Turnbull versus Slug is so funny. I imagine a bull in the pasture, trying to turn over a slug. And the slug curls up and wouldn't budge.
Anyone know about the "Comma" (",") queen ? She writes essays, about other punctuations also. I think she is just a comma-lady, because, if she were a queen, <see pic. below>, where are the jewels ? Today I put in a sentence to go against my own usual advice. When reviewing something or someone, don't go comparative, and name something/someone else in the same review. I tend to do such things to see how it gets noticed. And it got noticed .... but in a weird sort of way. However, like all forum posts and rejoinders, it was fun. I think, in one reading of that, I ended up abusing Salman Rushdie, and suggesting that even Salman Rushdie could comprehend Vikram Seth. It is so gloriously hilarious, I had to leave it be. Such a lot of past nightmares of "Language Arts" homework sheets flashed before my eyes. "But, when pressed, I do find I have strong views about commas." - The Comma Queen.
Yes, I do know of the Queen. She's got some famous relatives, like the "Eats, shoots and leaves" lady. Hope that gun is not loaded. The world is comprised of some very strange people! Hope this one left a glass slipper behind, somewhere. Here's a King for her.
It may have been 10 years ago... when Lucy Kellaway lamented the way we are "going forward". I had to go back and look for that column in FT. Recently I have been getting some inbox alerts. And one of them had this "going forward" tagged on to the end of a sentence. It declares....."I wont (do it), going forward". Can people suspect a certain background when they see someone using specific phrases ? Like "going forward" is from business communication, from action-team or task-team meeting minutes, from MBA school alumni, etc... Anyhow... here is a redacted version of the column.... "November 4, 2007 by: Lucy Kellaway Going forward, I give up. Until a month ago I thought the way forward was to protest at the use of this horrid phrase. But now it is time to admit defeat. “Going forward” is with us on a go-forward basis, like it or not." ..... ...... My personal crusade against the phrase has done no good at all. In fact, it has done harm. A year or so ago I became a non-executive director and in my first board meeting the others were debating whether to write “in the short term” or “in the medium term” on a press release. I piped up: how about “in the future”, and then, putting on an ironic voice, suggested “or going forward, as it is now known?” The irony was missed, and fellow directors seized on it. “Ah yes!” they said, and “going forward” was put into the document. This was very discouraging. I had been hired on the board to take jargon out, not put it in. I’ve tried to find where this phrase comes from and it seems it may have been created by the SEC itself. Its rules on “forward- looking statements” require that anything about the future be weasel-worded and the “going forward” construction suits it well. This explains why the phrase sits so comfortably alongside the feeblest ideas, but feels wrong against anything lucid. This being the case, “going forward” does serve a purpose after all: it is a signal that the listener can switch off without missing anything. But no one would ever say: “Will you marry me going forward?” It would invite the answer: “No thank you. I’d rather spend my life with someone who knows how to talk.”
Those that bother with "English Matters", perhaps do think that it matters. Or.. may be they don't. However, curiosity belongs to the cats. Etymology dictionary is where I go when I am curious about how things started out, in English. After reading all the huff and puff on the threads about husbands who wouldn't (or couldn't), I wanted to review the job description and the origin of the word itself. In dictionaries, the verb has this definition: verb: husband use (resources) economically; conserve.If a man is saving it for later, he is being accused of not providing adequate servicing. In the etymology reference, it gets downright pastoral. Apparently the word came from Old Norse. Húsbóndi, the old norse word for house(hús), and occupier-tiller of the soil(bóndi). The idea of occupier, and tiller of the soil was later used by Shakespeare in describing Cleopatra: Royal wench! She made great Caesar lay his sword to bed. He plowed her, and she cropped.And then there is this other thread where one IL member refers to a "newly weeded wife". That made me fall off my chair. The spellchecks of computers cannot catch such correctly spelt words. And this one is such a gem of a thing, with so much language evolution that had gone before to make it such a clever use. My sick mind wandered off to how a woman had to suffer hot waxes to get weeded, so as to be ploughed, as Shakespeare would see it. Farmers in Malaysia, Thai and Vietnam would say that if the paddy is wet enough, and you ploughed hard, the weeds would be gone naturally. The high school girls in the English Medium convent schools of KL had once looked upon that comment as a promise they can look forward to. .
I see lots of anguish in the relationship threads about ILites fighting In-laws. Fighting is a lot less feasible if one has a resolve to always speak in ingliss. This puts people at arm's-length; that is, their interaction becomes somewhat strained, because parties are groping for the right thing to say in Ingliss, and the heat of the moment passes by information gets across on a need-to-know-basis Even in India many families think that their children write in whatsup or twitter language, and they speak some version of Ingliss. And the parents couldn't get anything across, or understand much of what comes back. Why not use this to advantage during the visit of your PIL to Amreeka ? After all, in Amreeka everybody speeks a version of Ingliss, and you might as well speek it all the time. No matter what is said, the phrase "oh, really, do you think so?" said with a charming smile, can be so annoying. This can be used without listening to whatever had been said, as well as ignoring the response. Children completely ignore us by saying "That's cool", and go away without answering the questin that was asked. This is a good one too. These can be used even with ingliss speaking in-laws.
"Stay blessed" is an expression I often read in birthday wishes and the like. Doesn't that sound more like a directive, an addition to the recipient's to-do list, a "do this or else"? What would be a suitable two word replacement? "Remain blessed" also doesn't do the job. Is "Stay blessed" a more recent expression? Given birth to on social media?
Please help me understand the phrase " My Bad" used so much by young people . I understood it means " sorry , my mistake " , but how did this " My Bad " become common use ? My " Bad"- what ? Like My bad habit , my bad memory it should be complete , but is not and sounds so strange.
When you can define "doh", everything will be clear. When we are older, why do we forget that language evolves ?
