Yesterday we were in Norwich seeing my aged mother (more of which maybe later) and as is our wont we dropped into a branch of the small local supermarket, Roy’s of Wroxham, for a loaf of bread. What we bought was a granary loaf, but with a difference as the wrapper declared it to be
Made from Scratch
Duh!
Item 1 of “a lot”, judging by most of the written English I see.
Let’s forget the much over-discussed greengrocers’ apostrophe and look at a few of my bêtes noir of grammar and vocabulary.
of. Very few if any past participles in English take “of”. So not “bored of” but “bored with”. Not “sensitive of” but “sensitive to”. And especially not “off of”, just “off”!
Chef’s “off”. Why do chefs have to “do off” everything. “I’m just going to fry off these onions”! Argghhh! None of the verbs you guys use should have “off” added. At best it is affectation, at worst slovenliness. Just “fry” will do!
Decimate. Unless you really do mean a reduction by exactly 1 in 10 it is incorrect.
Different to. No. Something is “different from” something else. But it is “similar to” another. Likewise things are “compared with” each other not “compared to”.
My school teachers also always used to deride the old exam favourite “compare and contrast” as being tautology: “compare” technically includes both similarities and differences, so “contrast” is unnecessary.
Impact on. Things do not “impact on” each other. They may “impact”, “collide”, “interact” or “impinge”, none of which need “on”.
Nude and Naked. The OED gives these as cognates, at least as far as human form is concerned, although I discern some variation. Used alone they are absolutes: both mean undressed; totally undressed; not wearing a bikini, or socks, or a hat. But gradations of nakedness (but not, I discern, nudity) can be indicated by the use of “almost”, “nearly”, “not quite” etc. Naked may also mean devoid of hair (where hair would generally be expected). Naked is much more readily and correctly applied to plants, animals, land, swords etc. etc.
Less and Fewer. The rule here is simple. Less of a quantity. Fewer of number. So we would get “less milk from fewer cows” and not any other variant.
OK, so language is a living thing and subject to change. But one had to have some standards, you know!
OK, so here’s another regular. Tara’s Gallery this week is called Hands. Here’s my contribution:
Click the image of larger views on Flickr
This was taken in June 2004 (when I was still experimenting with a digital camera) sitting outside the Royal Standard pub on Lyme Regis beach-front. This beauty was at the next table; I just casually put my camera down on our table, set at widest-angle zoom and pointing the right way, and “accidentally” clicked the shutter a couple of times. I’ve no idea whether she had seen what I was doing, or whether she really was in a dream of her own, but I remain surprised at how well it came out!
Another ragbag selection of quotes which amused or interested me over the last week or so …
Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.
[Clive James]
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
[Philip K Dick]
The entrée wasn’t tender enough to be a paving stone and the gravy couldn’t have been primordial soup because morphogenesis was already taking place.
[Clive James]
No, you can’t deny women their basic rights and pretend it’s about your ‘religious freedom’. If you don’t like birth control, don’t use it. Religious freedom doesn’t mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.
[Barak Obama]
[S]ome insect penises come equipped with hooks that enable the ensconced male to grab a previous suitor’s sperm packet and remove it from the female. I suggest that these hooks be called cuckholders.
[Steve Mirsky; Scientific American, July 2012]
No man in this country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or to his property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel into his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow – and quite rightly – to take every advantage which is open to it under the taxing statutes for the purpose of depleting the taxpayer’s pocket. And the taxpayer is, in like manner, entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Revenue.
[Lord Clyde in Ayrshire Pullman Motor Services & Ritchie v Commissioners of the Inland Revenue (1929) 14 TC 754]
For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
[Winston Churchill]
Sunday went as Sunday’s should, soporifically and full bellied into the evening.
[Katy Wheatley, http://katyboo1.wordpress.com]
You see, stand here long enough and all life will pass before you.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come;
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on,
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumber’d thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As ‘Well, well, we know,’ or ‘We could, an if we would,’
Or ‘If we list to speak,’ or ‘There be, an if they might,’
Or such ambiguous giving out, to note
That you know aught of me: this not to do.
[Hamlet, Act 1, scene 5]
Experiment, week 32. Back on track this week with an on time report, although it will doubtless be coloured by the fact that I didn’t start feeling really OK again until Wednesday. So here’s the week’s selection of five things which have made me happy or for which I’m grateful.
Just a quick follow up to my post of the other day about the keys to a robust relationship and especially the one about sharing a bed.
Quite serendipitously the same day I happened across a reference to an article in The Wall Street Journal reporting on research which shows that there really are benefits to sharing a bed. For instance:
While the science is in the early stages, one hypothesis suggests that by promoting feelings of safety and security, shared sleep in healthy relationships may lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. Sharing a bed may also reduce cytokines, involved in inflammation, and boost oxytocin, the so-called love hormone that is known to ease anxiety and is produced in the same part of the brain responsible for the sleep-wake cycle. So even though sharing a bed may make people move more, “the psychological benefits we get having closeness at night trump the objective costs of sleeping with a partner”.
It’s nice to have some scientific support for my thoughts. ☺
Another in my occasional series documenting some of the underbelly of Britain. Britain which we wouldn’t like visitors to see and which we wish wasn’t there. The trash, abused, decaying, destitute and otherwise buggered parts of our environment. Those parts which symbolise the current economic malaise; parts which, were the country flourishing, wouldn’t be there, would be better cared for, or made less inconvenient.
This delight is in Kingly Street, London, W1 at the back of the shops in iconic Regent Street. I have no clue if it is used or if so what for. Is it some night-dive? Or the goods entrance to one of the Regent Street Shops (unlikely; the road is pedestrianised)? Or a staff entrance? Why the padded doors, and fancy gates? Oh and note the tuft of grass on the top of the gatepost!
[Further research reveals that this is the Studio Valbonne nightclub. The state of the entrance is a fairly good guide to the reviews it gets.]
No not another of those lists of 100 impossible things you’re supposed to (want to) do before you die; there’s one of them on my website already. No, this is an actual, real list!
I don’t know how many years ago it was that I first made myself a list of things I wanted to do/achieve in this life, but it was well over 10 years ago although at that time I hadn’t formalised it. Interestingly it doesn’t seem to have changed a lot over the years although I do add odd things.
And I never called it “Things to do Before I Die” but “Sometime I’ll Do …” which somehow seemed less doom-laden and more aspirational.
I’ve achieved (✔) quite a few (though not yet 50%) and I know I’ve failed (✖) on a handful.
Out of interest I thought I would share my list. It probably says some highly significant and interesting things about me! So …
Sometime I’ll Do …
Some things are dependent on others: like there is no way I’ll be able to afford the Orient Express unless I win the Lottery first. And I won’t visit Iceland, Norway or Japan until they change their stance on whaling. Some of the things are unlikely to ever happen and some are out of my control. But one can dream, and I guess at least some part of this is just about dreams!
Dare you share your list?
Well as we all like words so much here’s another nice one following along hot on the heels of the last …
Armigerous
Entitled to bear heraldic arms.
As de Quincy writes in 1858: “They belonged to the armigerous part of the population, and were entitled to write themselves Esquire”.
For those interested the shield on the right is the arms of England, 1405-1603, consisting of France Moderne (Azure three fleur-de-lis Or) quartered with England (Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langued azure). It is formally blazoned as: Quarterly, I and IV azure three fleur-de-lis Or; II and III gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langued azure.
