Category: Random

Random

Wash your mouth out! Things we should never say.

Some phrases should simply be outlawed, either on the grounds of inelegance or self-harm.

“Have a nice rest of your day!” – Where did this ugly mash-up come from? On the lips of baristas and service staff, everywhere. “Have a nice day!” perhaps, or “Enjoy the rest of your day!” that’s nice, but the combination?? The English language brutalised.

“Above my pay grade” – Just no! In a pithy little phrase, you announce your complete lack of ability, relevance and aspiration.

“The higher-ups” – This manages to both brutalise the language and declare your insignificant status.

“I’m rubbish at maths” – A favourite of TV and radio presenters across the land. You have no aptitude for mathematics, nor have you much command of the language. More to the point, why is it acceptable to take pride in your innumeracy?

There are many more, but I just needed to vent.

Photo by Artur Voznenko on Unsplash

Random, Work

The power of paper over pixels

I’m with Michael Wade on this.

I like to work from paper drafts. As a result, I’ll type up a document on my computer, then print it off for editing. I know this sounds a tad Luddite, but I can spot errors more quickly on the printed page than on a screen. I also like to maintain my error-spotting skills instead of delegating that task to my computer.

The last thing I did, as I tidied my desk yesterday evening, was shred five versions of a speech I was working on for a CEO. I spot errors and see the flow more clearly when I have my head down over paper. And I can scribble ideas that I might abandon by the next page.

I’m not sure why. Is it because I learned to read and write on paper? Is it the haptic aspect of having a tangible piece of paper in my hands? Or the narrower focus of looking down on an inanimate sheet in contrast to a shiny, dynamic screen?

The Times has an interesting article on how literacy levels in Sweden have dropped since schools abandoned books for “screen-based learning”. Literacy levels dropped from among the highest in Europe (in 2000) until, in 2022, one in four pupils were functionally illiterate when they left secondary school. Now, books are back. As one teacher says: “The feeling of holding a volume and reading it makes it much easier for the student to immerse themselves in the world of the book. To see the words, how they are written, to feel the words, to feel the text in a different way.”

Who knew?!?

You can read Michael’s article on sneaky screens, here.

Photo by Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash

Random

Was Tesla the world’s last car brand?

We are awash in bland, low-cost cars with meaningless marques and interchangeable shapes.

It’s like shopping on Amazon for a USB fan, a wash bag, or a heated cat blanket. A dozen different options, all identical other than an incomprehensible brand name.

Or, maybe like an Android phone or  Windows laptop. When everything’s software, the hardware is simply commodity.

I’m no particular fan of Tesla, but I wonder if it was the last, real car brand.

Photo by Tesla Fans Schweiz on Unsplash

Random

A lament for lost editors, arbiters and middlemen

We live in a world of dopamine-driven, doom-scrolling, emotional incontinence and performative, manufactured outrage.

Worse, the social media echo chamber amplifies and accelerates the outrage like a Hendrix howl of feedback. Round and round it goes until it explodes onto the street as mindless protest, riot or murder.

James Marriott has an insightful column in/on today’s Times –  Why elitism is key to democracy’s survival – which addresses exactly the point.

Continue reading “A lament for lost editors, arbiters and middlemen” →
Random

Things once lost are now revealed

New, pulsed thermography, imaging techniques are deciphering scrolls last read 2,000 years ago.

When Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, burying Pompeii and drowning Herculaneum in volcanic mud, the surge of hot gas carbonised an entire library in a villa now known as the Villa dei Papiri, thought to be owned by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. The papyrus scrolls were turned to fragile logs of charcoal, too blackened and fragile to interpret.

Over the last couple of years, thanks to advanced, non-intrusive imaging techniques, AI and an open-source Vesuvius Challenge (which awarded $700,000, the largest prize in archaeology to three computer students), the scrolls are being read.

This week, researchers from the University of Pisa revealed previously unknown details about Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, along with works on the Epicurean school and biographies of Greek physicians. Zeno, it appears, was frail and had a tendency to avoid banquets, but then he was also mocked for his poor Greek (he was Phoenician) and accused of “annoying young men with his chatter and reproaches”. His famous, but long lost, work The Republic is reported in the newly deciphered History of the Stoic School as being morally questionable and “embarrassing” because his vision of utopia rejected private marriage and family life, and advocated equality between men and women and tolerance of same-sex relationships.

The University of Pisa has a detailed post, here.

The Times has been running stories following the project here, here and here.

Random

Shires, counties, counts and sheriffs – @InkyFool

Now you know…

Once upon an Old English time there were shires: Hampshire, Wiltshire, Nottinghamshire etc. The Anglo-Saxons lived in these and kept the Hobbit population under control. 

Each shire was ruled for the king by a shire-official, or shire-reeve, or scir-gerefa, or sheriff. 

The Inky Fool explains all about shires, sheriffs, counties, counts, marches and marquises, here.

His book on rhetoric, The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth, is one of my favourite references for words, speech and writing.

Photo by Andy Newton on Unsplash

Random

On foreign language translation…

“The best translations into English do not, in fact, read as if they were originally written in English. The English words are arranged in such a way that the reader sees a glimpse of another culture’s patterns of thinking, hears an echo of another language’s rhythms and cadences, and feels a tremor of another people’s gestures and movements.”

— Ken Liu, Translator’s Postface to The Three Body Problem (via as-if-falling)

I love this. It goes straight to the heart of language and highlights why so much translation is so poor.

Hat-tip to Je t’aime / N’arrete pas.

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

Random

A 373-year-old bond still paying interest

Yale holds a 1648 bond that still pays annual interest. It was issued by a Dutch water board to finance improvements to a local dike system and is still valid. Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library must make the trip to the Houten in the Netherlands every few years to claim the interest.

That’s a remarkable, long-term investment.

But, will it buy you a table at Milliways?

All you have to do is deposit one penny in a savings account in your own era, and when you arrive at the End of Time the operation of compound interest means that the fabulous cost of your meal has been paid for.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams

Read the full story (about the bond), here.

Hat tip to Benedict Evans’ newsletter.

Photo by Emiel Molenaar on Unsplash