American. I would like to emphatically state that I am most certainly not!  

For the record:

• I work for an American owned company
• I have nothing against American people
• I’m not against American culture – I listen to American music. I watch American films and sometimes American television programmes. I like an amount of American art.

What I don’t like is American imperialism both political and cultural. It’s their arrogance in thinking that their language, culture and beliefs are über alles. That infuriates me. It’s an arrogance born out of insularity. Unfortunately the impact that American cultural imperialism has over here is amplified by stupid British people, who use Americanisms because they don’t know any better, or worse still because they think that it is somehow fashionable or clever. And, it’s a situation made even worse by what was and still should be the bastion of British culture and language, Auntie Beeb. Sadly the BBC seems to love Americanisms. As a consequence we are doomed!

Scrooge

So much of Dickens' writing has passed into everyday parlance and the term Scrooge is no exception. It has metamophosised from a noun to an adjective and is used to describe someone who is penny-pinching, miserly or a hater of Christmas. But is this the correct way to use Scrooge? Surely the story is about a repentant sinner therefore shouldn’t the emphasis be on the positive? So by calling someone a Scrooge you are saying that they have changed for the positive in your eyes. I commend this motion to the house.

What’s the time Mr Wolf?

A lot of Americans get emotional or agitated at the mention of ‘9/11’ for understandable reasons. I get agitated when British newsreaders and media types use that same term. This side of the Atlantic it isn’t ‘9/11’ it’s ‘11/9’

It is true that I am irritated by Americanisms in general. It’s their inaccuracies and cack-handed ways with language that irritate me the most. And, dates are a great source of that irritation. Whilst I can almost accept that much of their spelling despite being arrived at by laziness or ignorance offers a certain brutish efficiency, there is absolutely no way that their misuse of the date can be defended. Logic would dictate that as a date is made up of various units of measure you would arrange those units in a uniform way; smallest to largest or largest to smallest. Wouldn’t you? Surely that’s the most logical thing to do. That way people know where they are. Virtually everyone in the world does it ascending or descending. But not so the awkward Americans. They clearly adopted the approach of throwing the individual units up in the air and seeing which way they landed, “Oh Prairie-shit, month day year it is then”.

"Farther... ...Christmas!"

For those of you that are confused and must celebrate Christmas please note that it is 'Father Christmas' and not 'Santa' or 'Santa Claus'. Alright?

Winterval

My previous post about Christmas reminded me of the lies that are regurgitated every year by the lackeys of the right. Unfortunately the likes of the Daily Mail have managed to create stories that have ended up as urban myths, and gullible people fall for it hook, line and sinker!

It’s easy to spot these twerps. They tend to mumble stuff about “political correctness gone mad” or will complain about health and safety, or the EU or immigration. They always have to have a bogeyman (or woman) to complain about; a nebulous evil spirit that manifests itself in the form of their particular prejudice. In counteracting such twatishness there is none better than Stewart Lee. See here his riposte of the lies about ‘Winterval’. The man is spot on:

I’ve never understood why political correctness should be used as a form of abuse. What’s wrong with doing the right thing? Nothing I suppose unless you are a complete pillock. Again I shall call expert witness Stewart Lee. You cannot argue with this stuff!

16/11/19: This is an old post and the links are no longer valid. You could try here: https://www.google.com/search?q=stewart+lee+winterval&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFxt6-z-7lAhVjoFwKHYS6D5cQ7xYILigA&biw=1366&bih=663

One in a billion

Contrary to popular belief 1,000,000,000 is not a billion. It is only a thousand million. A real billion is one million multiplied by one million (million² or 1,000,000²), and is written thus: 1,000,000,000,000.

Okay?
Good!
Glad we sorted that out then.

The C word

So glad that a British crisp maker has switched to calling their crisps what they are, crisps. I can now buy Tyrrell’s Crisps with a clear conscience. I’ve often wondered whether calling crisps chips could be breaking the trade’s description act. I suspect that it doesn’t as it would seem that being well and truly rogered by the American language has the tacit approval of the ruling classes in this country. Good on you Tyrrell’s. People I urge you to buy the glorious crisps.

English and Americanisms

I don’t have a lot of time for nationalists or patriots. They are indeed scoundrels. I’m not even sure I subscribe to the notion of land ownership or territory. Obviously in terms of governance a defined area or jurisdiction is pretty essential but I do think that the majority of people who reside in these islands are far too hung up on national identity. I suppose I consider myself English. I have a great love of the English language (despite my often poor use of it as this blog testifies) and our culture, even though in reality both are so nebulous that they prove near impossible to quantify. But that is the great thing about Englishness it doesn’t really exist. English people and their culture is a dynamic cocktail, an ever changing melting pot of culture and ethnicity. This is not a new phenomena, it’s been like that for centuries, if not millennia. There can never be a pure pedigree English person, it is a genetic impossibility. There is no measurement of Englishness. Over the centuries the land mass known as England has been populated by people from across the world. With them has come language and culture which we’ve absorbed. England’s motto should be ‘adopt, adapt and improve’ and I think that’s what makes this such a good place to live. We are not rigid; we are open to new ideas. This helps us to prosper both financially and culturally. Being open minded and accommodating has brought us tremendous benefits over the years. I hope we never lose it. In evolutionary terms the key to survival is to constantly widen the gene pool.

I like Americans, I like aspects of their culture and I’ve very much enjoyed the small amount of the USA that I’ve seen. I don’t much care for their foreign policy, their cultural imperialism, their gun-control laws, the way they treat many of their citizens at the lower end of the economic scale and the fact that they still have the death penalty is totally despicable. I work for an American owned company, who as capitalist organisations go is an okay employer. My American colleagues tend to be very nice people if not always worldly-wise, and so very few of them seem to have passports. Many have trouble accepting that we (in the UK) don’t celebrate Thanksgiving or have the 4th of July off. I know it’s wrong to make generalisations but much of the time Americans are very culturally insular. Why is it that when books, films, records etc travel from the UK to the USA deference to their version of English needs to be observed but when the traffic is in the other direction it doesn’t matter a jot. It is presumed that American-English will do. I think that it is the pure arrogance of it that irritates me. The attitude that their ways are right and everybody else’s ways are wrong. This BBC News article about how Americanisms (is that an Americanism?) irritate many of us was quite interesting. With plenty I could identify with. I’m sure there are very many reasons why Americanisms irritate so many of us. Some of it will be misguided nationalism, some of it will be racist, and some will believe that anything other than the fictitious ‘Queens English’ is a travesty, but as far as I’m concerned it’s about reducing our capacity to communicate. I have already acknowledged that English is forever evolving. I like the fact that we have regional language differences as well as the international differences (which include African, Antipodean, Canadian and US - apologies for those I’ve missed out). It makes for interesting listening and reading when we have all these variations. What really concerns me is that instead of absorbing new words from various sources we just adopt American-English wholesale, so that we end up with one homogenised language. A language based on inaccuracies. After all American-English does have the tendency to be rather Neanderthal, relying as it does on the lowest common denominator approach. If it works for them that’s fine, but I think it’s very lazy when the English adopt these neo-words and phrases. My fear is that if the change from English to American carries on exponentially we will end up just grunting at each other in a return to our prehistoric past. Some people have commented on Twitter in a rather pompous fashion that they think it’s rude of us to be irritated by Americanisms. Others just don’t understand what the fuss is about and that we should just embrace their language like ‘loving Big Brother’. I fear these sorts of people are quite shallow and really haven’t thought things through. Having vented my spleen I do accept that inevitably we will end up all speaking American-English but that’s no reason to give in quietly. The longer we can retain at least a modicum of sophistication in our language the more enjoyable life will be.

Going back to the BBC article, two Americanisms that really irritate are ‘can I get’ and ‘9/11’. This is because their technical inaccuracies offend my pedantry. I’ve ranted about ‘can I get’ before so I won’t repeat myself. I feel a rant coming on about ‘9/11’ so watch this space.

#hackgate

Anyone who uses the term or hash-tag (as it is popularly known) ‘#hackgate’ on Twitter is a complete tosser. To which gate might they be referring to, and what is its relevance to the hacking scandal that hangs over the murky Murdoch Empire?

Don’t be an ass you arse

Some poor misguided souls don’t seem to know what an ass is. They live under the misapprehension that it is a bottom. Perhaps they have been confused by watching countless performances of Willy the Spear-shaker’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. An ass is a horse like quadruped – see below. What they normally mean is arse. It bemuses me as to why they don’t use the term arse. Is it a stupidity thing?

My thanks to Wikipedia for a definitive definition:

“The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus,[1][2] is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E. africanus. In the western United States, a small donkey is sometimes called a burro (from the Spanish word for the animal).

A male donkey or ass is called a jack, a female a jenny, and an offspring less than one year old a foal (male: colt, female: filly).

While different species of the Equidae family can interbreed, offspring are almost always sterile. Nonetheless, horse/donkey hybrids are popular for their durability and vigour. A mule is the offspring of a jack (male donkey) and a mare (female horse). The much rarer successful mating of a male horse and a female donkey produces a hinny.

Asses were first domesticated around 3000 BC,[3] approximately the same time as the horse, and have spread around the world. They continue to fill important roles in many places today. While domesticated species are increasing in numbers, the African wild ass and another relative, the Onager, are endangered. As "beasts of burden" and companions, asses and donkeys have worked together with humans for millennia.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ass_(animal)

Language again

In my previous post about multiculturalism I indicated that I didn’t really accept that there was such a thing as Britishness. But if I was forced to name one thing that defines us it would be our language. Unfortunately this point would just be lost on the ‘little Englander’ types that complain about their perceived loss of a British identity. Our language is the one thing that truly identifies us as a nation.

The great thing about English is that it is diverse and dynamic. As it evolves it absorbs from those that use it. There are regional differences, but those differences should be enjoyed and celebrated, they are what make our language rich and interesting. It is one thing to have a dynamic language that is influenced by its users; it’s a totally different kettle of fish to have your language replaced by cultural imperialism. Unfortunately the latter seems to be taking place, and it’s happening with the tacit acceptance of its ‘owners’. Laziness will hasten the extinction of the English language.

Contrary to popular belief, particularly amongst themselves, Americans do not speak English. They speak American. Through cultural bullying, American has taken hold in these islands like a cancerous growth. English is the red squirrel of the language world. Being the grumpy old sod that I am, I am easy irritated by those simpletons that have become brainwashed by the American culture machine. Thankfully I’m not a violent man, but if I was I would continually want to punch people that used Americanisms. You know what sort of morons they are. They are the sort that pronounce schedule as sked-jewel rather than shed-yule. The sort that write’#’ (hash) instead of ‘Nº’. And, the sort that will use ‘asshole’, ‘butt’ and ‘can I get’ instead of ‘arsehole’, ‘arse (or bum)’ and ‘please could I have’. I’m sure that you know the sort of low-life I’m talking about. If David Cameron is so fucking concerned about multiculturalism perhaps his government should pass a law requiring all American films and television programmes (note the spelling) to be screened in this country with English subtitles or dubbed into English. Unlikely to happen of course, given that we are the lap-dogs of the USA.

Does it matter?

In the great scheme of things I don’t suppose it really does. Life goes on. Perhaps we should just learn to love Big Brother. That’s Big Brother as an Orwellian reference rather than a suggestion to admire rubbishy televisual dross.

Unfortunately my dislike of American cultural fascism gets the better of me from time to time and I tease or taunt the odd American speaker on the interweb. I shouldn’t do it I know. It’s a fact I’m not proud of. It’s not big and it’s not clever, but sometimes it can be a lot of fun.

Badly mismanaged

Over the last week I’ve heard the phrase ‘badly mismanaged’ used twice on the BBC. Once on Radio 4 of all places, and once on the East Anglian news programme Look East. Standards continue to fall at Auntie!

If something is well managed then it could be said to have been ‘badly mismanaged’. I don’t think that this is what each reporter meant to say on either occasion. What they should have said was either ‘mismanaged’ or ‘badly managed’.

It is little wonder that western civilisation is going down the proverbial plug hole when standards at the Beeb are slipping like this!

Communication breakdown

Isn’t e-mail a wonderful thing?

I’ve just received a reply to an e-mail I had sent to someone supporting them as they had asked me to do. They have replied rebuking me!

I’m confused, we are probably now both aggrieved, and neither of us probably knows why. The written word is my preferred form of making contact with people but it is oh so hard to make yourself understood without the emphasis and inflections that the spoken word affords.

It’s Monday morning and life seems far too complicated!

Well it amused me!

Terry Wogan told a joke this morning that amused me. It's probably an old one, but I'd never heard it before. Anyway here goes:


Question: Who led the Pedants Revolt?






Answer: Which Tyler

Saturnalia I presume

Whenever you hear the phrase ‘political correctness gone made’ you know very well that it’s a hoax with no or very little basis of truth and the flames of this outrage (driven invariably by bigotry and xenophobia) usually being fanned by the likes of the Daily Mail. This sort of Neanderthal thinking always raises its ugly head at this time of year, when normal right thinking people who dare to describe the period around the winter solstice as anything other than Christmas get labelled as p.c. nutters.

As an atheist, I use the term Christmas along with a number of other labels to describe this time of year. My personal favourite is Yuletide because I just happen to like the way it sounds. But I wouldn’t care if the word Christmas were banned from common usage. Festivities in aid of the Winter solstice have been around a lot longer than the notion of monotheistic delusions about worshipping a magic man with a beard. So quite frankly I don’t give a shit what people call it, as long as they don’t call it the holiday season or holidays. Holidays are what you go away for when you take time off work. Often somewhere warm, but not exclusively. Holidays ain’t fucking Christmas!

The Daily Mail squad, in a hang-up from Victorian times, are so morally and probably sexually repressed that they can’t cope with anything that challenges social conventions that owe their ancestry to the time when ‘we were not amused’.

Holiday Season

What the fuck is the ‘holiday season’?

I know one thing, it isn't now. The holiday season is all year round as people take holidays all year round! I suppose typically people take the majority of their holidays in the summertime, although winter breaks have become a lot more popular. So there you have it the holiday season is all year. So unless you want to show yourself up as the wanker you possibly are, stop using the wretched term.