15 January 2010

Where's My Hovercraft?

Greetings,

Do you have yours yet?

No, me neither.

Do you remember way back last century how we were promised all that leisure time in the future? And how we were supposed to have all these whiz-bang labour-saving devices and fabulous new methods of transportation?

An 18 to 20-hour working week ... Remote-controlled vacuum cleaners and automatic food dispensers ... A hovercraft for every girl and boy ...

What happened?

Do you have more leisure time?

Here are some scary statistics from the Lucky Country, where we pride ourselves on being laid-back:

"Between 1985 and 2005, the proportion of full-time workers working a standard 35-40 hour week declined from 49% to 41%. While this was accompanied by a slight increase in the proportion of full-time workers working less than 40 hours per week, most of the shift was towards longer working hours. The greatest increase was in the proportion of full-time workers working 50-59 hours per week (from 10% to 21%) (ABS, Australian Social Trends, Work: State Summary 2008, Cat. No. 4102.0 & ABS, Australian Social Trends, Trends in Hours Worked, 2006, Cat. No. 4102.0).

"The increase between 1985 and 2005 in the average number of hours worked by all full-time workers appears to be the result of a growing number of people working 50 hours or more per week.

"The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Productivity Indicators (2008) ranks Australia 15th out of 30 developed countries for average annual hours worked per employee. Australian workers on average work 350 hours a year more than their counterparts in the Netherlands and more than 50 hours a year than their counterparts in the United Kingdom."  (Source) 

But you can see that it's not just out here that people are being expected to put in more hours -- it seems to be a growing trend.

The thing I can't work out is just why this is happening. Can you?

I mean, we have all this wonderful technology, all these amazing gadgets, all these brilliant minds sitting in their Focus Groups coming up with Big Ideas, but what have we got to show for it?

Longer working hours, less time with families ... and a generation of kids who've discovered the real reason we have opposable thumbs.

And don't get me started on texting ... What a nightmare it must be for teachers these days when they're trying to teach correct spelling to children busily sending such profound messages to each other as this: 'cu b4 u ce me.'

Sigh ... And some of this shorthand is just plain silly.

I can see the point (sort of) for the abbreviations above: 'cu b4 u c me' is marginally quicker than typing 'see you before you see me,' and it is possible to work out the meaning from the phonetics. But other text abbreviations are mind-blowingly useless.

Here's a little test for you ... See if you can work out what these mean:

IANADBIPOOTV

HBASTD

BOCTAAE

BTWITIAILWU

Not a clue?

They're inane, aren't they?

The whole point of writing is to communicate ... to exchange and record ideas, feelings, concepts, plans etc. But what on earth is being communicated in these?

I'll tell you, shall I? Hang on to your hats, boys and girls ... Here are the meanings of each of our text message thingies:

I Am Not A Doctor But I Play One On TV

Hitting Bottom And Starting To Dig

But Of Course There Are Always Exceptions

By The Way I Think I Am In Love With You

Huh?

I know, that was my first thought too. Why anyone needs a short way of writing 'I Am Not A Doctor But I Play One On TV' leaves me scratching my head.

And did you notice that despite having hundreds of these TMTs (text message thingies) we don't yet have a word for them. Maybe I've just coined a new acronym!

We seem to be coming across quite a few gaps in English these days. After writing about this a couple of weeks ago, member of our Merry Band, Nick Skellon, commented, "Firstly, how are we supposed to describe our children when they've grown up? When people ask me if I have any children and I reply 'yes'' they somehow imagine them to be 12 or 14. When I tell them that they're 24 and 26, they're surprised. So how about a word for 'grown-up kids'?

"Secondly, we really need a word for something in between 'like' and 'love'. If you say you like someone it puts them on a par with your mates and your favourite dessert. But love is just too over-the-top to be used in anything but very special circumstances. How do you say you really like someone?

So? Does anyone have any suggestions for these two missing words?

If you do, drop by and add them to our list of missing words in English.

Nick then looked at some of those words we don't have in English, that do exist in other languages, "On an added note, I'm always amused by the way the Germans have words we don't have. My favourite in the whole world is backpfeifengesicht, which means 'a face that deserves a slap'.

"Another is handscuhschneeballwerfer, which is a long (and typically German - why use one syllable when you can use six?) way of saying 'wimp'. It literally means 'someone who wears gloves when throwing snowballs.' I read a magazine article ages ago in which it said that they have about half a dozen other long-winded wayss an SMS of referring to different levels of wimpiness (including 'someone who indicates whilst turning in a car park') but I can't remember any of them."

If you have any words from any other language that you think we need in English, please add them here under Words We Need in English.

And now for something really worrying ... In my endeavours to research this topic and bring a little sunshine into your lives, I did a search for 'text message jokes,' imagining that I'd get a few little stories about people using text messages. But what did I find, to my amazement, but dozens of sites with ready-made jokes, where you choose a joke, hit Send and it's sent as an SMS to the person of your choice.

People no longer even type their own text messages!

I suppose you're thinking that this "service" must provide incredibly useful short-hand messages ... Think again. Here's a sampling:

It's no accident that stressed spelled backwards is desserts.

Scientists are trying to figure out how long a person can live without a BRAIN. Pls tell them.

Aim for the stars. But first, aim for their bodyguards.

I know ... that was my reaction, too. Why would you bother?

Maybe it's just another case of GOW syndrome (Grumpy Old Woman).

This week's Little Something Extra has a website with thousands of the ruddy things!

Map of the World

Don't forget to bookmark the page when you get there ... or even make it your Home Page. (For Internet Explorer, just click on Tools ... Internet Options ... General ... fill in www.write101.com/archives/index.htm and click OK. For Netscape, select Edit ... Preferences. Then select Navigator from the left menu, click Home Page and enter the URL above next to Location and click OK. For all the flash new browsers, you'll have to do a search on my mate google to find what to do. There's a search box on the archives page!)

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This week's quiz:

Match each word below with its synonym from the list:

bellicose, armistice, conscription, lachrymose, venal, refractory, vituperate, perfidious, lugubrious, pusillanimous

1. tearful

2. intractable

3. berate

4. cowardly

5. warlike

6. treacherous

7. levy

8. mournful

9. truce

10. unprincipled

Here are some observations about life ...

He who dies with the most toys, is, nonetheless, still dead.

I started out with nothing. I still have most of it left.

Have you ever noticed that when you're driving, anyone going slower than you is an idiot and everyone driving faster than you is a maniac?

Last week's quiz:

1. assistant to the electrician - BEST BOY

2. specially designed prop or set piece which looks solid by shatters easily - BREAKAWAY

3. electrician -GAFFER

4. screening of footage before it is edited - DAILIES

5. crew member who moves the piece of equipment that the camera sits on to allow mobility of the camera - DOLLY GRIP

6. chief of the sound crew; responsible for the quality of the sound recording on a shoot - MIXER

7. transition from one shot to another in editing - SEGUE

8. single unit of action - BEAT

9. person responsible for assembling the various visual and audio components of a film into a coherent and effective whole. - CUTTER

10.an in-studio technique matching, synchronizing voice to picture - LOOPING  

And this is just a little lesson in the dangers of taking things literally:

Q: "All your responses must be oral, OK? What school did you go to?"
A: "Oral."

Q: What is your date of birth?
A: July 15th.
Q: What year?
A: Every year.

A Little Something Extra

A large list of TMTs here

Oxymoron of the week: sensible text message

Word of the week: SNOLLYGOSTER (n) A shrewd, unprincipled person, especially a politician.

"A Georgia editor kindly explains that 'a snollygoster is a fellow who wants office, regardless of party, platform or principles, and who, whenever he wins, gets there by the sheer force of monumental talknophical assumnacy' ".  The origin is unknown, though the Oxford English Dictionary suggests it may be linked to snallygoster, which some suppose to derive from the German schnelle Geister, literally a fast-moving ghost,  which was a mythical monster of vast size - half reptile, half bird - supposedly found in Maryland, and which was invented to terrify ex-slaves out of voting. (Weird Words)

Another word we can thank our German cousins for giving us!

And a Latin phrase I'm sure you'll be able to work into a conversation at some time this weekend ...

Non commodus est mihi desilire 

[NOHN kohm-OH-doos EST MEE-hee day-see-LEE-ray]

(It is not convenient for me to jump down)

Did you know that you can have your very own Latin reminders? How about undies proclaiming, Bene est rex esse? (It's good to be king) Or a shopping bag that warns, Emptrix nata sum (Born to shop)? Click here for these and more: http://www.cafepress.com/write101 

Recommend this page to other writers by clicking the Recommend it! button below, then see what pages others are recommending here.

Kind regards,

Jennifer

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