language use & abuse – Page 11 – don't confuse the narrator

possessed

Apostrophes almost always give Spaniards problems. But they – the Spaniards, not the apostrophes – do love the “genitivo sajón”, as they call it, and seldom miss an opportunity to use it, even when, as in the case of the club whose sign this is, it isn’t appropriate.

To be fair, it can be complicated trying to unravel who owns what.
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parenthetical pharmaceuticals

I found this on a box of non-prescription tablets:

instructions for taking tablets — I'm a little bit in the dark about the instructions

The way I read that, the commas make the phrase “half an hour before going to bed” parenthetical, so you are advised to go into a darkened room to take the tablet. After that, presumably you can switch the lights back on to go to sleep.

There’s probably some neat pun on “comma” and “coma”, too, but I can’t think of one right now.

maths matters

"el pollo, si 100% pollo, dos veces pollo" — It doesn't add up

Well, maths matters to me, which is why it bothered me when I saw this advert in Madrid.

The caption echoes a Spanish refrán, though I’m not sure which is the original version. I’ve found both “Lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno” (attributed to Baltasar Gracián), and “Lo bueno, si barato, dos veces bueno”.

Both are valid points, but in the Burger King ad, the sums don’t add up: Chicken, if it’s 100% chicken, is not twice chicken.

Gracián’s phrase is best translated as “Less is more”, and is excellent advice for writers. A more literal translation would be, “If it’s good, and it’s short, it’s doubly good.”

The quote is often followed up with something to the effect that “lo malo, si breve, no tan malo.” – “if it’s bad, and it’s short, it’s not so bad.”

Either way, I’d better stop now.

totally rad

Maybe it’s just me, but this headline, from the BBC website a few days ago, bothers me:

Plane bomb suspect "radicalised after leaving UK"

I think there are two problems. First the fact that “radicalised” could be either active or passive – “he radicalised”, or “he was radicalised”. And then the verb itself, “to radicalise”. It may be the correct usage, but it sounds strange. And it immediately makes me think of “free radicals”.
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the right word

Dr Oetker's silver balls — ballsing up the language

We were talking about traditional British celebratory cakes – proper rich fruit cakes with home-made almond paste, white royal icing and piped rosettes with silver dragées – and I was disappointed to find that confectionery suppliers in the UK are dumbing down: apparently they aren’t ‘dragées’ at all any more, but ‘silver balls’.

Why are we simplifying things when we have perfectly good and accurate words? A ‘silver ball’ could be any size and made of anything. A ‘silver dragée’ is far more precisely defined.
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