There’s been a lot of talk about the name of Apple’s new device.
I hate it when a useful word is taken over by only one of its meanings. We speak English – there are lots of words that have more than one use. Get over it.
Pad:
n. part of foot; n. guard; n. part of plant; n. quilt; n. book, notebook; n. abode, dwelling; v. walk quietly; v. elaborate, enhance, fill…
In my local supermarket there is a sign. It’s nicely done on day-glo orange card, laminated, and printed in a large font. It says, “No sampling from the Salad Bar it is against the Board of Health.”
Okay…
Politically active greenery? Vote Olives!
Couldn’t they have added just one more word: ‘regulations’?
It’s a new blog from Ed Charlton.
In a world where so many people can write and put their words out in public (for example through blogs such as this), how would it be if we helped each other to express our thoughts more clearly?
There are many venues where badly written messages, signposts and legal documents are lampooned. Rarely do commentators go the extra step and explain how they should have been written.
Perhaps we can help.
Ed.
This is part of a real memo, from a real company concerning a software patch.
We are experienced some issues while deploying the following patch:.
[... patch name. We are..] looking into the problem and will not restart patching until the issue
has been resolved. Sorry for any incontinence the failed patch may have caused you.
Now was this a simple case of not using the correct word, or are things more tense at this company than we realized?
Perhaps the errant word was a suggestion offered by a spell-checker?
I’d say there are two lessons here. Firstly, beware of spell-checkers, and secondly, sometimes using the wrong word creates a sentence that makes perfect sense–if not the sense you intended.
