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Post by Little Jack Horner on Apr 19, 2020 13:21:25 GMT
For what it’s worth, I only recognised three of the proposed words of the year – walking football, quiet room, and screen time. Is this because I’m not Australian or because I’m over a certain age? I think I am unlikely to use any of them in the foreseeable future.
And I have never heard most of the alternative words for toilet rolls. Toilet, lavatory, and loo, rolls/paper are all I have encountered in real life although I have come across “dunny” in this forum. But my spell-checker won’t accept it.
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Post by Twoddle on Apr 19, 2020 22:44:24 GMT
And I have never heard most of the alternative words for toilet rolls. Toilet, lavatory, and loo, rolls/paper are all I have encountered in real life although I have come across “dunny” in this forum. But my spell-checker won’t accept it. I'm well acquainted with "bog rolls", but learnt the more genteel term, "TP", only through my addiction to Beavis and Butthead.
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 20, 2020 0:24:57 GMT
One new term – of perhaps many – to arise from the pandemic is " information hygiene". Now if only we could lock up the purveyors of disinformation and fake news … (looking at you, Zuckerberg – among others).
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Post by Dave Miller on Apr 20, 2020 7:38:52 GMT
> information hygiene <
When working (so that’s over ten years ago now) I used to encourage what I called “data hygiene”. This involved such things as keeping one central copy of key data, to which everyone referred, so that old data didn’t infect new decisions, reports, etc. (I’d found that the 185 staff all dealing with the development and maintenance of the University’s buildings kept the key facts of each building in 126 different lists, databases, spreadsheets, etc. - no two of which entirely matched.)
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Post by Dave Miller on Apr 20, 2020 9:40:31 GMT
Jacinda gets it right! From a BBC report on what the New Zealand Prime Minister said:
“Officials are confident, she said, that there was no widespread community transmission in the country, with each person now infecting, on average, less than one other person.”
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 20, 2020 11:23:14 GMT
Jacinda gets it right! From a BBC report on what the New Zealand Prime Minister said: “Officials are confident, she said, that there was no widespread community transmission in the country, with each person now infecting, on average, less than one other person.” Jacinda seems to get it right quite often. Aotearoans (i.e. Kiwis) can do a lot more, well, than shag sheep. Aside: A Kiwi joined one of my Mercedes forums and, upon announcing his origin, declared: "Now before you start making sheep jokes … perhaps we do, perhaps we don't. But then we export them and you eat them." Best comeback I'd ever known about Kiwi sheep jokes.
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Post by Dave Miller on Apr 20, 2020 12:53:45 GMT
I hadn't heard that there were NZ sheep jokes ...
... but then I'm near to Ireland and Wales.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Apr 21, 2020 10:40:24 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 21, 2020 11:39:54 GMT
Thanks, LJH. That looks interesting.
I've completed four Open University / MOOC courses over the past couple of years, and this one's right up my alley. Something to pass the lockdown time.
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Post by Twoddle on Apr 24, 2020 12:00:27 GMT
I've just encountered the word, "ultracrepidarian". I'll leave you to look it up but, as a hint, it's no coincidence that it's come to light just after Trump suggested that injecting people with disinfectant and shining UV light on them might cure Covid-19.
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 24, 2020 13:14:16 GMT
I've just encountered the word, "ultracrepidarian". I'll leave you to look it up but, as a hint, it's no coincidence that it's come to light just after Trump suggested that injecting people with disinfectant and shining UV light on them might cure Covid-19. What an excellent word, Twod, especially for the Clown In Chief. Perhaps someone should replace the "safe" UV globes in the Trump-et's tanning bed with UVC. It would kill that ghastly orange "tan" he sports. LOL
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 25, 2020 1:42:56 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 26, 2020 0:09:52 GMT
Do others here find this confusion – honed in for homed in – widespread? Today I found it in four news organs, including the BBC, Oz ABC, NY Times, and Guardian AU. (The Guardian has already repaired the piece after I emailed them.) It's becoming almost as common as the misuse of lead for led (past tense of the verb to lead).
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Post by Verbivore on Apr 26, 2020 22:44:27 GMT
From the New York Times: "R refers to reproduction and 0 to the zeroth generation, as in patient zero. Together, they are typically called the basic reproduction number." I've not previously encountered the ordinal of zero, but it does make sense. Also: naught for zero. On checking my dictionaries, it appears that the naught spelling is the default in US English (American Oxford) and an alternative in British English (OED). I’ve always used naught for non-numerical senses and nought (the one with an O – zero) for the number. Which spellings of those do others use? And for amusement (well, to word nerds anyhow ;-) 38 wonderful words with no English equivalent
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Apr 27, 2020 23:43:23 GMT
*** I've not previously encountered the ordinal of zero, but it does make sense. ***
It makes no sense to me. I don’t think you can have patient zero. I am sure I can’t.
*** I’ve always used naught for non-numerical senses and nought (the one with an O – zero) for the number.” ***
I agree with you, Vv, except that I rarely use ‘nought’’, preferring zero.
I like some of the missing words. I think I might be inclined to use some of them if I could pronounce them. Perhaps that difficulty is why English hasn’t adopted them as loan words.
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