musings

Have you ever noticed the way we refer to rivers? In Europe, we have the River Danube, the River Seine, the River Thames. You could say the Thames River but it’s more usual to put the name second.

In the rest of the world, it is more usual to put the name first, as in the Colorado River, Potomac River, Athabasca River, Volga River, Yangtze River, Murrumbidgee River etc.

So, there’s simple rule of thumb: name first, except in Europe.

Er, except the River Nile …

Whilst waiting at Stockport rail station yesterday I heard each train announced thus:

The next train to arrive to platform one will be …

Arrive to? What happened to “arrive at” or “arrive on”?

Is this a national thing? Maybe it is peculiar to Stockport. After all, there aren’t many stations which have a platform zero. Stockport does. They were obliged to designate the new platform “zero” when they added it next to platform one. If Stockport station is expanded further, we could get a platform minus one.

Years ago, the British telephone organisation (now BT, but formerly the General Post Office or GPO) got into trouble when its bean counters decreed that operators should not end the call with a thank you or goodbye, because that took time, and time is money. There was a public outcry at this hard-nosed attitude to manners, and the decision was reversed.

Now we have BT Answer the free automated call answering service. There is nobody really there of course, but the system talks to us using a recorded woman’s voice. She tells us if we have no messages, or if we do have messages, she introduces each one and afterwards presents us with options to delete, listen again, save or return the call. All very clever, but so commonplace that we don’t give this sort of thing a moment’s thought any longer. And with familiarity comes … impatience.

… more →

Whilst watching Sale Sharks get trounced by London Irish 17-7 yesterday I wondered if anyone in the history of sport had ever actually moved the goalposts in order to gain an unfair advantage? “Hey ref! Are you blind? They have just moved the goalposts!”

There are probably more efficient and less conspicuous ways of cheating, one would have thought.

“I was so angry I slammed the phone down!” Well these days, it’s impossible to do that, no matter how infuriating the conversation. “I was so angry I really jabbed the little rubber ‘end call’ button” doesn’t quite convey the strength of feeling involved, does it?

If you agree that it’s high time the UK finished the long drawn out process of metrication, you may wish to sign the e-petition here.

A few old people and slow learners may be slightly confused during the final stages of the changeover. However, we did it with decimal currency in 1971 and now who would dream of turning the clock back to the days of pounds, shillings and pence?

Okay, this one’s got me confused. I have just received an email from amazon.co.uk which refers to the “holiday season”. This expression is used in the United States to mean “Christmas”. They do actually use the word “Christmas” in the email as well, but it’s the first time I have seen this Americanism used by a UK company at all.

The holiday season for me is summer time. That’s when I go on holiday. Christmas is when people stampede to the shops in the cold rain and endure Noddy Holder blaring out as they hand over the plastic for stuff specially imported from China to exchange with friends and relatives.

… more →

I drive to the supermarket. The wing mirrors are engraved “objects may be closer than they appear”. I buy a coffee. The cup reads “contents may be hot”.

I buy a bottle of wine. Nowhere on the label does it tell me that after drinking the contents I may experience impaired judgment, reduced inhibitions, slurred speech or nausea, or that I should not operate machinery.

I think we should be told!