A Half-baked Idea and A Good Book

I have had a half-baked idea wandering through my mind recently. It has to do with a family tree of punctuation marks. It is still incomplete but new ideas have not flashed in my mind for quite awhile. I'll just dash off what I have so far -

The parenthesis must be the seed from which all punctuation marks came - this is discussed further in my "Parent Thesis Of Punctuation". This thesis is available at the imaginary research site of your choice. The parenthesis are named "left" and "right" with Dad being left and Mom being right because Mom is always right. Right?

Three of the offspring were known as the Marks Brothers - Exclamation, Question and Quotation. They were affectionately known to Mom and Dad as "My Three Signs" and formed, among other things, an advertising agency that tried to further the family. For example, they used slogans such as "Keep your paws off of my pauses!" and "The pauses that refresh!" to help out the commas.

The Marks Brothers even tried awarding prizes for good punctuation - Apo's Trophy being the most noteworthy.

There is some evidence of evolution in the punctuation family, most notably in the semicolon and the colon. Grammarians argue to this day which lead to the other. Each camp dashes off new news releases supporting their point of view regularly.

But there was a spoilsport in the clan and the period put a stop to all of it.

#####

This half-baked effort was inspired by the book EATS, SHOOTS AND LEAVES By Lynne Truss. Here is more information on that book.

To much surprise, this book from a small publisher on the unsexy subject of commas, colons and dashes is proving the UK publishing success of Christmas 2003. There’s good reason for this: it’s witty, thought-provoking, and brief.

Lynne Truss is passionate about punctuation. She confesses to an urgent desire to be the militant wing of the Apostrophe Protection Society, to the extent that she once attempted to demonstrate to the cinema-going public with the aid of an apostrophe on a stick how easy it would be to make the film title “Two Weeks Notice” grammatical.

It is all too obvious that many people do not know how to use this little mark: “Why else,” Ms Truss argues, “would they open a large play area for children, hang up a sign saying ‘Giant Kid’s Playground’, and then wonder why everybody stays away from it? (Answer: everyone is scared of the Giant Kid.)”

Her internal anguish sometimes boils over. “No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, ‘Good food at it’s best’, you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.” A little extreme, I feel: boiling in oil would be quite sufficient.

She says in her introduction, “You know those self-help books that give you permission to love yourself? This one gives you permission to love punctuation.” Her own love of the subject turns what might be a dry exposition into a romp. She regrets that marks such as the colon and semi-colon are now much less used than they once were, though she is sure they aren’t necessarily doomed to fade into obscurity. She also regrets that books are losing their value as the main medium of communication in our society and that newer and more egalitarian media may let the barbarians determine the fate of our punctuation systems. (She remarks sadly about the Internet and texting: “By tragic historical coincidence a period of abysmal under-educating in literacy has coincided with this unexpected explosion of global self-publishing”.)

The title comes from a story about a panda in a cafe (so written on the back cover; what a pity she never gets around to discussing accents), which I am told is a cleaned-up version of an old raunchy joke. The panda eats a sandwich, fires a gun in the air and walks towards the door. When the waiter asks in confusion what he thinks he’s doing, the panda throws him a badly punctuated book on wildlife: “Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves”.

Some critics have taken great pleasure in pointing out Eats, Shoots & Leaves own grammatical errors. However, Truss is careful to warn readers that she is “not a grammarian” (nor is she her own copyeditor). Whether or not the author has made mistakes is irrelevant; what truly matters is that Truss’s instructions are correct, comprehensible, and wonderfully comical.



Feel free to add your thoughts...


And don't forget! Celebrate the seventh annual National Punctuation Day®!

September 24, 2010

Heavens To Murgatroyd!

Have you ever used a phrase on the spur of the moment and then found yourself wondering where that phrase came from? I find myself doing that frequently and I always end up fascinated by what I find as I search for a phrase origin.

Just the other day I used "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" in a feigned shocked response to something my wife, Judy, said.

She replied, "Now where do you suppose THAT came from?" And off I went!

Here is what I found.

Meaning

An exclamation of surprise. (Although I would also say that it can be used as an expression of sarcastic or feigned surprise.)

Origin

'Heavens to Murgatroyd' is American in origin and dates from the mid 20th century. The expression was popularized by the cartoon character Snagglepuss - a regular on the Yogi Bear Show in the 1960s, and is a variant of the earlier "heavens to Betsy".

The first use of the phrase wasn't by Snagglepuss but comes from the 1944 film "Meet the People." It was spoken by Bert Lahr, best remembered for his role as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. Snagglepuss's voice was patterned on Lahr's, along with the 'heavens to Murgatroyd' line. Daws Butler's vocal portrayal of the character was so accurate that when the cartoon was used to promote Kellogg Cereals, Lahr sued and made the company distance him from the campaign by giving a prominent credit to Butler.

As with Betsy, we have no idea who Murgatroyd was. The various spellings of the name - as Murgatroid, Mergatroyd or Mergatroid tend to suggest that it wasn't an actual surname. While it is doubtful that the writers of Meet The People (Sig Herzig and Fred Saidy) were referring to an actual person, they must have got the name from somewhere.

No fewer than ten of the characters in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera Ruddigore, 1887, are baronets surnamed "Murgatroyd", eight of whom (or is that which?) are ghosts. Herzig and Saidy were well versed in the works of the musical theatre and that plethora of Murgatroyds would have been known to them.

Where then did the librettist Sir William Gilbert get the name? It seems that Murgatroyd has a long history as a family name in the English aristocracy. In his genealogy The Murgatroyds of Murgatroyd, Bill Murgatroyd states that, in 1371, a constable was appointed for the district of Warley in Yorkshire. He adopted the name of Johanus de Morgateroyde - literally John of Moor Gate Royde or "the district leading to the moor".

Whether the Murgatroyd name took that route from Yorkshire to Jellystone Park we can't be certain. Unless there's a Betsy Murgatroyd hiding in the archives, that's as close as we are likely to get to a derivation.

More 2am Questions

How come the word abbreviation is so long?

Wouldn’t the opposite of abbreviate be breviate?

Would anyone ever look up the word dictionary in the dictionary?

Is there something spellbinding about dictionaries?

How come there is no verb form of the word verb?

Since pronoun is a noun, why isn’t proverb a verb?

Can you recite a list of nouns verbatim?

Do verbose people ever use nouns?

Do this sentence need reverberation?

Doesn’t the word syntax sound rather more political than scholarly?

How come there is no anagram for anagram?

Why doesn’t the word umlaut have one?

Wouldn’t analogy be a good synonym for proctology?

Why didn’t they call a palindrome something like a palinilap or emordrome?

Wouldn’t you say most novels are not?

What’s the word for when you can’t think of the word?

Why is number abbreviated as “no.” when there is no “o”?

Why is phraseology only one word?

Shouldn’t there be a shorter word for monosyllabic?

What is the opposite of opposite?

Why isn’t acronym an acronym of something?

Is slang short for “sloppy language?”

Which Hunting With James Thurber

American humorist James Thurber (1894-1961), best known for his short story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," once wrote, "Ours is a precarious language, as every writer knows, in which the merest shadow line often separates affirmation from negation, sense from nonsense, and one sex from the other." In this essay, which first appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 1929, Thurber introduces several examples to demonstrate both his fascination and frustration with a familiar English pronoun.


Which

by James Thurber (1894-1961)

The relative pronoun “which” can cause more trouble than any other word, if recklessly used. Foolhardy persons sometimes get lost in which-clauses and are never heard of again. My distinguished contemporary, Fowler, cites several tragic cases, of which the following is one: “It was rumored that Beaconsfield intended opening the Conference with a speech in French, his pronunciation of which language leaving everything to be desired . . ." That’s as much as Mr. Fowler quotes because, at his age, he was afraid to go any farther. The young man who originally got into that sentence was never found. His fate, however, was not as terrible as that of another adventurer who became involved in a remarkable which-mire. Fowler has followed his devious course as far as he safely could on foot: “Surely what applies to games should also apply to racing, the leaders of which being the very people from whom an example might well be looked for . . ." Not even Henry James could have successfully emerged from a sentence with “which,” “whom,” and “being” in it. The safest way to avoid such things is to follow in the path of the American author, Ernest Hemingway. In his youth he was trapped in a which-clause one time and barely escaped with his mind. He was going along on solid ground until he got into this: “It was the one thing of which, being very much afraid--for whom has not been warned to fear such things--he . . .” Being a young and powerfully built man, Hemingway was able to fight his way back to where he had started, and begin again. This time he skirted the treacherous morass in this way: “He was afraid of one thing. This was the one thing. He had been warned to fear such things: Everybody has been warned to fear such things.” Today Hemingway is alive and well, and many happy writers are following along the trail he blazed.

What most people don’t realize is that one “which” leads to another. Trying to cross a paragraph by leaping from “which” to “which” is like Eliza crossing the ice. The danger is in missing a “which” and falling in. A case in point is this: “He went up to a pew which was in the gallery, which brought him under a colored window which he loved and always quieted his spirit.” The writer, worn out, missed the last “which”--the one that should come just before “always” in that sentence. But supposing he had got it in! We would have: “He went up to a pew which was in the gallery, which brought him under a colored window which he loved and which always quieted his spirit.” Your inveterate whicher in this way gives the effect of tweeting like a bird or walking with a crutch, and is not welcome in the best company.

It is well to remember that one “which” leads to two and that two “whiches” multiply like rabbits. You should never start out with the idea that you can get by with one “which.” Suddenly they are all around you. Take a sentence like this: “It imposes a problem which we either solve, or perish.” On a hot night, or after a hard day’s work, a man often lets himself get by with a monstrosity like that, but suppose he dictates that sentence bright and early in the morning. It comes to him typed out by his stenographer and he instantly senses that something is the matter with it. He tries to reconstruct the sentence, still clinging to the “which,” and gets something like this: “It imposes a problem which we either solve, or which, failing to solve, we must perish on account of.” He goes to the water-cooler, gets a drink, sharpens his pencil, and grimly tries again. “It imposes a problem which we either solve or which we don’t solve . . ." He begins once more: “It imposes a problem which we either solve, or which we do not solve, and from which . . .” The more times he does it the more “whiches” he gets. The way out is simple: “We must either solve this problem, or perish.” Never monkey with “which.” Nothing except getting tangled up in a typewriter ribbon is worse.

"Which," by James Thurber, was first published in The New Yorker magazine in 1929 and reprinted in Thurber's The Owl in the Attic and Other Perplexities, Harper, 1931.

PS - Happy Birthday M.C. Escher!

"I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar."

Alabama law student turns judge with book on poor grammar

By The Associated Press

December 21, 2009, 11:56AM

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Sharon Eliza Nichols' quiet, polite voice doesn't sound like it belongs to the type of person who would author a book called "I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar."

I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar

But when Nichols begins to talk about the experience of writing a book, a more fun, even mischievous, side comes out.

"I think you've really made it when you get hate mail," said the 25-year-old University of Alabama law student, laughing. "I got one the other day that said I was un-American and I should be focusing on important things."

But most of the responses Nichols has received on her book have been positive, so much so that the publisher has ordered a second printing.

Nichols, an avid blogger, started a Facebook group in 2007 called "I judge you when you use poor grammar."

She created the group out of boredom, figured a few of her friends would join, they'd laugh about it and that would be the end.

Instead, the group has grown to more than 400,000 members who have uploaded more than 10,000 examples of poor grammar, from business signs to T-shirts to hair gel labels.

In fall 2007, The New York Times caught wind of the group and interviewed Nichols for a story.

"It just kind of snowballed from there," Nichols said. "My agent contacted me and said that he thought we had a great idea for a book."

So Nichols asked all the members of her Facebook group to start e-mailing her the pictures that now comprise her book, which she completed by writing short and snarky captions for each picture.

The publisher ordered 15,000 copies of the book for the first printing, and Nichols said 7,500 are scheduled for the next.

"It's amazing, and I was really shocked," she said. "I know I don't have 15,000 friends, so it's not just them who are buying it."

When asked why she thinks the book has been so successful, Nichols said it goes back to just how important language is to life.

"I can't explain the reasons why people care about this certain thing above other things, except to say that words are the one thing that bring us all together and the foundation of how we communicate with each other," she said.

Nichols said that if the second printing sells out, as well, she is considering doing a second book.

"I'm really not sure what that would look like, but there are a lot of possibilities," she said. "We could do one themed around retail stores, or we could do another book of assorted pictures.

"It really depends on what the publisher thinks."

Nichols, who is from Troy, is in her third year of law school and said she would like to end up in Washington, D.C., eventually.

"I'm open to a lot of possibilities, but maybe something behind the scenes politically," she said.

Nichols said the book, which has helped her pay off some of her student loans, has been a welcome surprise in her life.

"The perfect word for it is a blessing," she said.

(Wayne Grayson of The Tuscaloosa News authored this report.)

The Grammar Addict

From The Reading Post (That is in England, folks) -

The war on poor grammar
By Anna Roberts
April 25, 2008

A self-confessed grammar addict is on a one-man mission to purge Reading of its punctuation problems and spelling struggles.

The man – who will go only by his first name Jonathan – has gone around the town photographing signs where spelling errors and grammar crimes are committed.

He even reads the Evening Post attempting to find errors and photographing stories and newspaper bills – posters advertising articles – which tickle him.

Then he uploads all his findings on to the massive, 4,500-people strong Facebook page “I live in Reading… Fear me”.

Jonathan’s targets include shops, supermarkets and buses.

A sign outside a Cemetery Junction shop window which reads ‘Tuitor available. For home tuition GCSE and A-level in chemistry, biology, sciences etc’ gets the treatment.

“Would you want a tuitor tutoring your children?” Jonathan asks.

He has also taken a picture of an A-board for an Indian furniture shop in Reading. The billboard picture includes the sign ‘Looking is free’.

“Phew! I’m glad there’s no charge for looking,” Jonathan said, presumably sarcastically.

A board advertising a bag shop through ‘Sainsbary’ in Broad Street is also focused on by the grammar-keen 36-year-old.

But Jonathan, from Earley, does not just focus on poor punctuation in the town centre. He also turns his attention to the Sainsbury’s Local store in Shinfield Road.

A frankly nonsensical sign said: ‘Customer Notice. Due to store End week, Every Saturday we are close by 22.45 hours. Our apologies for any inconvinance.’

And it is lucky for this shop they give fines for illegal parking, rather than bad spelling.

The sign read: ‘Parking for Bargain Booze customers only. Unathorised vehicles will be clamped. Release fee £150.’

Jonathan took the next example of poor punctuation to heart, particularly as it came from Kings Road-based Thames Valley University.

A ticket produced by the university advertising a party read: ‘Your Unique.’

The next picture Jonathan took was at Arthur Hill Swimming Pool in East Reading.

The pool proudly advertises a ‘Family/hanging room.’

Now we can only presume the pool means this is where towels are hung, but you never know.

A particularly genius ‘bargain’ at Sainsbury’s advertised this cut-price Guinness at £3.99.

Great, you think.

However, the alcohol was already – as Jonathan’s picture shows – being sold at this price.

Sales advisor Jonathan admitted: “On the face of it, taking pictures of crap spelling could probably be construed as a little sad.”

- Noticed any spelling mishaps in town? Contact Anna Roberts on (0118) 918 3063 or email aroberts@reading-epost.co.uk


A good article that was made even better by the first comment -

I am that grammar addict, and I couldn't help noticing the gift delivery shop by the escalators in the Broad Street Mall that says, in large letters across the top, that it does "Local, National and Internal Deliveries". Shurely shome mishtake?

Jonathan, Reading

A Poem and A Quiz

I get quite a few fun emails from friends and family. I want to share two of them with you
today. One is a poem of sorts and the other is a quiz. I know that these have been around
the internet for many years but they are good friends playing in the word farm. Go ahead!
Enjoy the poem and take the quiz. No one else is watching you take the quiz. Really!

Lets face it
English is a stupid language.
There is no egg in the eggplant
No ham in the hamburger
And neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.
English muffins were not invented in England
French fries were not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted
But if we examine its paradoxes we find that
Quicksand takes you down slowly
Boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

If writers write, how come fingers don't fing.
If the plural of tooth is teeth
Shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth
If the teacher taught,
Why didn't the preacher praught.

If a vegetarian eats vegetables
What on earth does a humanitarian eat!?
Why do people recite at a play
Yet play at a recital?
Park on driveways and
Drive on parkways
How can the weather be as hot as hell on one day
And as cold as hell on another

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy
Of a language where a house can burn up as
It burns down
And in which you fill in a form
By filling it out
And a bell is only heard once it goes!

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 it is that when I wind up my watch
It starts
But when I wind up this poem
It ends.

#####


Below are four ( 4 ) questions and a bonus question...

You have to answer them instantly. You can't take your time, answer all of them immediately .

OK?!

Let's find out just how clever you really are....


First Question :
You are participating in a race. You overtake the second person. What position are you in?


Answer: If you answered that you are first, then you are absolutely wrong! If you overtake the second person and you take his place, you are second!

Try not to screw up next time.

Now answer the second question, but don't take as much time as you took for the first question.

OK ?





Second Question :
If you overtake the last person, then you are...?


Answer: If you answered that you are second to last, then you are wrong again. Tell me, how can you overtake the LAST Person?


You're not very good at this, are you?

Third Question :

Very tricky arithmetic! This must be done in your head ONLY Do not use paper & pencil
or a calculator.. Try it



Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000 ... Now add 30 .. Add another 1000 . .. Now add 20 .... Now add another 1000 Now add 10 ... What is the total?


Did you get 5000 ?

The correct answer is actually 4100.

If you don't believe it, check it with a calculator!

Today is definitely not your day, is it?


Maybe you'll get the last question right...

Fourth Question :

Mary's father has five daughters:

1.Nana, 2.Nene, 3.Nini, 4.Nono.



What's the name of the fifth daughter?

Did you Answer Nunu?

NO .... Of course it isn't.

Her name is Mary.



Read the question again!




Okay, now the
Bonus Round :

A mute person goes into a shop and wants to buy a toothbrush.. By imitating the action
of brushing his teeth he successfully expresses himself to the shopkeeper and the purchase is done. Next, a blind man comes into the shop who wants to buy a pair of sunglasses; how does HE indicate what he wants?


He just has to open his mouth and ask...

It's really very simple !

Keep smiling!!

A Lesson From A Friend

Last year sometime a friend of mine posted something on his blog on the spur of the moment and was sorry he did. He has since passed on and his blog is gone but he always reminded me of his lesson learned. Here is the post -

The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

A comment was posted...

What about the word "clip"?
1. To fasten with or as if with a clip; hold tightly
2. To cut, cut off, or cut out

That was followed by...

Patronize is the same as clip and cleave.

If you patronize someone, you are either supporting him or berating him.

Someone else chimed in...

Also "to sanction" in the senses of "to allow" and "to prohibit".


I decided to see if I could find more and was amazed to find the following. I have no doubt that there are more examples but these will suffice for now.

bolt - secure, run away

by - multiplication (e.g.,multiplying three by five), division (e.g., dividing eight by four)

custom - usual, special

dust - add fine particles, remove fine particles

enjoin - prescribe, prohibit

fast - quick, unmoving

first degree - most severe (e.g., murder), least severe (e.g., burn)

garnish - enhance (e.g., food), curtail (e.g., wages)

left - remaining, departed from

off - off, on (e.g., "the alarm went off")

out - visible (e.g., stars are out), invisible (e.g., lights out)

put out - extinguish, generate (e.g., something putting out light)

sanction - approve, boycott

screen - show, hide

strike - hit, miss (in baseball)

table - propose (in the United Kingdom), set aside (in the United States)

transparent - invisible, obvious

wear - endure through use, decay through use

weather - withstand, wear away

wind up - end, start up (e.g., a watch)


And that winds up this post.

Some Fun Facts

Here are some fun facts and some challenges to a few of them.

10% of the world's population speak English as their mother tongue (Chinese 21%, Spanish 6%, Russian 6%, Malay 4%, Hindi 4%, Japanese 3%, Arabic 3%, Portuguese 3%, French 2%, German 2%)

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The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
#####


I had read in a few places that the verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate. Really? Well, what about What about the word "clip"? To fasten with or as if with a clip; hold tightly but also to cut, cut off, or cut out. It also seems that "patronize" is the same as clip and cleave since if you patronize someone, you are either supporting him or berating him. Also "to sanction" means "to allow" and "to prohibit".
#####


"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". Really? What about unkempt? Or "attempt", "preempt", "contempt" and "exempt"? Oh! They end in "mpt" not "mt"! Did you fall into the trap?

#####

The alarm clock was not invented by the Marquis de Sade, as some suspect, but rather by a man named Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, in 1787. Perversity, though, characterized his invention from the beginning. The alarm on his clock could ring only at 4 am. Rumor has it that Hutchins was murdered by his wife at 4:05 am on a very dark and deeply cold New England morning.

#####

A variation of fun facts in the English Language are the many place names in the UK with funny names.

On the border with Essex and Hertfordshire in England is a village called Ugley.

Practically every village or small town in the UK has a branch of an organisation called the Women's Institute. It's where the local ladies meet socially, invite speakers to talk about any subject under the sun, have competitions, make jam, make cakes, have weekly sales of all produce - locally grown fruit, vegetables, home made cakes and all sorts of goodies or whatever..whatever...

Each village Institute is called the (*name of village*) Women's Institute.

The village of Ugley has a branch of the Women's Institute.

It's the Ugley Women's Institute and is one of the most well known in the country for some reason.

#####

Some other great names - Frisby On The Wreake, Nether Poppleton. Great Snoring is my personal favorite! It is right next to Little Snoring.

An Opinion Recently Expressed

From The Montgomery (Alabam) Advetiser

Vanzetta McPherson: Whose English?

May 13, 2010


For several years now, Amy Gillett has written and published a book and compact disc set titled "Speak English Like An American." It is designed to teach idioms and vernacular phrases that make American English unique and indigenous to the United States. Presumably, its desired outcome fits quite nicely into the national language agenda espoused by politicians like Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo.

Gillett's title is catchy and perhaps well-intentioned, but regrettably, in today's America, too many of its natural-born citizens don't really speak English. Instead, they speak a home-grown, inconsistent version of the Mother Tongue. The idioms of Gillett's focus are not the problem. American speakers and writers today simply ignore the rules of grammar, punctuation, capitalization and syntax. And American listeners -- a declining number of whom know better -- simply let them.

The issue summons us to examine trends in education, technology and politics.

At some distant moment in the past, educators decided that the rudiments of grammar should consume less classroom time. That decision was apparently one of the battles in the successful war on rote memory. Reciting rules, mastering the parts of speech, diagramming sentences and writing extemporaneous compositions became almost extinct. So did the endless elementary school exercises in identifying homonyms, antonyms and synonyms. The saddest death of all was the routine spelling bee -- the ones that were unrelated to national competition and grand prizes.

Young adults who bypassed these exercises now have difficulty completing job applications, writing the essay required for college admission, writing routine memoranda at work and spelling words correctly in any of these undertakings.

Then came the social and artistic movements that may as well have been designed to impose an enduring taint upon our beloved language. Heavy metal and hip-hop artists deliberately altered word meanings, changed spellings (boyz, lite, becuz) and assaulted grammar in the name of "keeping it real." Language was a casualty of the "me generation," a somewhat tacit movement that resurrected Narcissus and made personal considerations the measure of propriety.

To this linguistically toxic pudding was added the otherwise life-enhancing effect of technology. Although we can now send and receive messages instantly and do so almost anywhere, the messages we now send sometimes bear little resemblance to English. E-mails and texts reflect individualized, and therefore inconsistent, shorthand, and they conveniently conceal the sender's inability to write the same message in standard English.

After all of these developments, it is intriguing at best and hypocritical at worst that politicians now demand that recent immigrants speak English and denounce bilingual publications by government and business. First, immigrants might well ask "whose English?"

Depending upon whether they walk the aisles of Wal-Mart, listen to a morning radio talk show, observe a session of the Legislature, watch a typical situation comedy on television, or read any set of online comments to newspaper columns or magazine articles, immigrants trying to learn English will hear and see vastly different versions of a so-called common language and will likely be exposed to every possible breach of its rules. We should not wonder that they become as inept as we are in expressing themselves.

Second, at least the immigrants who learn English become bilingual. Since bilingualism is obviously a value in American education, given the century-old presence of French, German and Spanish in our high school curricula, we should strive to learn another language with as much fervor as we entreat immigrants to learn English. But anti-immigrant politicians are blind to the usefulness of learning Spanish, the language of 40 million other American voters -- a language that will likely be spoken by the majority of Americans in 40 years and the language spoken by the first European settlers in North America (remember Ponce de Leon?).

If we're serious about helping immigrants learn English, we should improve our own English. We hear many proposals for modifying elementary and high school curricula to help students learn more effectively, prepare them better for higher education and make them more marketable as employees upon graduation. Yet few seem to focus on language mastery. It wouldn't hurt to re-examine and improve the pedagogical processes and tools used to help students master the one skill that informs all the others.

If we agree that hours of just pitching, catching, free-throws, lay-ups, tackling and blocking ultimately improves the entire game, can't we agree that hours of practice in subject-verb agreement, spelling and punctuation ultimately improves overall communication?

If not, we may remain more proficient in the games we play for fun and profit than we are in the language we use to connect with each other.

To this linguistically toxic pudding was added the otherwise life-enhancing effect of technology. Although we can now send and receive messages instantly and do so almost anywhere, the messages we now send sometimes bear little resemblance to English. E-mails and texts reflect individualized, and therefore inconsistent, shorthand, and they conveniently conceal the sender's inability to write the same message in standard English.

After all of these developments, it is intriguing at best and hypocritical at worst that politicians now demand that recent immigrants speak English and denounce bilingual publications by government and business. First, immigrants might well ask "whose English?"

Depending upon whether they walk the aisles of Wal-Mart, listen to a morning radio talk show, observe a session of the Legislature, watch a typical situation comedy on television, or read any set of online comments to newspaper columns or magazine articles, immigrants trying to learn English will hear and see vastly different versions of a so-called common language and will likely be exposed to every possible breach of its rules. We should not wonder that they become as inept as we are in expressing themselves.

Second, at least the immigrants who learn English become bilingual. Since bilingualism is obviously a value in American education, given the century-old presence of French, German and Spanish in our high school curricula, we should strive to learn another language with as much fervor as we entreat immigrants to learn English. But anti-immigrant politicians are blind to the usefulness of learning Spanish, the language of 40 million other American voters -- a language that will likely be spoken by the majority of Americans in 40 years and the language spoken by the first European settlers in North America (remember Ponce de Leon?).

If we're serious about helping immigrants learn English, we should improve our own English. We hear many proposals for modifying elementary and high school curricula to help students learn more effectively, prepare them better for higher education and make them more marketable as employees upon graduation. Yet few seem to focus on language mastery. It wouldn't hurt to re-examine and improve the pedagogical processes and tools used to help students master the one skill that informs all the others.

If we agree that hours of just pitching, catching, free-throws, lay-ups, tackling and blocking ultimately improves the entire game, can't we agree that hours of practice in subject-verb agreement, spelling and punctuation ultimately improves overall communication?

If not, we may remain more proficient in the games we play for fun and profit than we are in the language we use to connect with each other.


Vanzetta Penn McPherson is a retired U.S. magistrate judge for the Middle District of Alabama.

Bulletins And Web Sites

A change of pace today. The following have been culled from real church bulletins and church web sites. Thank the Lord for typos and best intentions. Would an Elder of a church willfully engage in typomania? I'll never tell...

Enjoy.

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The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.

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The sermon this morning: ‘Jesus Walks on the Water.’ The sermon tonight: ‘Searching for Jesus.’

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Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale… It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

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Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say ‘Hell’ to someone who doesn’t care much about you.

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Miss Charlene Mason sang ‘I will not pass this way again,’ giving obvious pleasure to the congregation..

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For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

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Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

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Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

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*A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

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At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be ‘What Is Hell?’ Come early and listen to our choir practice.

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Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

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Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

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Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

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The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.

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Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.

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The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

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This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

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*Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B S. is done.

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The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

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Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM.. Please use the back door.

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*The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

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Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

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*The Church Elder unveiled the church’s new campaign slogan last Sunday: ‘I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours.'

Don't Die In Parliament, It's The Law

By Gary Cleland (Gary Cleland is a former national newspaper journalist who reported for The Daily Telegraph and has written for The Sunday Times, The Sun and the Daily Mirror.)

Published: 4:11PM BST 12 Apr 2008


A ban on people dying in the Houses of Parliament has been named the most absurd legislation in Britain.

* The ten most ridiculous British and international laws

In a public vote, the second strangest law was one making it an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the monarch's head upside down on an envelope.


A bizarre Liverpudlian bye-law that apparently banned women from going topless in public unless they worked in a tropical fish store came third.

However, the city has denied such a rule existed, saying it was an urban myth.

A spokesman for Liverpool City Council said: "It's something that has been heard of before and does crop up from time to time, but it is absurd.

"It is a myth and totally made up. It has no basis in fact."

But others are real - the reason people are banned from dying in parliament is that it is a Royal palace.

Nigel Cawthorne, author of "The Strange Laws of Old England", said: "Anyone who dies there is technically entitled to a state funeral.

"If they see you looking a bit sick they carry you out quickly."

He added: "You can see the sense in the 1279 law banning people from wearing armour to Parliament. It is not supposed to be a violent place."

At number seven on the list is a law, the Royal Prerogative 1324, that decrees that any whale or sturgeon found on the British coast belongs to the monarch.

The law is very much still in place, as fisherman Robert Davies found out in 2004 when he was investigated by police in Plymouth.

He had faxed the Royal Household to tell them he had caught a sturgeon, and was told to keep it, but did not realise it was still illegal to try and sell it.

Eventually no charges were brought.

Other laws on the list include Oliver Cromwell's decree from around 1644 to combat gluttony by banning people from eating mince pies on Christmas Day and the revelation that, according to an old London bye-law, a pregnant woman can relieve herself anywhere she wants - including in a policeman's helmet.

Not everyone is happy about that. There is currently a petition on the Downing Street website calling on Gordon Brown to take that right away from pregnant women, calling it "an insult to male police officers".

The survey, carried out by television channel UKTV Gold, also asked people to comment on some of the more absurd international laws.

Top of that list was a local bye-law from Ohio in the US, that banned residents from getting a fish drunk.

Down For The Count

One day, while searching around on Google, I discovered that a self-referencing sentence is a sentence that describes itself. For example, "This sentence has five words," or "This sentence contains nine syllables." Very interesting.

However, as with most 'stuff' like this, there were folks who would not leave well-enough alone. As a result we find out that - "In this sentence the word 'and' occurs twice, the word 'eight' occurs twice, the word 'four' occurs twice, the word 'fourteen' occurs four times, the word 'in' occurs twice, the word 'occurs' occurs fourteen times, the word 'sentence' occurs twice, the word 'seven' occurs twice, the word 'the' occurs fourteen times, the word 'this' occurs twice, the word 'times' occurs seven times, the word 'twice' occurs eight times, and the word 'word' occurs fourteen times."

Going a little further round the bend we find that an autogram is a self-referencing sentence that describes its letter content. Here are some autograms:

"This sentence contains only three a's, three c's, two d's, twenty-five e's, nine f's, four g's, eight h's, twelve i's, three l's, fifteen n's, nine o's, eight r's, twenty-four s's, eighteen t's, five u's, four v's, six w's, two x's, and four y's."

"This sentence employs two a's, two c's, two d's, twenty-eight e's, five f's, three g's, eight h's, eleven i's, three l's, two m's, thirteen n's, nine o's, two p's, five r's, twenty-five s's, twenty-three t's, six v's, ten w's, two x's, five y's, and one z."

and

"This sentence employs two a's, two c's, two d's, twenty-six e's, four f's, two g's, seven h's, nine i's, three l's, two m's, thirteen n's, ten o's, two p's, six r's, twenty-eight s's, twenty-three t's, two u's, five v's, eleven w's, three x's, and five y's."

Of course, someone had to take even this a few more steps down the path - "This sentence contains one hundred and ninety-seven letters: four a's, one b, three c's, five d's, thirty-four e's, seven f's, one g, six h's, twelve i's, three l's, twenty-six n's, ten o's, ten r's, twenty-nine s's, nineteen t's, six u's, seven v's, four w's, four x's, five y's, and one z."

The final stop on this wild ride comes with this gem -

"Only the fool would take trouble to verify that his sentence was composed of ten a's, three b's, four c's, four d's, forty-six e's, sixteen f's, four g's, thirteen h's, fifteen i's, two k's, nine l's, four m's, twenty-five n's, twenty-four o's, five p's, sixteen r's, forty-one s's, thirty-seven t's, ten u's, eight v's, eight w's, four x's, eleven y's, twenty-seven commas, twenty-three apostrophes, seven hyphens and, last but not least, a single !"

That Is A Good Question!

Questions that come at 2:00AM.

Got answers?


If you had amnesia and then were cured, would you remember that you forgot?

Why do we press harder on remote control buttons when we know the battery is dead?

Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?

When your pet bird sees you reading the newspaper, does he wonder why you're just sitting there, staring at carpeting?

If you have 24 odds and ends on a table, and 23 fall off, what do you have left, an odd or an end?

Why is there always one in every crowd? If you took all the ones in every crowd and put them in another crowd, will there be one in that crowd?

How do you know when it is time to tune your bagpipes?

What would happen if there were no hypothetical questions?

Did George Washington just flash a dollar bill for his ID?

Does anyone live on a one-way dead-end street?

If our knees bent the other way, what would a chair look like?

Why are builders afraid to have a 13th floor but book publishers aren't afraid to have a Chapter 11?

Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

When you open a new bag of cotton balls, are you supposed to throw the top one away?

An Error In The OED!? THUD!

For 99 Years, Oxford English Dictionary Got It Wrong

Aussie prof finds 99-year-old error in Oxford English Dictionary

By Lindsay Goldwert
Daily News Writer

Tuesday, May 11th 2010, 10:57 AM

To err is human but the Oxford English Dictionary is thought to be Divine.

Until a 99-year-old error was discovered.

Dr. Stephen Hughes, from the University of Technology in Brisbane, noticed a mistake under the definition for “siphon” in the famed dictionary while researching an article, according to London’s Daily Telegraph.

The dictionary states that atmospheric pressure makes siphons work.

This is not true, says Hughes.

"It is gravity that moves the fluid in a siphon, with the water in the longer downward arm pulling the water up the shorter arm," he said.

Hughes told the Telegraph he was stunned upon finding the mistake, which had been added in 1911 and been there ever since.

Hughes alerted the OED's revision team, who responded saying that they would rectify the mistake in the next edition.

An OED spokesman said the definition was written in 1911 by "editors who were not scientists."

Hughes now plans to check sources in other languages which may have taken their definition of “siphon” or “siphons” from the OED.

"We would all have an issue if the dictionary defined a koala as a species of bear, or a rose as a tulip," he said.


AOL News (May 11) -- The Oxford English Dictionary got it wrong, and it took 99 years before anyone noticed.

Siphons don't work, it turns out, because of atmospheric pressure, as the OED has been saying since 1911. It's all down to that law Isaac Newton figured out when an apple hit his head: g-r-a-v-i-t-y.

Siphons work by drawing fluids from a higher location to a lower one, not always an easy thing to do, as anyone who's tried to empty a car's gas tank would confirm.

"It is gravity that moves the fluid in a siphon," said Stephen Hughes, a physics lecturer at the University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.

So he was stunned when he noticed the OED had made a mistake, telling The Daily Telegraph of London, "We would all have an issue if the dictionary defined a koala as a species of bear, or a rose as a tulip."

Hughes said he discovered the error when he visited a huge siphon that transfers enormous amounts of water from a river system to a depleted lake in South Australia.

Hoping to use the project as part of an education paper, he researched the word and found "that almost every dictionary contained the same misconception" about atmospheric pressure being what pushed liquids through a siphon

He then wrote to the OED, whose research team said it would correct the mistake in its next edition, the Telegraph reported.

A spokesman for the dictionary told the newspaper that the definition was written "by editors who were not scientists."

And when is a koala bear not a bear? When it's a marsupial.

Even the OED gets that one right. Q.E.D.

Revisiting Anon

From time to time I have used the quotes of our old friend Anon. Each of these quotes is so much deeper than they first appear. Come on! Get lost in thought for a bit. Actually...

"The reason most people get lost in thought is that they are strangers there."

Here for your thought and pleasure are some more.

"I heard someone tried the monkeys-on-typewriters bit trying for the plays of W. Shakespeare, but all they got was the collected works of Francis Bacon."

"Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian."

"In order to keep a true perspective of one’s importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him."

"I have an existential map; it has ‘you are here’ written all over it."

"I would like to be able to admire a man’s opinions as I would his dog - without being expected to take it home with me."

"It’s easier to seek forgiveness than ask for permission."

"They say time is the fire in which we burn."

"Laws change more slowly than custom, and though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous still when they presume to anticipate custom."



And some more that can be attributed...

"Wit is educated insolence."
- Aristotle

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."
- Edward Abbey

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
- Albert Einstein

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."
- Orson Welles

And finally...

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
- Bertrand Russell

The Wit & Wisdom of People with a 'W'

Various quotes found while rummaging through Google...

Some you may know but not know who said it and some you may never have attributed to the one who actually said it.

In any case - enjoy! And think!



Horace Walpole

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.

Life is a comedy for those who think... and a tragedy for those who feel.

Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.

The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.


Daniel Webster

Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.

Keep cool; anger is not an argument.

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.

There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange.


H.G. Wells

After people have repeated a phrase a great number of times, they begin to realize it has meaning and may even be true.

Beauty is in the heart of the beholder.

History is a race between education and catastrophe.

You have learned something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.


Simon Wiesenthal

For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.

Violence is like a weed - it does not die even in the greatest drought.


Elie Wiesel

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.


John Wooden

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.

Never mistake activity for achievement.

Why I Love British Humour

Postman: Is this letter for you? The name is smudged.
Man: No, it can't be for me, my name is Smith.

#####

Old Lady: Do you always play by ear?
Street Musician: Yes, lady, 'ere or 'ereabouts.

#####

Two little old ladies were walking through the park one Sunday afternoon. The band was playing a catchy sounding tune, and one of the old ladies said, "I wonder what the name of that tune is". The other one noticed a sign posted near the bandstand and said, "It looks like they post the names of their selections. I'll go down and see". A while later she came back and told her companion, "It's the Refrain from Spitting".

#####

A man was walking down the street and he met a small boy. The man asked what was his name.

The boy replied, 'six and seven-eighths.'

The man asked him why his parents had given him such a strange name, and he replied, 'they just picked it out of a hat.'

#####

Railway Porter (cheerfully) - Miss the train, sir?
Passenger - No, I didn't like the look of it, so I chased it out of the station.

#####

A policeman walked over to a parked car and asked the driver if the car was licensed. 'Of course it is,' replied the driver.

'Great, I'll have a pint then.'

#####

I think we're in for a bad spell of wether.

#####

Teacher: Where was Magna Carta signed?
Pupil: At the bottom.

#####

MAN ON PHONE: "How long does it take to fly to Hong Kong?"
TRAVEL AGENT: "Just a minute, sir. . ."
MAN ON PHONE: "Thanks very much".

#####

A couple of hikers were tramping through the countryside and had lost their way, so by the time they arrived at the "George and Dragon", the village pub where they'd arranged to stay the night, the doors were locked and the owners had gone to bed. They knocked timidly on the front door.

A head appeared at an upstairs window and shouted, 'Go away. Don't you know what time it is? We're closed,' and the the window slammed shut.

Undeterred, the hikers knocked again. 'What is it now?' demanded the head.

'Could we speak to George this time please?' asked on the the hikers.

#####

Two men went into a pub, ordered two beers, took some sandwiches out of their packs and started to eat them. "You can't eat your own sandwiches in here," complained the pub-owner. The two men stopped, looked at each other and then swapped their sandwiches.

#####

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were having a rest in their hotel room when suddenly a tree walked in.

"Elm entry, my Dear Watson," said Holmes.

Unemployed? Looking For A Job?

From The Wall Street Journal - April 30, 2010

Icelandic Translators Enjoy Their Moment in the Sun


Masters of the Unpronounceable Shine; No Word for CDO? Make It Up



By CHARLES FORELLE

Vantar þýðendur úr íslensku á ensku—næg vinna!

If you know what that means, then Iceland has a job for you.

Iceland's banking system has collapsed, its economy is in turmoil and its volcano has blotted the sky with ash.

As a result, things have never looked better for the small cadre of Icelandic translators who render the North Germanic tongue of 320,000 island-dwellers into something the rest of the world can understand.

The remnants of Iceland's three major banks conduct creditors' meetings in Icelandic. Many of the creditors are foreign. Interpreters are needed.

Among the assignments: bankruptcy cases, criminal probes, fraud suits and, earlier this month, a 2,000-plus-page report on the banking mess—solid gold for a translator—produced by a "truth committee" of the Alþingi (that's parliament).

"A big uptick for me," says Daniel Teague, an American translator who has lived in Reykjavík for decades.

"I don't think I ever did bankruptcy before," says Keneva Kunz, a Canadian-born translator working in Iceland for more than 20 years. "In the last year and a half, I don't think I've done anything else."

Business erupted last fall when Iceland rushed its application to the European Union. The Icelandic currency had sunk with the banks, and the island's leaders were suddenly anxious to ditch their króna for the euro.
Vantar þýðendur úr íslensku á ensku—næg vinna!

Translation: "Translators wanted from Icelandic to English -- plenty of work!"

The EU application might have been devised by a sadistic college dean. It included 2,500 questions. (Chapter 24, question 69: "What is done in the field of crime prevention? How is this linked to the threat assessment model and identified priorities?") Government officials answered them in Icelandic. Then the translators took over. The responses ran 8,870 pages.

A decade ago, Iceland didn't have much of a banking sector to speak of. A privatization campaign changed that. Add a bit of Viking derring-do, and soon the banks were wheeling and dealing in Britain, the U.S. and Asia. Eventually, assets of the three big banks reached 10 times Iceland's annual economic output.

The trend was great for practically everyone. Translators, too. The banks produced lush reports, which needed to be put in English for foreign investors.

Jón Skaptason did a lot of that. After the banks collapsed in 2008, his translating gigs waned. But there was a bright side. "Many of the freelancers who formerly worked for the banks are now busy working for the people who are suing the banks," he says.

Icelandic students learn English in school, and a visitor to Reykjavík will find coffee-bar cashiers, hotel attendants and fishermen who speak like the British Queen. But Icelanders are fiercely proud of their language, which has changed little in 800 years. They've resisted the Anglicization of officialdom. Everything is done in Icelandic.

To jobless Americans looking to break in: Good luck picking up Icelandic. There are three genders, four cases and a bewildering rubric of declensions. Not to mention two letters absent from the Latin alphabet.

Even the best translators need special skills—especially in areas like finance. Icelanders may have imported their banking fervor, but they made up local words to reference the sector. Like skuldavafningur. (That's a collateralized debt obligation, to Americans.) Occasionally several people made up words. That explains why some Icelanders call a CDO a skuldabréfavafningur.

Translator Páll Hermannsson prefers the crisper-sounding skuldavafningur for CDO. Literally, he says, it means "debt wrap."

After the financial collapse, each bank got a skilanefnd and a slitastjórn. "Meaning what?" asked the Anglophones who lent gobs of money to the now-defunct banks. No one could agree. A few finance specialists huddled with the central bank's translator and came up with English definitions: "resolution committee" and "winding-up board."

Messier still were the many ways Iceland bailed out its underwater homeowners. They might have gotten greiðsluaðlögun (payment mitigation), or greiðslujöfnun (payment smoothing), or skuldaaðlögun (debt adjustment), or skuldalækkun (debt reduction), or niðurfelling skulda (cancellation of debt). The list goes on.

"The debt is not a problem," says Ms. Kunz. "But what to call it is."

Native English speakers fluent in Icelandic command a premium. There aren't many. It is an axiom of translation that the work is best done from a foreign language into one's mother tongue.

"For many years, I told people [learning Icelandic] was the most difficult thing I did, bar none," says Mr. Teague, who was a New York lawyer before moving to Iceland in 1979.

He fell into translation in the 1980s. Þorgeir Þorgeirson, an Icelandic film director and intellectual, had been convicted of defaming civil servants and fined 10,000 Icelandic krónur (then about $250). His crime was writing two newspaper articles about police brutality. (He called the cops "wild beasts in uniform.") Mr. Þorgeirson wanted to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which works in English and French. He needed a translator.

"His English was a little patchy," Mr. Teague recalls. Mr. Þorgeirson won. And the judges gave him 218,160 krónur for translation costs. Mr. Teague had a career.

Gauti Kristmannsson, an associate professor of translation at the University of Iceland, trains the next generation. Fifty students take his two-year masters' program. He's expanding next fall, to meet the expected demand from the EU. If Iceland gets in, he says, the bloc will need 100 translators to shuttle between Icelandic and the 23 current official languages.

To Mr. Kristmannsson, the world is lost without translation.

"Why do people struggle with this Eyjafjallajökull?" he asked, on the topic of the misbehaving volcano.

He patiently coached foreign journalists on its pronunciation, which requires a flutter of staccato gurgles and alveolar gymnastics beyond the ken of ordinary Anglophones.

"They should have translated it!" he said. It means "island mountains glacier."

Copyright Explained

© The Department of Redundancy Department Copyright Department Copyright, 1999



When you write copy you have the right to copyright the copy you write. You can write good and copyright but copyright doesn't mean copy good - it might not be right good copy, right?

Now, writers of religious services write rite, and thus have the right to copyright the rite they write.

Conservatives write right copy, and have the right to copyright the right copy they write. A right wing cleric might write right rite, and have the right to copyright the right rite he has the right to write. His editor has the job of making the right rite copy right before the copyright would be right. Then it might be copy good copyright.

Should Thom Wright decide to write, then Wright might write right rite, which Wright has a right to copyright. Copying that rite would copy Wright's right rite, and thus violate copyright, so Wright would have the legal right to right the wrong. Right?

Legals write writs which is a right or not write writs right but all writs, copied or not, are writs that are copyright. Judges make writers write writs right.

Advertisers write copy which is copyright the copy writer's company, not the right of the writer to copyright. But the copy written is copyrighted as written, right?

Wrongfully copying a right writ, a right rite or copy is not right.



Copyright 1991 Shelley Herman S.P.E.B.S.Q.S.A., Whittier Chapter.
Adapted and Appended by Scott Simmerman. If you wish to copy or write
this as copy, please be certain to copy right the copyright.