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 [...]
November 16, 2011
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words
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Count the bridges! Count them all!
In anticipation of spending a little time in Venice at some point in 2012, I was reading an article on the place yesterday, wherein it was claimed that the city is home to “…an estimated 444 bridges”. Of course, this is just one of those popular semi-myths that appears in tourist information to sound like [...]
October 30, 2011
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words
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Rude words that aren’t
When it comes to swearing and rude words, I understand that lines must be drawn somewhere. My belief is that all swearing is fine in certain contexts, and no word should be 100% off limits. This post uses swear words in full, since there’s no point discussing them if you aren’t prepared to say them. [...]
September 1, 2011
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words
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Get engaged, become a hero!
Today’s BBC News website has another entry for it’s archive of bizarre links, this time involving Prince William and an unwell walker on Mount Snowdon. The first paragraph of the story runs as follows: Prince William carried out a dramatic helicopter rescue just 48 hours after announcing he is to marry Kate Middleton next year, [...]
November 21, 2010
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media, words
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The most tenuous link in climate change?
I, like anyone else who has spent some time looking into the subject, know that climate change is happening and that it’s almost certain that the major cause is human activity. This being the Internet, there’s more blogs arguing in favour and against this particular scientific result than any amount of shaken sticks can encompass. [...]
October 31, 2010
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words
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