Another borrowing for you Irish speakers: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-49579940

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff:
https://www.theguardian.com/co...-linguistic-research

Good article. I’ll sign up if they develop a filter that sends every such apparently-phony news item to spam, regardless of whether it turns out to be “real.” Not interested in reading such lousy, cheap-shot writing.

I’ve seen tons of examples of “overly emotional language deployed” in tacky ads that show up on margins of everything surfed. “Bizarre” and “shocking” are common—always followed by “new” [which is as old as the hills]. Also as noted in article, “you” is a real go-to. Most of these ‘news’-looking blurbs begin with it, as in “You won’t believe this bizarre/ shocking new ...!” They’re typically accompanied by [not mentioned in the article] a graphic photo of something disturbingly unpleasant, e.g. an elderly person’s face w/photo-shopped exaggerated expression of despair, or a close-up of some medical grotesquerie.

quote:

Originally posted by bethree5:
a graphic photo of something disturbingly unpleasant, e.g. an elderly person’s face

That was MY face.

Ah, welllll...

Nowadays I find it completely impossible to specifically search for anything. If the terms I have specified show up at all, they show up six pages after the crapola.

I so agree, Bethree, about those news-looking blurbs. So annoying.

Good article, Geoff, though I am annoyed how everyone now uses the term "fake news" like it's really a word. It is made up by our current "president." Let's hope it goes out of style very soon.

We can go back to using propaganda and deception. Its pervasiveness and intent is shown in the book, "The Shadow War" by Jim Sciuto.

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff:
Nowadays I find it completely impossible to specifically search for anything. If the terms I have specified show up at all, they show up six pages after the crapola.

Grrr, you touched a nerve! Whenever I try to find something innovative in PreK teaching methods, I get pages & pages of 'innovative' & 'creative' commercial curriculum [for details pay here]-- pushed by guess who? Gates, Jobs' widow, & their running dogs. Bet they get the first 3pp of listings for free.

On the other hand, maybe we all should be looking in other resources? Just the other day I heard a woman complaining that she wanted a reliable place to find a good doctor if her child was sick and Google isn't always the place. Maybe it shouldn't be? Maybe we rely on it too much? Maybe we should research like we used to?

Something new from The Guardian: Has she got a great job, or what? " Alyce Swinbourne, an expert in wombat bottoms..."

That is quite a rare specialty, I imagine.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
On the other hand, maybe we all should be looking in other resources?... Maybe we rely on it too much? Maybe we should research like we used to?

OTOH, I quickly found Geoff's Guardian article by googling "wombat bottoms"... Gives new meaning to the term "hard-ass"!

I often surprise Shu by being able to find almost anything on Google.

Our new dishwasher wasn't working. Of course our owner's manual is about 3 pages and said nothing of it, but directed me to the online manual. In order to get to that, I had to find the serial number of the dishwasher - and then sign in to their site. I instead tried to call them, but of course their message said it was outside their hours, even though when they cited their hours, it should have been open. So - I went to Google and put in that the light was flashing on my Bosch dishwasher. Sure enough - it came right up. The door wasn't completely closed. Fixed. Now the dishes are clean.

I'm surprised there wasn't a message on the control panel saying, "schließen Sie die Tür, dummkopf!"

I don't know why they can't give you the entire manual these days. They make it impossible to get online.

They say it’s to save paper and trees but probably has more to do with saving money. When I bought a camera a couple of years ago the documentation that came with it was a single sheet that did little more than tell you how to change the batteries. To learn how to actually use it as had to go online to download a hundred and fifty page manual. It’s ubiquitous nowadays.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
So - I went to Google and put in that the light was flashing on my Bosch dishwasher. Sure enough - it came right up.

I'd be hard put to name my favorite thing about google, but this is definitely one of them. I still get nice little manuals w/my appliances from PCRichards, but rarely is an issue covered in the 'Troubleshooting' section. Who you really want to hear from are all those users like yourself, & they're out there tellin' it! I also like google a lot for figuring
out why my laptop is acting up. Hubby can handle it, but I've ventured in over the last couple of years. I never try the scary-sounding fixes posted [at that point I yell for other half]. But it's good for cutting the problem down to size-- e.g., is the laptop dying? is this about an update that affected lots of people like this? a sw design glitch? etc.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bethree5,

Here's another one from The Guardian, one which stammers: "Marleen Martens told the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper..." "Het" means "the;" 'Nieuwsblad" means "newspaper. Thus we have "the The Newspaper Newspaper!"

quote:

Originally posted by Geoff:
Here's another one from The Guardian, one which stammers: "Marleen Martens told the Het Nieuwsblad newspaper..." "Het" means "the;" 'Nieuwsblad" means "newspaper. Thus we have "the The Newspaper Newspaper!"

ATM machine, PIN number, the Hoi Polloi

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

...not to mention the La Brea tar pits and Torpenhow Hill

Kudos to the NY Times! For the first time I know of, today they had an article that did NOT say, "...the Al Qaida" or "...the Al Shebab!"

Does Al Shebab have a cousin named Shi Shkebab?

Another funny Guardian article: "Facebook apologises for flagging Plymouth Hoe as offensive term"

Yes! For the first time that I've seen, one of my very conservative "friends" on FB got a message from FB alerting people that his post was partly misinformation. I loved it! He has been posting misinformation for 5 years now.

Annnd, if you didn't like Franglais, now you can dislike Greeklish! https://www.theguardian.com/wo...ged-by-english-terms

Very interesting, Geoff. I imagine Babiniotis wouldn't much like our using "epicaricacy."

I'd think he would like it. You're expanding Greek instead of Anglisizing it.

I like to think that we are anglisizing it (is that a word?), so that we can put it in a dictionary. Still "Schadenfreude" is in dictionaries and it is a German word.

quote:

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

James Nicoll