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In a highly effective tactic to avoid working, I’ve been reading a couple pages of the Guardian Newspaper’s Style Guide. Not only a great correction for many grammatical and style mistakes that one often makes in casual writing, but hilarious as well.

actor
male and female; avoid actress except when in name of award (eg Oscar for best actress)
One 27-year-old actor contacted the Guardian to say “actress” has acquired a faintly pejorative tinge and she wants people to call her actor (except for her agent who should call her often)

The stylebook can bought via The Guardian Bookshop, or downloaded in PDF format.

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Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

It’s two weeks since 56 people died in terrorist bombings in London.

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I’m doing an essay on Democracy now, and whilst looking for inspiration I came across this quote by Oscar Wilde; a unique interpretation on Abraham Lincoln’s famous line.

“Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the poeple by the people for the people.”

It didn’t inspire… me but it gave me at least of moment of respite from the utter boredom of writing.

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I wasn’t close to the pain of the anguish and suffering in South East Asia, I haven’t been affected by loss recently and I’ve only known one person who’s died in my life. But people lose their loved ones, those close to them and I can still relate. Whole communities have been washed away and there is no way of really comprehending it – they’re simply gone and what was there is now merely rubble leaving people in need. I was reading some poetry by Walt Whitman today, and came across this which I think clearly expresses a feeling, a feeling of contemplation:

“What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

-Walt Whitman

from the work “Leaves of Grass”, sometimes called “A child said What is the grass?” and othertimes called “Song of Myself”.

link

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Whilst going back in time, (and my RSS reader’s history) I come across the story of Bill Gate’s spam problems. He gets four Million spam emails a day, and since I thought that interesting the first time I read it, I was still interested in reading about it from another news source, to get a different perspective. This leads me to a slashdot post about the issue, and in the middle of the conversation thread comes a comment on the usage of the work leverage.

I love that people on the net are so random that they feel that it makes sense to lecture one another on the word – sum up: try the word ‘use’ instead… I really liked the comment, as I’ve never knowingly used the word to date and now I can, and do it right! It’s strange how excited that makes me.

“If you’re going to be picky about language, I feel obliged to point out that “leverage” is a noun, not a verb. “Leverage” is the action of a lever. It’s a naming word, not a doing word. Compare with “use” and “usage”. To avoid mistakes, every time you are tempted to use the word “leverage” (sales presentations, TPS reports, pillow talk etc), substitute the word “use” instead. It should become obvious which are the cases when “leverage” is the correct choice.”

link

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When do the wounded stop being insurgents and become citizens?
Insurgents have to be from outside the country – people aren’t insurgents of their own country. So whilst the American media claims that all the fighters in Iraq have mysteriously materialised from Afghanistan or Iran, all the Iraqis who disliked the US invasion prior to their ’success’ have apparently disappeared.
The international press doesn’t call the opposition fighters ‘insurgents’, so why is this a US led move? What’s been pushing the American media to discuss the war with these terms? Is it follow the leader reporting, where consumers are so familiar with the Fox-News version of the English language that the press don’t want to use correct language and confuse the readers?
OR, are they being told to use the language? It’s unlikely, but pressure on editors, endless repetition by official voices and interview language slowly has an effect.

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