February 2012
Literally: that much misused word
It’s like literally so misoverused. But whereas Jamie Redknapp gets the word nonsensically wrong, writers such as James Joyce knew exactly what they were doing with it
I was sitting in a cafe – one of those generic pain au raisin and latte joints, with an earnest singer-songwriter soundtrack to boot – when a kid to my left piped up: “My school gym is like literally 500 years...
20 common grammar mistakes
I’ve edited a monthly magazine for more than six years, and it’s a job that’s come with more frustration than reward. If there’s one thing I am grateful for — and it sure isn’t the pay — it’s that my work has allowed endless time to hone my craft to Louis Skolnick levels of grammar geekery.
As someone who slings red ink for a living, let me tell you: grammar is an ultra-micro component in the...
The pokies war
The approval on Friday of the Maryborough Highland Society’s application to build a new sports club in the country-Victorian town of Castlemaine was sadly expected by the cynical. The Society’s intent is to convert an existing unused state-owned railway shed, on state-owned land, into another revenue-raiser for both themselves, and the state of Victoria.
It regrettably comes as...
Us Do Part
The will of John George, of Lambeth, who died in London in June, 1791, contained the following words: ‘Seeing that I have had the misfortune to be married to the aforesaid Elizabeth, who ever since our union has tormented me in every possible way; that, not content with making game of all my remonstrances, she has done all she could to render my life miserable; that heaven seems to have...
A A Milne
When Alan (A.A.) Milne died at age 74, his only child Christopher Robin was estranged from him. Alan was a highly successful playwright of adult dramas who had unexpectedly gained worldwide fame and fortune by writing poems and children’s stories about his son - starting with the books When We Were Very Young (1924) and Winnie-the-Pooh (1926). The two had been extremely close - Alan...
Joseph Kennedy
Young Joseph Kennedy, who was father to President John F. Kennedy and the architect of his ascendance. Before he gained his final fame as President Kennedy’s father, he had gained outsized fame of his own, becoming one the the world’s richest men, and being appointed as Ambassador to Great Britain and founding Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Known as a...
30 minutes or less
For years, Domino’s Pizza made a simple promise: order your pizza from them and they’ll get it to you in under 30 minutes — or it’s free. In the 1990s, they dropped the guarantee because drivers were running red lights, speeding, and otherwise driving recklessly in order to make their deliveries on time, in some cases leading to car accidents. Given the questionable...
Words
Butterfingers
A name playfully applied to someone who fails to catch a ball or lets something slip from their fingers.
Origin
In the week of the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth (7th February 1812), I thought it would be nice to include a phrase coined by him. It ought not to be too difficult to find one, after all, Dickens ranks sixth on the ‘number of English words...
Soviet airships →
A stacked deck
At the pokies commission the deck is stacked against Victorian communities.
The Victorian Commission for Gambling Regulation’s decision last week to approve a new 65-poker machine venue in Castlemaine, despite unprecedented local opposition, exposed a political and legislative regime configured to deliver more pokies into the community, no matter the social cost.
In the past year the...
Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, 1947 →
Oil baron
When we think of oil barons, we think of people who make a living and then some in the petroleum business. But in 1955, Tino De Angelis decided that another oil was worth his investment: vegetable oil. And it made him a lot of money — and, eventually, also led him to prison. In 1954, the United States enacted a law called the Agricultural Trade Development Assistance Act, which would lead...
After hours
A third case is one of somnocyclism (cycling in sleep). The patient, asleep, sometimes in cycling costume, and sometimes in an undershirt or less, got up, mounted his wheel, and rode about town and in the country. He generally awoke from a fall. On one occasion it was at the foot of a hill, his head on the edge of a pond, and his wheel about thirty feet distant. Another night he found himself...
