It’s been a while since I shared some non-sensical use of the English language here. My good pal Monika, currently resident of Brisbane, sent me this and I had to share it. Have a look:

Queensland Homicide Victims’ Support Group

Anything strike you as strange about that? It comes from the Brisbane “Inner and Southern Suburbs” Yellow Pages. And let’s be honest, how much support does a homicide victim really need? Talk about locking the barn after the horse has bolted. I bet they would have really liked some support right before they became a homicide victim. Some serious backup right about then would have been fantastic.

Obviously, they do a completely different service. According to their website:

24 hr emotional support, personal advocacy and information to all people affected by homicide throughout Queensland.

But that’s not what they actually say in their name now, is it.

And on the subject of erroneous use of the language, here are a couple of guys that deserve medals. Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson couldn’t help themselves and had to correct the grammar on a sign at the Grand Canyon National Park. “Authorities” (and let’s use that word cautiously) said that Deck kept a diary and in it he had written that he and Herson used a marker to cover an erroneous apostrophe, put the apostrophe in its proper place with correction fluid and added a comma.

There was also a misspelled word (”emense”) that was not corrected by these linguistic vigilantes because, “I was reluctant to disfigure the sign any further. … Still, I think I shall be haunted by that perversity, emense, in my train-whistle-blighted dreams tonight.”

The sign that needed correction

These poor bastards pleaded guilty to conspiracy to vandalise government property and were sentenced to a year’s probation, during which they cannot enter any national park or modify any public signs. (I like the implication that they can modify public signs again once the year is up.) They were also ordered to pay $3,035 to repair the sign. Repair it? Three grand! For a sign that was hand written in the first place? They should have been paid three grand each for their vigilance.

Full story here.

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Word abuse that is. I was going to try to avoid posting anything about this mass gathering of Catholics (pun very much intended) but I can’t help it. Hundreds of thousands of “pilgrims” from all over the world coming to Sydney to block our roads and cost our small businesses at least a weeks takings. Not to mention the massive amount of our supposedly secular tax dollars that got donated into the event. An event held by the wealthiest religious institution in the world, incidentally.

But I’ll avoid all the obvious rantings that are so easy with something like this. Let’s keep the whole thing on topic for the blog. Well, as much on topic as this blog ever is.

You can always rely on religious institutions to have very little respect for words and their meanings. They’ll bleat on about the literal word of god or the sacred word of scripture and so on, and then they come out with a selection of words like World Youth Day. The only word among those three that is vaguely accurate is World. It is an event that is televised all over the world and people from all over the world descend upon it. But Youth? Day? The bloody thing went on for a week and had very little to do with youth.

Sure, old Pope Benedict the Ratzinger prattled on about how the young people should pay heed if they feel that their god is calling them into the service of the church. After all, most church leaders of all ranks are getting old or being hidden away in distant parishes to help them avoid accusations of child abuse and, no matter how much they big themselves up, the church is slowly dying. It’s one small mercy, I suppose. Calling the event World Catholic Indoctrination Week would have been far more accurate. But the church, any church, never has much of a track record when it comes to accuracy.

Pope Benedict the Creepily Smug Looking

Which brings us to another piece of word abuse associated with this event. Their slogan – The Time Of Your Eternal Life. Really? It says very little for heaven if a few days freezing your arse off camped at Randwick Racecourse is as good as it’s ever going to get. Who wants resurrection and eternal life if it’s not even as good as Sydney in the winter. Don’t get me wrong, I like Sydney (without the Catholics), but it’s not my idea of the pinnacle of human existence. At least, not in July.

And one final gem from Ratzinger himself. On Friday he gave an apology to the victims of clerical sexual abuse. He made no mention of what they were going to do to prevent it happening in the future, and even had the audacity to suggest that he felt their pain. But the apology was made, however insincerely. Then the very next day, during his mass, he spoke of the need to embrace the church to beware the dangers of a secular existence. Apparently the irony was utterly lost on him.

Ah well, at least it’s all over for now. I pity Madrid in three years time.

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The news wires and the blogosphere are awash with tributes to George Carlin, and deservedly so. George was admitted to hospital on Sunday complaining of chest pains and died of heart failure late in the afternoon. He was 71 years old.

So why am I adding my voice to the global outpouring of grief? Well, Carlin was quite a man. Primarily a stand-up comedian, he was also and actor and an author and won four Grammy Awards for comedy albums. But one of the reasons that I personally liked him so much was his great insights into language. (He also had a great thoughts on religion, once saying that a new commandment should be added, “Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.” Good idea, that.)

A great example of his exasperation with modern language can be seen in this YouTube clip.

You can learn all about the man at his Wikipedia entry here.

Jesus is coming - look busy.

RIP GEORGE CARLIN

1937 - 2008

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There’s a lot of power in names. You don’t need to be a daemonologist to know that. We do have this seemingly inbuilt and unavoidable need to name and categorise everything. While a personal name is very important, group names become something of a murky area.

I’ve been entertained over the last few days with news from the Greek island of Lesbos. It seems that the people there, the Lesbians, have had enough of the global female gay community appropriating their name to identify their gender preference.

For example, as reported in The Register:

local activist Dimitris Lambrou states in his complaint that the “seizure” of the island’s name is responsible for the “psychological and moral rape” of true lesbians

Seriously, that’s a bit strong, isn’t it? Lambrou is actually bringing the case to an Athens court, as reported by the BBC:

for judges to decide whether to grant an injunction against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece and to order it to change its name

The term lesbian, used to describe girls that dig other girls, stems from a famous Lesbian (native of Lesbos) that went by the name of Sappho. She was a lyrical poet that lived some time between 630 and 570 BCE and was famed for her poems about her love and infatuation with other people, many of whom were women. She often wrote of unrequited love but rarely wrote of any physical acts of love. Regardless, Sappho, born on Lesbos, indirectly and unwittingly coined the term lesbian for gay females.

Sappho (by Charles Mengin, 1877)
She’s a tortured looking lass if Mengin is to be believed.

Interestingly, the act of girl love has also been referred to as sapphic and gay girls have been called sapphists. This would seem to completely circumvent the whole problem between geographical lesbians and sexual lesbians, but so would simply calling them gay. Why do we have such a pathological need to name everything?

The use of collective nouns is extremely entertaining and descriptive, especially in the English language. After all, without collective nouns we wouldn’t have such pearlers as a Murder of Crows, a Parliament of Rooks or a Clamber of Assistant Professors (I’m not kidding, feel free to check). But do we really need to go so far as to categorise everything? Isn’t it enough to simply refer to men and women as either gay or straight if the need for a such a distinction ever arises?

Intrigued by these thoughts, I set out to do some serious research into the subject. By serious research I mean that I asked a good friend of mine that happens to be a girl that digs other girls. I asked her what she thought of the terminology and what her preferences were. She told me that it took her a long time to be comfortable with lesbian, but that she likes it now. She’s Australian and mentioned also that in Australia dyke is quite acceptable these days, but not really acceptable at all in the UK. I’m not entirely sure how it would be taken in other English-speaking countries. Otherwise she was happy enough with gay and said that there aren’t really any other nouns that she considers useful or acceptable.

However, she gets absolutely the last word on the subject with her own final comment to me: “Personally, I’d like not to be identified by the gender of the people I date. Maybe one day.”

Word.

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Remember yesterday I mentioned that I was going to see Neil Gaiman at a Q & A session in the city? Turns out it was a reservations only event. I should have known really, given how popular he is. I’ve had the thing noted down in my diary for weeks, but never thought to check if I would need a ticket or a reservation. Oh well. It gave me a chance to have a wander about in Kinokuniya, which is a pretty cool book shop. That just cost me money though, as I can’t wander around a book shop for long without buying things. Books mainly.

As a consolation I met my wife for an Indian dinner. It was very nice, but not really the same as possibly getting to meet Neil Gaiman. Maybe I should just revert to my old punk ways and remember the maxim “Burn The Bible, Kill Your Idols!” Yeah. Who needs ‘em.

Gaiman’s doing a signing in Dymocks in the city at lunchtime today, but I have to work. Then he’s off to some other city. I suppose some things just aren’t meant to be. Maybe next time.

I was cheered up when I saw some signwriting hilarity today though. Remember the “Go USA!” guy. Here he is:

Well, I think we’ve found his mum:

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There’s been some debate over the years as to what actually constitutes the lowest form of wit. It seems to be generally accepted that sarcasm holds the title, but being an Englishman at heart (and by birth) I consider sarcasm to be an art form. Poor sarcasm is truly awful but good sarcasm is the sort of thing that gives angels wings.

Another suggestion is that punning is the lowest form of wit, but I love a good word play too. Perhaps I’m saying more about my ability to be easily entertained here than anything else. Who knows. Regardless, I came across this list of puns and word plays while idly trawling through netrider.net.au today (a motorcyclists’ forum) and felt obliged to share it. You know you love a good pun as much as I do.

Energizer Bunny arrested - charged with battery.
A pessimist’s blood type is always b-negative.
Practice safe eating - always use condiments.
Shotgun wedding - A case of wife or death.
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing and mean your mother.
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
I used to work in a blanket factory, but it folded.
Corduroy pillows are making headlines.
Marriage is the mourning after the knot before.
Sea captains don’t like crew cuts.
Is a book on voyeurism a peeping tome?
A successful diet is the triumph of mind over platter.
When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Every calendar’s days are numbered.
He broke into song because he couldn’t find the key.
A breakfast of boiled egg is hard to beat.
A lot of money is tainted. It t’aint yours and t’aint mine.
His photographic memory was never developed.
When you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall.
Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
When she saw her first gray hair, she thought she’d dye.
Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
Acupuncture is a jab well done.
The short prison escapee fortune teller was a medium at large.
Without geometry, life is pointless.
A gossip is someone with a great sense of rumor.
A man’s home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.
Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
When egotists meet, it’s an I for an I.
A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two-tired.
A backwards poet writes inverse.
In democracy, your vote counts. In feudalism, your count votes.
Definition of a Will: a dead giveaway.
Pay your exorcist, or you’ll get repossessed.
A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
You’re stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.
He fell into an upholstery machine, but is fully recovered.
Local Area Network in Australia: The LAN down under.
A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France: Linoleum Blownapart.
Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft, and I’ll show you a flat miner.

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I’m a huge fan of the English language and I like to try to learn other languages too. Currently (in fact for the last several years) I’ve been concentrating on learning Polish and Cantonese. Well, you have to set yourself a challenge. I have good reason to learn both those languages, so it’s not purely a linguistic form of self-flagellation.

Anyway, when I’m struggling with foreign languages I often remind myself how lucky I am that English is my first language. I don’t know who wrote this piece, but it does help to perfectly sum up why all native English speakers should thank their lucky stars:

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown? Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or piccable? And where are all those people who are spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible. And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.

And if that wasn’t enough to bend your brain, there’s also these kind of things:

1 ) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2 ) The farm was used to produce produce.

3 ) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4 ) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5 ) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6 ) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7 ) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

8 ) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9 ) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10 ) I did not object to the object.

11 ) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12 ) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13 ) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

14 ) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

15 ) To help with planting plants, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

16 ) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

17 ) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

18 ) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19 ) 1 had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20 ) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

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If you’re a fan of language like me, you will be easily entertained by all forms of word play. A good quality pun, for example, can keep me chuckling for hours. Also, if you’re British like me, knob gags and double-entendres are a staple of your comedy diet.

Combine the two and you get some classic moments like these. Lucy, in London, sent these to me and I had to share. Twelve of the finest unintentional double-entendres from British television. Naturally enough, it’s sport coverage that usually supplies the most amusing:

1. Pat Glenn, weightlifting commentator - “And this is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning and it was amazing!”

2. New Zealand Rugby Commentator - “Andrew Mehrtens loves it when Daryl Gibson comes inside of him.”

3. Ted Walsh, Horse Racing Commentator - “This is really a lovely horse. I once rode her mother.”

4. Harry Carpenter, at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race 1977 - “Ah, isn’t that nice. The wife of the Cambridge President is kissing the cox of the Oxford crew.”

5. US PGA Commentator - “One of the reasons Arnie [Arnold Palmer] is playing so well is that, before each tee shot, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them….. Oh my god! What have I just said?”

6. Carenza Lewis, about finding food in the Middle Ages on ‘Time Team Live’ - “You’d eat beaver if you could get it.”

7. A female news anchor who, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn’t, turned to the weatherman and asked, “So Bob, where’s that eight inches you promised me last night?” (Not only did he have to leave the set, but half the crew did too, because they were laughing so hard.)

8. Steve Ryder covering the US Masters - “Ballesteros felt much better today after a 69 yesterday.”

9. Clair Frisby, talking about a jumbo hot dog on Look North - “There’s nothing like a big hot sausage inside you on a cold night like this.”

10. Mike Hallett, discussing missed snooker shots on Sky Sports - “Stephen Hendry jumps on Steve Davis’s misses every chance he gets.” (Say this out loud if you don’t get it right away).

11. Michael Buerk, on watching Phillipa Forrester cuddle up to a male astronomer for warmth during BBC1’s UK eclipse coverage - “They seem cold out there; they’re rubbing each other and he’s only come in his shorts.”

12. Ken Brown commentating on golfer Nick Faldo and his caddie Fanny Sunneson lining-up shots at the Scottish Open - “Some weeks Nick likes to use Fanny, other weeks he prefers to do it by himself.”

I have no idea if any of these are actually true and I can’t be bothered to confirm their authenticity. The British genes in me, and their love of puerile humour, made me want to share it anyway. Don’t you just love the English language?

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As anyone that reads The Word would be well aware, I’m a sucker for language. The name gives it away really. So I’m always on the lookout for good information, history, discussions, what-have-you of all things word related. Few things fit the bill better than Op-Ed Magazine. Not only am I a fan of them, but they seem to like me too and have signed me up as a contributing writer. So yes, there’s something slightly spammy about this post, but don’t let that put you off.

Op-Ed Magazine is a new(ish) online publication that touts itself as “Opposite the Editorial - World writings based on a word”. A more detailed explanation can be found on their About page:

One word can say it all and each monthly issue of Op-Ed is based around a single word. Our global team of contributers (Amsterdam, Seattle, Minneapolis, London, Taiwan, Australia) use that word to describe the world around them in whatever form tickles their fancy. It could be prose, essay, political commentary, cartoons or poetry. It’s a grab bag assortment of great writing and global creativity.

My first piece for them appears in the latest issue which has just been published, so go and check it out and see what you think. If you like it, be sure to tell all your friends, family and colleagues. And I’m always keen to hear what you think, as ever, so feel free to comment here or email me.

You can find this fine publication here: Op-Ed Magazine. There’s also a link in the Cool Places To Visit box in my sidebar for future reference.

Enjoy.
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It really bothers me when people have no idea when or how to use a certain kind of punctuation, so they overcompensate. There’s a lot of it about, but probably the two worst offenders in this category are apostrophes and quotation marks. Well, actually, the apostrophes and quotation marks themselves have done absolutely nothing wrong. It’s the idiots that misuse them that are the problem.

The amount of times you’ll see a sign that says something like:

It’s a never ending fight and there are even those people that suggest that when something enters “the common lexicon” that it becomes acceptable. In other words, if enough stupid people band together, they’ll be able to take over the world. Once again, the lowest common denominator starts setting the bar for the rest of us. That’s why buses have signs on the driver’s window that say “Don’t enter or exit bus through window.” Why the hell would anyone need a sign like that? It’s because some bloody fool tried to enter or exit his bus through the window, fell and hurt himself and subsequently sued the bus company. Now they have to put up a sign to avoid further litigation. One idiot costing the company a fortune in stickers saying something that anyone with half a brain cell knows already.

This general acceptance when enough people jump onto the bandwagon is what gives us words like irregardless. Can you believe that the spellcheck function on Firefox doesn’t pick up irregardless? Although, ironically, it does highlight spellcheck and suggests separating it into two words. It’s almost as if all hope is lost and the idiots are going to win. But don’t give up the fight. All the time the resistance is strong we can keep the correct use of language and punctuation alive and kicking.

I’m all for the evolution of language. Language has always been an organic and fluid thing that moves and adapts with the times and is an ever more beautiful creation. But there’s a difference between accepting the emergence of new words like email and himbo and letting lazy, ignorant people get away with etymological murder.

A good friend of The Word, Michael Fridman, recently pointed me in the direction of these guys that are fighting the good fight. They highlight the ridiculous use of quotation marks in the beautifully titled blog The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.

Also out there are people highlighting the misuse of apostrophes. There are blogs such as The Abuse Of Apostrophes In Everyday Life and Apostrophe Abuse, which are great for having a laugh at the most bizarre instances of apostrophe weirdness, but probably more important is the Apostrophe Protection Society. These guys, rather than just mock the misuse of apostrophes actually go out of their way to educate people on the correct usage. And you know what? It’s really not that complicated. If you’re unsure, go to the Apostrophe Protection Society website and have a look. Better to be educated than castigated.

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