There are lots of great things about the railway, but the industry’s use of language is not one of them. I have often been amazed by the linguistic tangles conductors often find themselves in when they try to “talk posh” during announcements. Clearly they are not trained about the importance of plain English. This problem […]
Rob sport
John Humphrys sees himself as a defender of the use of proper English. But I surely can’t be the only one to notice that he has a remarkable tendency to drop the use of full sentences altogether when he is presenting the Today programme? It seems particularly bad when he is introducing the sport. “Seven […]
Domain lame
We have all accidentally visited the wrong website at some point. Recently I was talking about my blog to someone. They went to visit it, but instead of typing in this blog’s address, doctorvee.co.uk, they made the mistake of visiting this website. It is owned by a certain “Mr DeeJay Doctor V€€”. When I first […]
Spelling B******
This week a university lecturer, Ken Smith, suggested that spelling “mistakes” should be accepted as variants. This has upset Ideas of Civilisation and Colin Campbell among others. I side with Ken Smith on this occasion though. I hate spelling mistakes and love to point them out. Only yesterday I saw a greengrocers’ apostrophe and instinctively […]
F1 drivers in one word
I don’t have time to do a proper post today (partly because I am still recovering from the cold I got last week). So in lieu of a proper post, here is a fun game that I saw on my favourite Formula 1 blog, F1Fanatic. (Even in November, Keith Collantine is managing to write several […]
Britain’s Lewis Hamilton and Spain’s Fernando Alonso do not exist
For me, the worst aspect of this Formula 1 season has been the hopelessly biased media reporting. I have railed against the British media’s love affair with Lewis Hamilton many times. But it is worth pointing out that, if anything, the Spanish media are probably even worse when it comes to Fernando Alonso. Let us […]
Why F1 is in such a mess
Despite what I have written about Lewis Hamilton’s actions behind the Safety Car over the past couple of days, I think the FIA’s decision was the correct one (it’s not often I say that!). Hamilton broke the rules, but it was not the sort of thing that merited a serious punishment. A slap on the […]
Twenty reasons why I will put my blogs on my CV (and three reasons why I might not)
Yesterday I looked at the dilemma facing a blogging job hunter (ie. me). Should I put my blog on my CV? Rhys Wynne and Rich Minx think that blogging gives you lots of skills that employers find desirable. The Devil’s Kitchen has added his thoughts here and asks if there are any more skills that […]
Lame new words spread on the internet like a rashr
The internet is said to have made a lot of people’s jobs more difficult. Record company bosses, for instance. Or insurance companies. Or publishers. Surely another should be added to the list: lexicographers. I was thinking the other day about how quickly new words enter everyday vocabulary. Before the internet, language evolved slowly and often […]
Facebook apps are revealing their potential
Sorry about my absence over the weekend. I was here all along. In fact, I was here more than usual. It was one of the least busy weekends I’ve had in a while. But I somehow misplaced my blogging mojo and I was distracted by other things. Other things like my latest internet addiction, Scrabulous! […]