One day at work, after drawing a 2 x 2 dimensional analysis grid (a variant of the classic Boston Box), I had the idea for a geeky T-Shirt:
Surely a strategist’s dream – a T-shirt whose content is mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive!? Ah, how we laughed. Or maybe it was just me.
In pursuit of unambiguous on-train announcements, train crews seem to have coined the cumbersome expression “Station Calling Point” or “Scheduled Station Stop”. As in, “Stevenage is the next Station Calling Point for this service”.
I understand that plain old “Stop” just won’t do, because trains can (and frequently do) stop at places other than stations. I’m sure train staff got sick of people saying “Ha, you said the next stop was Peterborough – but look, we’re not in Peterborough and we’ve stopped”. So, “Station Stop” is safer for on-train announcers, but there’s still the chance that your train glides to a halt whilst in an intermediate station at which you can’t alight. Which brings us to “Station Calling Point” or “Scheduled Station Stop”, both of which pretty much nail the intended meaning – albeit at the expense of brevity. Thank heavens lucky travellers, just because the instantaneous speed of your journey may at some points be zero, your obliging train staff have enhanced their terminology to reflect this transitory discontinuity.
But hang on a minute, isn’t there already a perfectly good word they could use instead? One that predates the train and has stood the test of time: “Port”. The same length as the word “Stop”, with all the right embark/alight meaning, but without the oh-so-confusing speed-related ambiguity. “Stevenage is the next Port for this service” – you never know, brevity might just win out. Pass the Port…
Update 7/7/2010: My train has stopped at Alexandra Palace. A stop. A station stop. But not a scheduled station stop. Phew!
“Welcome aboard this 0735 service to Leeds, calling at blah blah, tickets are only valid blah blah, buffet car situated in blah blah, trolley service blah blah, Wifi available blah blah, safety information is located in blah blah, if you’re not intending to travel blah blah, Quiet Carriage situated in Coach blah blah…”
A long, intrusive announcement. In the Quiet Carriage. At least there’s no extra charge for irony.
On the way to a week of snowboarding in Courchevel with J, Tim and S, I spotted a French road sign for loose chippings – or “gravillons” in French apparently. I sense some common etymology with our word “gravel” – or perhaps it’s just co-incidence. Made me smile anyway.
Increasingly I hear people saying “on behalf of myself”, as in “on behalf of myself, I would like to thank you…”. Are these people schizophrenic, or having some kind of out-of-body experience? Hopefully not, because the worst offenders seem to be pilots!
I used to be oblivious to this, but now I know, misuse increasingly sticks out like a sore thumb:
So if the sign at your checkout says “10 items or less”, it’s just wrong. Silly sign.
This blew my mind. If you asked me a few days ago, I’d have said that 0.999999 (with 9’s repeating to infinity) could never exactly equal 1, since it would always be that little bit less than one. Sure, it would tend towards one asymptotically, but it would never quite get there. But here’s a proof someone told me to show that it does actually equal precisely one:
1/9 = 0.111111 (with 1s repeating to infinity)
Multiplying both sides by 9 gives:
1 = 0.999999 (with 9s repeating to infinity)
This seems to make much and little sense, simultaneously! I guess infinity means an awful lot of nines. My brain hurts.
After an inspiring rendition of The Ballad of Mini Cooper (sung by Peter McAlister), and much talk about the utility of epoxy resin for all manner of boat repairs, I penned The Epoxy Ballad:
From time to time all boats end up needing the odd repair,
for out at sea they do attract a deal of wear & tear.
When bits break, it always seems you’ve not got very long,
to patch them up and get them back to being good & strong.So, you empty out your toolbox and somehow it is true,
that the best way to do the job will always involve glue.
Yet again you find yourself inexorably headin’,
for those wee magic tubes containing epoxy resin.In a flash you’re overcome with such wave of pride,
at the thought you’ll make a bond that nought will override.
Just a few more minutes and the ills will be put right,
once you’ve finished dosing out and mixing Araldite.But careful now, for too much glueing isn’t very clever –
first this bit here, then that bit there – you’ll go on forever.
Your addiction to adhesion will be plain for all to see –
you’ll end up with a boat that’s made entirely of epoxy.