language use & abuse – Page 13 – don't confuse the narrator

ho hum

According to the BBC news Magazine, the phrase “hey-ho” is set to make a comeback: it is included in the new edition of the Collins English Dictionary where it is defined as “an exclamation of weariness, disappointment, surprise, or happiness.”

Duncan Black, an editor for the dictionary, is quoted as saying “It’s the verbal equivalent of a shrug; you say ‘hey-ho’ or ‘that’s the way it goes’ or ‘c’est la vie.'” (He doesn’t mention the Spanish ‘es lo que hay’ – ‘that’s what there is’ – which is one of my personal favourites.)
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tick if you do…

…tick if you don’t.

My mother has asked me to fill in a form for her. With options like the above, I’m not at all surprised she’s confused.

Much as I’d like to suggest the organisation investigate the Plain English Campaign, I fear that the real reason for the bad phrasing is to confuse people into unintentionally giving permission for their friends and family to be included on junk mail lists.

a lizard’s tale

I was out on the verandah talking on the phone when I saw a tiny lizard. “Ooh, ¡qué lindo!, ¡un lagartijo pequeñísimo!” I exclaimed, or something equally inane.

The friend I was speaking to was quick to reply, “But clearly not that small, or you wouldn’t know that it was male!”

Lizards at Montsegur, France — French lizards of unspecified sex

He was, of course, making fun of my Spanish and the fact that I’d got the gender wrong.
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headline news

This paradoxical headline comes from today’s ¡Qué!, one of Madrid’s free newspapers:

Headline: 24-hour gas stations to close at night — Paradox or careless phrasing?

Twenty-four-hour gas stations can’t close at night: if they do, they won’t be 24-hour gas stations.

Who checks the headlines before the papers go to press? Don’t they have sub editors anymore?
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successes, exits and happenings

Although it’s only the 30th, people in the village are already beginning to round their conversations off with the phrase “feliz salida y entrada…”

It always seems such a mouthful to me, and I can never get the order right – subconsciously I think “happy exit and entrance” seems a bit cart-before-horsish, although in the context of the old year leaving before the new one comes in, it’s perfectly correct. Still, it twists my tongue every time, and today it’s set me thinking:
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