You’re on holiday, maybe in Spain or Italy, and you want to buy something in a shop. No problem, you have a few basic phrases to survive in that situation. So you go find it on the shelf, but before you take it to the counter you check the price because you know the prices can be different from home. And what’s this? It costs…
€15,99!!?? Continue reading
Yesterday evening at about 6.30PM I had a moment of panic. I realised that in my rush to leave, I hadn’t read over my post and italicised all the words I should have. I couldn’t go back, and wasn’t in a situation to do it on my phone. It would just have to stay in that condition for a few hours, which aggravated me. Letting something unfinished like that out into the world seemed so sloppy.
What needed to be changed? Not much really, just two or three cases where I was referring to words, and not using them, and wanted to italicise them to make that clear. For example: “I’ve been trying to use the word application…” instead of “I’ve been trying to use the word application…”
A minor change, really, and most of my stress was due to my being a stickler for detail. Because, the post was probably quite comprehensible without my revisions (which of course I still made last night). Putting the word before application made what I wanted to say clear enough. Given also the topic of the blog and the specific context of the post itself, there was probably little ambiguity in the post. And it’s great that language can make things so clear for us, do so much of the heavy lifting of comprehensibility with words alone. But still, I’m drawn to being precise as I can in my use of language, just to be sure… Continue reading
I generally prefer to avoid using abbreviations, as long as it’s not too awkward or difficult to use the longer form. It’s just a case of style really. I understand the need for abbreviation in language, but sometimes abbreviations can just seem too lazy, too short.
Which is why I’ve been trying to use the word application lately, rather than app. It’s just not working out though. First of all, no-one else is using it, and app just seems to be more appropriate. Mobile phones are so small, and apps can seem so ephemeral (especially to me, because they don’t have any real physical existence, which is something I’ll never quite be able to get my head around), that the short and simple app just seems right. At least application still has its own exciting life of job and college applications to enjoy!
Hooligan‘s a great word, isn’t it? The sound of it really matches what it represents. Now the word is mainly associated with troublemakers at football games, but it’s been around for quite a long time. It first appeared in British police reports in 1898, and seems to have been based on the surname Houlihan. Coming from the original Gaelic surname Ó hUallacháin, it came to be used to represent a stereotypical comic Irish figure in music-hall shows in the late 19th century.
Given the stereotypes of Irish people in cities like New York and London at the time, it’s not such a surprise that the name became a synonym for an angry, violent, and probably drunk, individual. The word was also quickly absorbed into Russian as khuligan, to refer to violent young men harassing people on the streets, and political dissenters. Continue reading
Why does Spider-man have a hyphen in his name? You might not have noticed it before, perhaps because most superheroes don’t have hyphenated names, and you assume the same is true of Spider-man. Bat-man. Iron-man. The-Incredible-Hulk. Doesn’t really work, does it? And yet you’ve probably never noticed Spider-man’s hyphen. Until now. Now, you can’t help but notice it and the name looks weird now, doesn’t it (Spiderman, or Spider Man not being weird at all, of course)? Continue reading
The evenings are getting a little longer each day (at least here in the Northern hemisphere), and while it’s not cold yet, soon enough it’ll be time to settle by the fireplace with a nice mug of cocoa. You’d be a mug not to, wouldn’t you? Unless you’re not the type to stay indoors in the winter. Perhaps you prefer to stay on the streets in the evenings, hanging around quiet street corners and – oh! – mugging people! Well if that’s what you’re into, ok, but be careful that the police don’t catch you, or they’ll bring you back to the police station and take your mugshot. If they do, make sure you don’t mug for the camera: they really don’t like that. They’d probably make sure you were convicted, and then your mug would be plastered all over the place. Crime: it’s a mug’s game, isn’t it?
Today I came across the phrase zombie film maker (to describe someone who makes zombie films) somewhere online. I don’t really remember where now, but that’s not important. What struck me about this fabulous phrase was that it was crying out for some punctuation! Before I go any further, I want you to think about how it should be punctuated. Should it be:
zombie-film maker?
or…
zombie film-maker? Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 