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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 20, 2021 22:39:08 GMT
Oh, dear! But I think I would rather have extraneous apostrophes than hear about Shredded Krumbles, Drinket or Krumbled Bran. But I was motivated discover the nature of Drinket. Apparently, “Kellogg's Drinket was a coffee-like cereal beverage. One of their slogans was "When Children Begin To Ask To Coffee - Give Them Drinket, The Children's Berverage Made In The Cup”. www.mrbreakfast.com/cereal_detail.asp?id=1412
So the use of extraneous apostrophes has a long history! I have wondered before, how long and how frequently a solecism has to be in use before it becomes, if not standard, at least acceptable in casual correspondence.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 21, 2021 0:45:02 GMT
Drinket reminds me of one the less pleasant jobs I've had.
When I was a theology student I worked part-time at the campus's Sanitarium Health Foods factory (the "health" part of the name was moot!). The worst job was in the Kwik-Bru room, shovelling finely milled, heavily malted, darkly roasted grains into a hopper to feed the packing machines. Kwik-Bru was ersatz coffee for Seventh-day Adventists, who eschew caffeine. (The SDA church owns Sanitarium.)
Even if wearing a mask (which made breathing almost impossible) one ended up with lungs full of something about as friendly as asbestos. The room environment was so poor that one wasn't permitted to work in there for more than 20 minutes per hour. I tried drinking that Kwik-Bru just once: it was worse than the worst, cheapest, nastiest, instant coffees. I'd love to see food-labelling laws that were honest regarding the so-called health benefits of foods, not just the E-numbers. If such laws existed, many brands with "health food" or similar in their names would be bust overnight!
Even the humble cornflake has suspect origins: John Harvey Kellogg was an obsessive nutter in matters of constipation (he loved giving enemas!) and masturbation. He invented the cornflake in the hope it would "de-excite" young men and prevent their "self-abuse", which he argued was encouraged by heavy or spicy food such as was common for breakfast in his day. I believe that the cornflake is indeed boring enough to kill one's libido.
And yes, LJH: those apostrophes aren't as noxious as the "food" they promote.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 21, 2021 2:50:11 GMT
If only I were a tad younger …
Today I was pleasantly surprised to receive an unsolicited invitation (they are limited, I’m told) to apply for the job of Supervising Editor for the newly digitised Australian Government Style Manual.
I’m flattered but not keen: I’m only now getting accustomed to retirement. And there’s no way I’d want to live in our federal capital Canberra – because of the climate both meteorological and social. Not even the prospect of $120K p.a. is enough to tempt me longer than five minutes – though it’s gratifying to know my skills are considered worthy.
I'll amuse myself with co-compiling crosswords for my former employer paper. Doesn't pay much, but doesn't require a house move either.
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 21, 2021 10:53:11 GMT
Verbivore, courtesy of Covid there's been a considerable move to working from home (via the Internet) in the UK, and it seems that it's becoming a permanent feature of British life. Would they let you do that for the style manual?
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Post by Twoddle on Jan 21, 2021 11:02:40 GMT
This may be apocryphal, but I was once told that decades ago - I think it was in the post-war years - the UK Government toyed with the idea of requiring the names of food products to be accurate; for example, Harvey's Bristol Cream, which is sherry and contains no cream, would be outlawed as a brand name. The law was never introduced but several manufacturers jumped the gun in anticipation and decided to rename their products by misspelling them, in the hope that they could circumvent the proposed legislation. There remain to this day at least two such products: Scott's Porage Oats, and Barr's Irn Bru, both being as sacred to the Scots as are William Wallace and Robert de Bruce.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 21, 2021 11:36:02 GMT
Verbivore, courtesy of Covid there's been a considerable move to working from home (via the Internet) in the UK, and it seems that it's becoming a permanent feature of British life. Would they let you do that for the style manual? When I asked that question I was told that while some work could be done remotely the job still required numerous in-person meetings, which would be in Canberra and would not be Zoom-able. As Canberra is more than 1,000 km away frequent commuting would be too much.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 21, 2021 22:49:00 GMT
So far as I can see, only five of us have contributed to this forum since the beginning of November. A few years ago, there were numerous contributors, some of them prolific and others occasional, or perhaps, newly discovering the forum, making only a single offering. Postings from even these latter have almost ceased. I wonder why this may be? Surely the world-wide interest in the peculiarities of English hasn’t diminished? What needs to be done to change things?
Hundreds of millions of people speak English as a first language, it would be good if a couple of dozen could join we five.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 22, 2021 0:38:52 GMT
LJH: I, too, am aware of the declining activity here. It's the opposite of my expectations: I thought that with the world in various forms of lockdown more people would be inclined to visit – even if just from boredom or by web-surfing accident.
Even the spammers have disappeared over the past few months (unless someone's getting to them before I do). Perhaps the poor saps were COVIDed away. I hope not many of "us" have dropped out for that reason.
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Post by Dave Miller on Jan 22, 2021 11:39:35 GMT
There is on Facebook a group called The Apostrophe Protection Society, and perhaps that is attracting those who search for help with a one-off question.
The standard of contribution is ... I’ll put this politely ... dreadful.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 22, 2021 20:08:56 GMT
There is on Facebook a group called The Apostrophe Protection Society, and perhaps that is attracting those who search for help with a one-off question. The standard of contribution is ... I’ll put this politely ... dreadful. Dave: The bulk of activity on my previously busy MB forums has also moved to Fakebook, meaning I (choose to) miss out on a lot of the chatter.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 22, 2021 20:52:55 GMT
The evolution of COVID-related language (at least in AU). A range of terms recycled, adapted, and new used by Australia’s prime minister. I think a Sir Humphrey might have done better with more imaginative terminology.
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Jan 24, 2021 0:26:15 GMT
Examples of the word of the year have been posted here several times and I have been prompted to see what Wikipedia has to say about it. You may like to have a look here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_of_the_year
I was intrigued to see some of those cited, especially those from the American Dialect Society. I was astonished to see those from 2009 (tweet), 2010 (app), 2012 (hashtag) — are they so recent? and 2014 (black-lives-matter) — is it so long ago?
It’s interesting to identify the cultural dimension — the Macquarrie ones are mostly new to me. The Collins choices are most familiar to me but I find it amazing that no source includes covid for 2020, a word that surely, arises in every conversation, even more than pandemic.
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 24, 2021 9:12:55 GMT
Thanks, LJH. A veritable lexicophile's picnic!
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 25, 2021 22:05:11 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Jan 25, 2021 23:27:10 GMT
Siri has a stroke! Hear how Siri deals with a string of dashes used to represent letters in a presumably unacceptable word.
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