NBA Lockout: Desperation Strikes

With the NBA lockout showing no signs of sorting itself out in the near future, the players are finding alternative ways to earn a little cash. Some are keeping their hand in by playing for European teams. Some, with a canny eye on their post-trainer-squeaking career, are getting some experience of coaching with college teams. And some have accepted the reality of a long, dark future as a minor celebrity, prepared to earn small appearance fees meeting British people who buy computer parts on the web.

November 18, 2011 Tags: marketing, sport No Comments

Civil Partnerships require a verb

This morning on the Telgraph’s website, there’s an article with the headline BBC newsreader Jane Hill is to ‘marry’ a woman cameraman. Despite the awkward term ‘woman camerman’ (why not camerawoman?), there’s an issue with the word ‘marry’. It has had to be quoted, because they aren’t actually getting married. Homosexuals in the UK can’t get married; they must enter a civil partnership. But what is the word that encompasses the act of entering a civil partnership? It isn’t ‘marry’, because that refers to the legal process of getting married (which is where this poor headline writer got stuck). So we need a new verb for the specific act.

In fact, the whole of this post is rubbish. What we really need to do is allow homosexuals to get married. You know, with all same rights that heterosexuals have. That would solve the linguistic problem together with so many other more important ones.

November 16, 2011 Tags: words No Comments

Spirit: A Life

The Spirit rover explored the Martian landscape for over five years – more than twenty times its expected lifetime. A nice Youtuber (I’m not calling them a root vegetable) has put together a timelapse of its activities over that period.