A lawyer friend in a large partnership told me that part of his work entailed removing the commas from documents (ie to render the meaning more ambiguous). I wonder if this is just a standing joke in the legal profession, or if it has a basis in truth. Certainly a reminder of the value of correct punctuation to ensure meaning is clear. Would be glad to hear comments.
Monday, 18 November 2013
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Pronunciation
From Poke
They say:
If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.
After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité
They say:
If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.
After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité
Thursday, 5 January 2012
Getting the design work you want: ten pointers for success.
Do you get the results you expect from your designer?
I've recently found myself involved with a couple of projects where the clients were not at all happy with the design proposals they had been given — yet didn't know what they could do about it.
Take Company A (a firm of accountants). They had a need to re-name and re-brand their business. Knowing next to nothing about the process they put their trust in a firm of 'designers' that they had found in a local telephone directory. They called me in to help with PR, but mentioned their concerns over the design proposals, and asked for my advice, given my background in design management and identity development.
It turned out that the designers had met the client once, at the designer's offices, so they had little or no understanding of the client's corporate personality. They hadn't put anything down in writing regarding approach or strategy, except to give a fee for the design work (and the client, naively but perhaps understandably, assumed that this would embrace all that was needed).
Although the designers had agreed to prepare three options, they emailed design proposals, rather than presenting and explaining the designs in person. They provided three design proposals that each adopted essentially the same approach, but with slightly different executions. Two of their solutions (one a hand-shake as logo, one a too-obvious rendition of 'money') were breathtakingly childish, and reminded me of a school project. There had been no attempt to indicate a process by which a multitude of potential avenues might have been explored around the services and benefits the company offered its audience. They had more or less created logo concepts on the back of an envelope and said "take it or leave it".
I offered to 'broker' the process for them, and when I met the designers they admitted that they had had provided two 'rubbish' concepts so that the client would choose the third. They were not prepared to provide any alternative concepts, but as it happens, the client did like one of the proposals, and so agreed to proceed. But as artwork for stationery was being prepared, they kept making basic mistakes and not following instructions. It became clear that they simply didn't appreciate the attention to detail required. With a deadline looming, and things beginning to spiral out of control, I advised the client to cut their losses and find a different designer who could provide more constructive support for the rest of the work required in this critical process.
They agreed a fee to end the relationship and keep the design they liked; I found them a designer who had a more professional approach, who ensured everything ran smoothly to launch date.
The tips I would pass on are these:
1. If you're paying a fee, you're in charge. Make sure things happen the way you want them to.
2. Prepare a clear brief. Write down your requirements and expectations. You could use my Briefing Form [ if you like.
3. Hold a beauty parade. Research possible designers: check local directories, ask colleagues, friends for recommendations.
4. Visit your shortlisted designers in their offices; get them to visit you in your offices.
5. Ask them to make a formal proposal describing how they would work and what they would provide for the fee.
Make sure you understand what's going to be involved. Ask your designer to explain the process.
6. I'm against expecting designers to provide design solutions as part of the pitch process. You should be able to judge their expertise from other work and their attitude; then reward them for the proposals they prepare. Reputable designers will always work with you to revise designs if necessary to achieve a result that works and, ideally, that you're happy with. It's true that sometimes personal opinions diverge, but this is where it's important to be clear about the terms for ending the relationship if necessary.
7. Once you appoint a designer, agree the process: be clear what happens at what stages; be clear that your approval is required at all key stages.
8. Agree costs for each stage of the work (initial concepts, first proposals, fine-tuning proposals, preparing final artwork, handing over all final material). Be clear what 'extras' might cost (and what might be counted as extra work). Be clear what you get for the fee you pay. That should typically include all development work and the final artwork that you can use in the future, as well as your ownership of the copyright for unlimited use (once the fee has been paid).
9. Make sure the designers present and explain their proposals in person
10. If you're developing a new name and logo, be sure that someone checks availability and that you are not in danger of infringing someone else's copyright.
I've recently found myself involved with a couple of projects where the clients were not at all happy with the design proposals they had been given — yet didn't know what they could do about it.
Take Company A (a firm of accountants). They had a need to re-name and re-brand their business. Knowing next to nothing about the process they put their trust in a firm of 'designers' that they had found in a local telephone directory. They called me in to help with PR, but mentioned their concerns over the design proposals, and asked for my advice, given my background in design management and identity development.
It turned out that the designers had met the client once, at the designer's offices, so they had little or no understanding of the client's corporate personality. They hadn't put anything down in writing regarding approach or strategy, except to give a fee for the design work (and the client, naively but perhaps understandably, assumed that this would embrace all that was needed).
Although the designers had agreed to prepare three options, they emailed design proposals, rather than presenting and explaining the designs in person. They provided three design proposals that each adopted essentially the same approach, but with slightly different executions. Two of their solutions (one a hand-shake as logo, one a too-obvious rendition of 'money') were breathtakingly childish, and reminded me of a school project. There had been no attempt to indicate a process by which a multitude of potential avenues might have been explored around the services and benefits the company offered its audience. They had more or less created logo concepts on the back of an envelope and said "take it or leave it".
I offered to 'broker' the process for them, and when I met the designers they admitted that they had had provided two 'rubbish' concepts so that the client would choose the third. They were not prepared to provide any alternative concepts, but as it happens, the client did like one of the proposals, and so agreed to proceed. But as artwork for stationery was being prepared, they kept making basic mistakes and not following instructions. It became clear that they simply didn't appreciate the attention to detail required. With a deadline looming, and things beginning to spiral out of control, I advised the client to cut their losses and find a different designer who could provide more constructive support for the rest of the work required in this critical process.
They agreed a fee to end the relationship and keep the design they liked; I found them a designer who had a more professional approach, who ensured everything ran smoothly to launch date.
The tips I would pass on are these:
1. If you're paying a fee, you're in charge. Make sure things happen the way you want them to.
2. Prepare a clear brief. Write down your requirements and expectations. You could use my Briefing Form [ if you like.
3. Hold a beauty parade. Research possible designers: check local directories, ask colleagues, friends for recommendations.
4. Visit your shortlisted designers in their offices; get them to visit you in your offices.
5. Ask them to make a formal proposal describing how they would work and what they would provide for the fee.
Make sure you understand what's going to be involved. Ask your designer to explain the process.
6. I'm against expecting designers to provide design solutions as part of the pitch process. You should be able to judge their expertise from other work and their attitude; then reward them for the proposals they prepare. Reputable designers will always work with you to revise designs if necessary to achieve a result that works and, ideally, that you're happy with. It's true that sometimes personal opinions diverge, but this is where it's important to be clear about the terms for ending the relationship if necessary.
7. Once you appoint a designer, agree the process: be clear what happens at what stages; be clear that your approval is required at all key stages.
8. Agree costs for each stage of the work (initial concepts, first proposals, fine-tuning proposals, preparing final artwork, handing over all final material). Be clear what 'extras' might cost (and what might be counted as extra work). Be clear what you get for the fee you pay. That should typically include all development work and the final artwork that you can use in the future, as well as your ownership of the copyright for unlimited use (once the fee has been paid).
9. Make sure the designers present and explain their proposals in person
10. If you're developing a new name and logo, be sure that someone checks availability and that you are not in danger of infringing someone else's copyright.
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Brand like an Egyptian!
(Photo: Getty images)Voting is under way in Egypt, in the first elections since President Hosni Mubarak was toppled in February. There is a long list of parties, each with its own logo, such as a food blender, a traffic light and a vacuum cleaner.
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Get your cords on for 11.11.11
The date which most closely resembles Corduroy, EVER,111111
is upon us!
is upon us!
Friday, 4 November 2011
SEO: waste of time?
"Modern SEO is all about crafting content so compelling that other people want to promote it by linking to it or sharing it. "
Some interesting thoughts on LinkedIn (link above) about the merits of SEO. So glad to see a return to proper writing...
John Fountain • Agree with you 100 per cent Richard. The whole SEO debate about keywords is pretty much dead in the water thanks to Google and the way it now searches. Here's something I cut and pasted - '85% of the total factors that determine how a web page is ranked in a search engine is based on things that happen off the page itself.' By that they mean the amount of links to the site, bookmarking and tweets that mention the site.
Modern SEO is all about crafting content so compelling that other people want to promote it by linking to it or sharing it.
This kind of content is best provided by a professional copywriter. So what is the role of the SEO specialist today becasue I'm not sure.
Richard Owsley • I read an article recently where the writer had interviewed twenty top Google SEO people about keyword density. To a man they were agreed that keyword density has no effect whatsoever on today's algorithms. The searches are far, far more sophisticated than that and stuffing your pages full of keywords, apart from making the copy sound moronic and the design look cluttered, is akin to flat earth theory.
I have had many instances in the past two years of clients showing me the advice they got from their SEO 'specialists' which in my eyes was either worthless, or which I could have given myself in two minutes. There are a lot of snake oil salesmen around.
Some interesting thoughts on LinkedIn (link above) about the merits of SEO. So glad to see a return to proper writing...
John Fountain • Agree with you 100 per cent Richard. The whole SEO debate about keywords is pretty much dead in the water thanks to Google and the way it now searches. Here's something I cut and pasted - '85% of the total factors that determine how a web page is ranked in a search engine is based on things that happen off the page itself.' By that they mean the amount of links to the site, bookmarking and tweets that mention the site.
Modern SEO is all about crafting content so compelling that other people want to promote it by linking to it or sharing it.
This kind of content is best provided by a professional copywriter. So what is the role of the SEO specialist today becasue I'm not sure.
Richard Owsley • I read an article recently where the writer had interviewed twenty top Google SEO people about keyword density. To a man they were agreed that keyword density has no effect whatsoever on today's algorithms. The searches are far, far more sophisticated than that and stuffing your pages full of keywords, apart from making the copy sound moronic and the design look cluttered, is akin to flat earth theory.
I have had many instances in the past two years of clients showing me the advice they got from their SEO 'specialists' which in my eyes was either worthless, or which I could have given myself in two minutes. There are a lot of snake oil salesmen around.
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Typography
An understanding of typographic etiquette separates the master designers from the novices. A well-trained designer can tell within moments of viewing a design whether its creator knows how to work with typography. Typographic details aren’t just inside jokes among designers. They have been built up from thousands of years of written language, and applying them holds in place long-established principles that enable typography to communicate with efficiency and beauty.
Handling these typographic details on the Web brings new challenges and restrictions that need to be considered. Below are a few rules of thumb that will have you using typography more lucidly than ever before.
...see full article on link in heading
Handling these typographic details on the Web brings new challenges and restrictions that need to be considered. Below are a few rules of thumb that will have you using typography more lucidly than ever before.
...see full article on link in heading
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Friday, 8 July 2011
The meaning of colour in different countries
With thanks to Xerox: http://www.office.xerox.com/small-business/tips/color-guide/enus.html
International Color Guide
Colors mean different things in different cultures. Black, for example, signifies death and is worn during times of mourning in Western countries; black in Egypt, however, represents rebirth.
International Color Guide
Colors mean different things in different cultures. Black, for example, signifies death and is worn during times of mourning in Western countries; black in Egypt, however, represents rebirth.
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Three little words to avoid
I liked this, from Kay White. (Hope she won't mind me re-printing: all publicity for her).
It’s easy to overlook the small things in life and here are three small words which can make a HUGE difference in your results as a freelancer, writes Kay White, founder of mentoring and training company Way Forward Solutions. I’m talking about the results you get from your relationships, the connections you make and the results that affect whether your clients – and your team – take feedback and suggestions from you; instructions even. Interested?
1. But
I call ‘but’ a banana skin, it’s literally a word that trips people up and affects the way people take on feedback. But is, in effect, The Great Eraser. What you say after the ‘but’ is what people remember and what you say before it is what is, effectively, erased by the word ‘but. “That report was great but it was a bit too long” or “The way we operate is really very easy but it takes some getting used to.”
I recommend you flip it – that’s the easiest way to step over it and avoid it tripping you up. “That reports was a bit too long but it was great” or “The way we operate takes some getting used to but it’s really very easy” – you can immediately notice the difference. If you start with the normal negative bit first, then put “and” in place of “but”. The “and” becomes a bridge and you avoid The Great Eraser.
2. Why?
Now the question Why is a tricky one. Using “why” to start your question immediately puts people on the defensive. It sends them to justify themselves. It does this because when we’ve been asked “why did you XYZ?” the first word that comes up for us is “because”.
Why implies judgement of some form and when negotiating or wanting to engage people we want to keep them open, not close them down by getting them to justify themselves or their choices. Start your “Why” questions with “What” or “How” or “When” instead – more open and more information-gathering rather than justification-seeking. Simple!
3. Not
Now this follows the principle of “you can’t think about what you don’t want to think about without thinking about it”. If I tell you “do not think about a pink elephant wearing a tutu” – I know ,and so do you, that the first thing you have to think about it “a pink elephant wearing a tutu” before you can really get what I’m asking you to do. The way to avoid planting negative suggestions, things we don’t want people to do, is to ask ourselves “what do I want them to do instead?”
Kay White is author of the Number 1 Bestseller for Customer Service “The A to Z of Being Understood.”
Saturday, 12 March 2011
Doctor slang
Doctor slang is a dying art
Is doctor slang on the wane?
The inventive language created by doctors the world over to insult their patients - or each other - is in danger of becoming extinct.So says a doctor who has spent four years charting more than 200 colourful examples.
Medicine is a profession already overflowing with acronyms and technical terms, and doctors over the years have invented plenty of their own. However, Dr Adam Fox, who works at St Mary's Hospital in London as a specialist registrar in its child allergy unit, says that far fewer doctors now annotate notes with abbreviations designed to spell out the unsayable truth about their patients.
TOP MEDICAL ABBREVIATIONS
CTD - Circling the Drain (A patient expected to die soon)
GLM - Good looking Mum
GPO - Good for Parts Only
TEETH - Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy
UBI - Unexplained Beer Injury The increasing rate of litigation means that there is a far higher chance that doctors will be asked in court to explain the exact meaning of NFN (Normal for Norfolk), FLK (Funny looking kid) or GROLIES (Guardian Reader Of Low Intelligence in Ethnic Skirt).
Dr Fox recounts the tale of one doctor who had scribbled TTFO - an expletive expression roughly translated as "Told To Go Away" - on a patient's notes. He told BBC News Online: "This guy was asked by the judge what the acronym meant, and luckily for him he had the presence of mind to say: 'To take fluids orally'."
Quaint up North
Regional dialects abound, even in the world of the medical abbreviation.
In the north of England, the TTR (Tea Time Review) of a patient is commonplace, but not in the south.
And the number of terms for patients believed to be somewhat intellectually challenged is enormous. "I can't believe what he just called me..."
From LOBNH (Lights On But Nobody Home), CNS-QNS (Central Nervous System - Quantity Not Sufficient), to the delightful term "pumpkin positive", which refers to the implication that a penlight shone into the patient's mouth would encounter a brain so small that the whole head would light up.
Regular visitors to A&E on a Friday or Saturday night are also classified.
DBI refers to "Dirt Bag Index", and multiplies the number of tattoos with the number of missing teeth to give an estimate of the number of days since the patient last bathed.
A PFO refers to a drunken patient who sustained injury falling over, while a PGT "Got Thumped" instead.
MEDICAL TERMS - A GLOSSARY
Digging for Worms - varicose vein surgery
Departure lounge - geriatric ward
Handbag positive - confused patient (usually elderly lady) lying on hospital bed clutching handbag
Woolworth's Test - Anaesthetic term (if you can imagine patient shopping in Woolies, it's safe to give a general anaesthetic)
This is an international language - Dr Fox's research reveals that a PIMBA in Brazil can be translated as a "swollen-footed, drunk, run-over beggar".
Doctor insult
And much of the slang is directed at colleagues rather than patients.
Thus rheumatology, considered by hard-pressed juniors one of the less busy specialties, becomes "rheumaholiday", the "Freud Squad" are psychiatrists, and "Gassers" and "Slashers" are anaesthetists and general surgeons respectively.
Dr Fox is keen to point out that neither he, nor the other authors of the paper, published in the journal Ethics and Behavior, actually advocate using any of the terms.
He said: "It's a form of communication, and it needs to be recorded.
"It may not be around forever."
He said: "I do think that doctors are genuinely more respectful of their patients these days."
If that is the case, perhaps the delights of a "Whopper with Cheese", "Handbag positive" or "Coffin dodger" could be lost forever.
Is doctor slang on the wane?
The inventive language created by doctors the world over to insult their patients - or each other - is in danger of becoming extinct.So says a doctor who has spent four years charting more than 200 colourful examples.
Medicine is a profession already overflowing with acronyms and technical terms, and doctors over the years have invented plenty of their own. However, Dr Adam Fox, who works at St Mary's Hospital in London as a specialist registrar in its child allergy unit, says that far fewer doctors now annotate notes with abbreviations designed to spell out the unsayable truth about their patients.
TOP MEDICAL ABBREVIATIONS
CTD - Circling the Drain (A patient expected to die soon)
GLM - Good looking Mum
GPO - Good for Parts Only
TEETH - Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy
UBI - Unexplained Beer Injury The increasing rate of litigation means that there is a far higher chance that doctors will be asked in court to explain the exact meaning of NFN (Normal for Norfolk), FLK (Funny looking kid) or GROLIES (Guardian Reader Of Low Intelligence in Ethnic Skirt).
Dr Fox recounts the tale of one doctor who had scribbled TTFO - an expletive expression roughly translated as "Told To Go Away" - on a patient's notes. He told BBC News Online: "This guy was asked by the judge what the acronym meant, and luckily for him he had the presence of mind to say: 'To take fluids orally'."
Quaint up North
Regional dialects abound, even in the world of the medical abbreviation.
In the north of England, the TTR (Tea Time Review) of a patient is commonplace, but not in the south.
And the number of terms for patients believed to be somewhat intellectually challenged is enormous. "I can't believe what he just called me..."
From LOBNH (Lights On But Nobody Home), CNS-QNS (Central Nervous System - Quantity Not Sufficient), to the delightful term "pumpkin positive", which refers to the implication that a penlight shone into the patient's mouth would encounter a brain so small that the whole head would light up.
Regular visitors to A&E on a Friday or Saturday night are also classified.
DBI refers to "Dirt Bag Index", and multiplies the number of tattoos with the number of missing teeth to give an estimate of the number of days since the patient last bathed.
A PFO refers to a drunken patient who sustained injury falling over, while a PGT "Got Thumped" instead.
MEDICAL TERMS - A GLOSSARY
Digging for Worms - varicose vein surgery
Departure lounge - geriatric ward
Handbag positive - confused patient (usually elderly lady) lying on hospital bed clutching handbag
Woolworth's Test - Anaesthetic term (if you can imagine patient shopping in Woolies, it's safe to give a general anaesthetic)
This is an international language - Dr Fox's research reveals that a PIMBA in Brazil can be translated as a "swollen-footed, drunk, run-over beggar".
Doctor insult
And much of the slang is directed at colleagues rather than patients.
Thus rheumatology, considered by hard-pressed juniors one of the less busy specialties, becomes "rheumaholiday", the "Freud Squad" are psychiatrists, and "Gassers" and "Slashers" are anaesthetists and general surgeons respectively.
Dr Fox is keen to point out that neither he, nor the other authors of the paper, published in the journal Ethics and Behavior, actually advocate using any of the terms.
He said: "It's a form of communication, and it needs to be recorded.
"It may not be around forever."
He said: "I do think that doctors are genuinely more respectful of their patients these days."
If that is the case, perhaps the delights of a "Whopper with Cheese", "Handbag positive" or "Coffin dodger" could be lost forever.
Thursday, 3 February 2011
Funny recruitment ad?
SEO Executive
An SEO Expert walks into a bar, grill, pub, public house, Irish, bartender, drinks, beer, wine, liquor...
Salary:Up to £25K + benefits Location:Northampton Employer:Cranberry PandaSEO Executive
An SEO Expert walks into a bar, grill, pub, public house, Irish, bartender, drinks, beer, wine, liquor...
Salary:Up to £25K + benefits Location:Northampton Employer:Cranberry PandaSEO Executive
Friday, 21 January 2011
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Colour of the year 2011
Monday, 22 November 2010
Why simple language should mean lucrative profits
Good use of language should mean lucrative profits for companies, says Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times.
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Tuesday, 16 November 2010
Friday, 5 November 2010
Office jargon
(From BBC website)
50 office-speak phrases you love to hate
50 office-speak phrases you love to hate
1. "When I worked for Verizon, I found the phrase going forward to be more sinister than annoying. When used by my boss - sorry, "team leader" - it was understood to mean that the topic of conversation was at an end and not be discussed again."
Nima Nassefat, Vancouver, Canada
2. "My employers (top half of FTSE 100) recently informed staff that we are no longer allowed to use the phrase brain storm because it might have negative connotations associated with fits. We must now take idea showers. I think that says it all really."
Anonymous, England
3. At my old company (a US multinational), anyone involved with a particular product was encouraged to be a product evangelist. And software users these days, so we hear, want to be platform atheists so that their computers will run programs from any manufacturer."
Philip Lattimore, Thailand
4. "Incentivise is the one that does it for me."
Karl Thomas, Perth, Scotland
5. "My favourite which I hear from the managers at the bank I work for is let's touch base about that offline. I think it means have a private chat but I am still not sure."
Gemma, Wolverhampton, England
6. "Have you ever heard the term loop back which means go back to an associate and deal with them?"
Scott Reed, Lakeland, Florida, US
7-8. "We used to collect the jargon used in a list and award the person with the most at the end of the year. The winner was a client manager with the classic you can't turn a tanker around with a speed boat change. What? Second was we need a holistic, cradle-to-grave approach, whatever that is."
Turner, Manchester
9. "Until recently I had to suffer working for a manager who used phrases such as the idiotic I've got you in my radar in her speech, letters and e-mails. Once, when I mentioned problems with the phone system, she screamed 'NO! You don't have problems, you have challenges'. At which point I almost lost the will to live."
Stephen Gradwick, Liverpool
10. "You can add challenge to the list. Problems are no longer considered problems, they have morphed into challenges."
Irene MacIntyre, Courtenay, B
11. "Business speak even supersedes itself and does so with silliness, the shorthand for quick win is now low hanging fruit."
Paul, Formby, UK
12. "And looking under the bonnet."
Eve Russell, Edinburgh
13-14. "The business-speak that I abhor is pre-prepare and forward planning. Is there any other kind of preparedness or planning?"
Edward Creswick, Exeter
15-16. "The one that really gets me is pre-plan - there is no such thing. Either you plan or you don't. The new one which has got my goat is conversate, widely used to describe a conversation. I just wish people could learn to 'think outside the box' although when they put us in cubes what do they expect?"
Malcolm, Houston
17. "I work in one of those humble call centres for a bank. Apparently, what we're doing at the moment is sprinkling our magic along the way. It's a call centre, not Hogwarts."
Caroline Garlick, Ayrshire
18. "A pet hate is the utterly pointless expression in this space. So instead of the perfectly adequate 'how can I help?' it's 'how can I help in this space?' Or the classic I heard on Friday, 'How can we help our customers in this space going forward?' I think I may have caught this expression at source, as I've yet to hear it said outside my own working environment. So I'm on a personal crusade to stamp it out before it starts infecting other City institutions. Wish me luck in this space."
Colin, London
19. "The one phrase that inspires a rage in me is from the get-go."
Andy, Herts
20. "'Going forward' is only half the phrase that gets up my nose - all politicians seem to use the phrase go forward together. 'We must... we shall... let us now... go forward together'. It gives me a terrible mental image of the whole country linking arms and goose-stepping in unison, with the politicians out in front doing a straight-armed salute. Is it just me?"
Frances Smith, Toronto, Canada
21. "I am a financial journalist and am on a mission to remove words and phrases such as 360-degree thinking from existence."
Richard, London
22. "The latest that's stuck in my head is we are still optimistic things will feed through the sales and delivery pipeline (ie: we actually haven't sold anything to anyone yet but maybe we will one day)."
Alexander, Southampton
23. "I worked in PR for many years and often heard the most ludicrous phrases uttered by CEOs and marketing managers. One of the best was, we'd better not let the grass grow too long on this one. To this day it still echoes in my ears and I giggle to myself whenever I think about it. I can't help but think insecure business people use such phrases to cover up their inability for proper articulation."
Leon Reilly, Ealing, London
24. "Need to get all my ducks in a row now - before the five-year-olds wake up."
Mark Dixon, Bridgend
25. "Australians have started to use auspice as a verb. Instead of saying, 'under the auspices of...', some people now say things like, it was auspiced by..."
Martin Pooley, Marrickville, Australia
26. "My favourite: we've got our fingers down the throat of the organisation of that nodule. Translation = Er, no, WE sorted out the problems to cover your backside."
Theo de Bray, Kettering, UK
27. "The health service in Wales is filled with managers who use this type of language as a substitute for original thought. At meetings we play health-speak bingo; counting the key words lightens the tedium of meetings - including, most recently, my door is open on this issue. What does that mean?"
Edwin Pottle, Llandudno
28-29. "The business phrase I find most irritating is close of play, which is only slightly worse than actioning something."
Ellie, London
30. "Here in the US we have the cringe-worthy and also in addition. Then there's the ever-eloquent 'where are we at?' So far, I haven't noticed the UK's at the end of the day prefacing much over here; thank heavens for small mercies."
Eithne B, Chicago, US
31. "The expression that drives me nuts is 110%, usually said to express passion/commitment/support by people who are not very good at maths. This has created something of a cliche-inflation, where people are now saying 120%, 200%, or if you are really REALLY committed, 500%. I remember once the then-chancellor Gordon Brown saying he was 101% behind Tony Blair, to which people reacted 'What? Only 101?'"
Ricardo Molina, London, UK
32. "My least favourite business-speak term is not enough bandwidth. When an employee used this term to refuse an additional assignment, I realised I was completely 'out of the loop'."
April, Berkeley, US
33. "I once had a boss who said, 'You can't have your cake and eat it, so you have to step up to the plate and face the music.' It was in that moment I knew I had to resign before somebody got badly hurt by a pencil."
Tim, Durban
34. "Capture your colleagues - make sure everyone attends that risk management workshop (compulsory common sense training for idiots)."
Anglowelsh, UK
35-37. "We too used to have daily paradigm shifts, now we have stakeholders who must come to the party or be left out, or whatever."
Barry Hicks, Cape Town, RSA
38. "I have taken to playing buzzword bingo when in meetings. It certainly makes it more entertaining when I am feeding it back (or should that be cascading) at work."
Ian Everett, Bolton
39. "In my work environment it's all cascading at the moment. What they really mean is to communicate or disseminate information, usually downwards. What they don't seem to appreciate is that it sounds like we're being wee'd on. Which we usually are."
LMD, London
40. "At a large media company where I once worked, the head of human resources - itself a weaselly neologism for personnel - told us that she would be cascading down new information to staff. What she meant was she was going to send them a memo. It was one of the reasons I resigned - that, and the fact that the chief exec persisted on referring to the company as a really cool train set."
Andrew, London
41. "Working for an American corporation, this year's favourite word seems to be granularity, meaning detail. As in 'down to that level of granularity'."
Chris Daniel, Anaco, Venezuela
42. "On the wall of our office we have a large signed certificate, signed by all the senior management team, in which they solemnly promise to leverage their talents, display and inspire 'unyielding integrity', and lots of other pretentious buzz-phrases like that. Clueless, the lot of them."
Chris K, Cheltenham UK
43. "After a reduction in workforce, my university department sent this notice out to confused campus customers: 'Thank you for your note. We are assessing and mitigating immediate impacts, and developing a high-level overview to help frame the conversation with our customers and key stakeholders. We intend to start that process within the week. In the meantime, please continue to raise specific concerns or questions about projects with my office via the Transition Support Center..."
Charles R, Seattle, Washington, US
44. "I was told I'd be living the values from now on by my employers at a conference the other week. Here's some modern language for them - meh. A shame as I strongly believe in much of what my employers aim to do. I refuse to adopt the voluntary sectors' client title of 'service user'. How is someone who won't so much as open the door to me using my service? Another case of using four syllables where one would do."
Upscaled Blue-Sky thinker, Cardiff
45. "Business talk 2.0 is maddening, meaningless, patronising and I despise it."
Doug, London
46. "Lately I've come across the strategic staircase. What on earth is this? I'll tell you; it's office speak for a bit of a plan for the future. It's not moving on but moving up. How strategic can a staircase really be? A lot I suppose, if you want to get to the top without climbing over all your colleagues."
Peter Walters, Cheadle Hulme, UK
47. "When a stock market is down why must we be told it is in negative territory?"
Phil Linehan, Mexico City, Mexico
48. "The particular phrase I love to hate is drill down, which handily can be used either as an adverb/verb combo or as a compound noun, ie: 'the next level drill-down', sometimes even in the same sentence - a nice bit of multi-tasking."
B, London
49. "Thanks for the impactful article; I especially appreciated the level of granularity. A high altitude view often misses the siloed thinking typical of most businesses. Absent any scheme for incentivitising clear speech, however, I'm afraid we're stuck with biz-speak."
Timothy Denton, New York
50. "It wouldn't do the pinstripers any harm to crack a smile and say what they really felt once in a while instead of trotting out such clinical platitudes. Of course a group of them may need to workshop it first: Wouldn't want to wrongside the demographic."
Trick Cyclist, Tripoli, Libya
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Guarrdian style tips
If the queen is the Queen, why is the pope not the Pope? And other questions
Q&A The Guardian style guide editors answer readers' queries – first in a series
Big Society or big society?
Simon Hoggart rightly described this phrase as "surely the vaguest slogan ever coined by a political leader. Nobody knows what it means." Until they do, keep it in quotation marks, at least the first time you mention it in a story, and always lowercase – so it's "big society".
So it's "tea party" then?
If you're talking about cucumber sandwiches, scones and a pot of Earl Grey. If, however, you are referring to the Tea Party movement, use initial caps. The reference is, of course, to the Boston Tea Party of 1773, which did involve tea (though not sandwiches and scones).
Due to or owing to?
If you can substitute "caused by", due to is correct; if you can substitute "because of", owing to is correct: The train's late arrival was due to leaves on the line; the train was late owing to leaves on the line. This rule is so simple that it is astonishing how rarely people (including those who write in the Guardian) get it right.
..... and more
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