Filed under: Language
The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.
As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.
In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.
The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.
There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.
In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.
Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.
Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.
By the 4th yer peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.
During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl.
Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.
Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.
If zis mad you smil, pleas pas it on to oza pepl.
Filed under: Musings
Any excuse for a bad pun. Here’s one from the NEAB anthology 2001, for old time’s sake:
War photographer
In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
of running children in a nightmare heat.
Something is happening. A stranger’s features
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.
A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers.
From aeroplane he stares impassively at where
he earns a living and they do not care.
Carol Ann Duffy
Never ask a bird personal questions about weight. Just stick it upside down in a film canister. See image below. This was a small exercise in bird ringing at work; marking birds to try and monitor populations. The photo below is of a great tit.
This little guy is a nuthatch, if you were wondering. He’s not very common in Scotland.
Here’s a rather long-winded tale, please stay with it.
Every Tuesday afternoon I sit in on a lecture, except it’s a little different: it’s a video conference. People at universities in Glasgow, St. Andrews, Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt watch the same lecture, which is broadcast (usually from Glasgow). Then there’s me out in the Pentlands by myself. When you have something to say, the camera switches to your venue, and then it doesn’t leave your venue until someone else has something to say. So when I talk, people just see me. A four-foot large head of me, projected onto the wall of their room. There I am, drinking Coke, eating a sandwich, and there’s nothing I can do about this new-found visibility.
Just before Christmas I went through to Glasgow for a Stats department Christmas dinner. Not knowing many people, I introduced myself, and got the reply from a fair few, “I already know who you are, you’re in the video conference.” I’m now left with this one-sided intimacy that I appear to have given away, not of my own accord. It’s a little unsettling, but this is precisely the kind of situation that celebrities wish for: to be noticed, gawped at, revealed to the public.
Only after reaching a certain status do they get annoyed at the intrusion of cameras outside restaurants, microphones in their faces, and someone searching through their rubbish. I’m not equating my position with someone like Sienna Miller, who appears in the Metro if she buys two sandwiches at lunch (who’s the second sandwich for? etc.), and I’m not condoning the behaviour of many paparazzi, but these people must live with the knowledge that the public want to know more about them than they would ever wish to be known. Why the public want to know this, is a different story entirely, but for me, I’ve learnt never, ever to yawn. You never know who’s watching.
This was a challenge given to me by my friend Annie, to create, in 140 characters or less (the length of a tweet), a statement that every Christian could confess, and such that, were someone to confess this sincerely, one would:
- Consider them to be a brother or sister in Christ.
- Believe that they are true believers and inheritors of eternal life.
I’m also required to pass this challenge on to 5 more people, so I’m choosing:
Mike, Andrew, Jantine, Mark and Sian.
It’s only a bit of fun, so no worries if you don’t have the time or mental energy. Also, as in text messages, spaces count. Here’s my attempt:
God in trinity: father, son, spirit: creator, redeemer, sustainer. Lord of heaven and earth. His love we live and proclaim.
