Even Brazil’s second team is exciting to watch in a World Cup game. ⚽️
I wonder if Finland’s PM Sanna Marin has to put up with this sexist nonsense in Europe?
If you’ve had it with Twitter and don’t warm to Mastodon, Micro.blog could be the answer. I like its vibe, but there are precious few other New Zealanders on the service. Which, I guess, may even be an attraction for some Kiwis.
Infrastructure: How Spark is moving NZ forward with 5G and fibre rollouts
Published in the NZ Herald.
[www.theguardian.com](www.theguardian.com/football/…
World Cup 2022: England, Wales and others back down over armband row – live
This makes Qatar look worse, makes FIFA look weak and cowardly.
You know how on Star Trek, there are matter transporter machines that can “beam me up Scotty”?
How many gigabits a second do you think they’d need to use?
When the news broke about lowering the NZ voting age to 16, my immediate, knee-jerk reaction was: “that’s not wise”. Then while I was mentally sorting through the reasons why I thought it might not be wise, I realised they all apply equally to voters at any age.
I moved from England to New Zealand in 1987 with my wife. At first it was going to be a temporary stay overseas, but within months we were hooked and had started a family.
People sometimes ask if I ever get homesick.
The answer is, not really. If I’m homesick for anything it would be for life as a child in the Home Counties during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Some people have already left Twitter. Others are watching and waiting. I’m not jumping yet, but I am preparing an escape route with billbennett.micro.blog, Mastodon NZ. and there is always billbennett.co.nz.
Now you know where to look if you can’t find me here.
How long before Microsoft buys Meta?
Impressed at how many people on social media are experts on Brazilian politics. I could be the only person willing to admit that I know next to nothing.
A major MacOS update is a fabulous opportunity for work procrastination.
For the last four years we bought tons of chocolates in case kids came to the house on Halloween. No-one came. This year we haven’t bought anything… what’s the betting it will be busy tonight?
Congratulations to the Pīwauwau New Zealand’s bird of the year for 2022. Such a pretty bird.
I voted for the Albatross.
Got up extra early on a wet Monday morning because there’s a heavy workload this week. Clicked yet when MacOS told me there’s an upgrade and… it took forever to download even on my fibre connection. Must have hit the server at a demand peak. Now my early morning energy has gone.
Companies who sell packets of peanuts could charge fancy restuarant prices if they presented them as deconstructed peanut butter.
I’ve never understood why TV and radio news bulletins include reports on individual share price movements with little context.
If you are interested in what is happening to a share, you’ll want more than an occasional snapshot telling you “XYZ was up two cents at lunchtime”. You’ll probably have a ticker on your phone or computer.
And if you are not, then you’re more likely to mentally switch off and miss the next news item.
A man’s reach
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?
— Robert Browning
I like the fact that micro.blog doesn’t have likes.
Narcissistic capitals
Companies and insecure people often insist their job titles should be spelt with upper case letters. These are narcissistic capitals.
Using capitals this way is incorrect grammar — capitals are used at the start of proper nouns.
Bus driver is not a proper noun. Nor is marketing director or chief executive officer.
For that matter neither is president.
A job title can be a proper noun in some cases, that’s another issue.
No matter.
Are you important enough?
People who insist writers spell job titles in capital letters think it makes the person look more important. Or because they think some jobs are more important than others and deserve capitals for that reason.
As if ‘head of marketing’ isn’t already impressive enough.
Some people insist on using upper case even when they understand it is bad grammar. As my friend Chris Bell (no longer online) points out they worry that using titles correctly may show the world they are unduly modest.
So they deliberately show the world they are semi-illiterate instead. Give me literate any day.
At Psychology Today, Susan Krauss Whitbourne has another warning about narcissists and capital letters:
People high in narcissism, whether characteristically or on a given day, may try demand your immediate attention. Because it affects them, it’s urgent. If it’s a conversation you’re having in person, rather than over email, you may feel that what’s being said could be translated into words appearing all in capital letters, along with a few extra exclamation points.
Predicting the future
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Peter Drucker
Exclamation marks: Caution!
Exclamation marks, some people call them bangs, have almost no place in serious writing.
Tabloids use them in headlines. You may use exclamation marks in reported speech or where they form part of a name or title.
And that’s it.
It’s no accident many newspapers and publishing companies ban exclamation marks.
They don’t add drama.
They don’t improve poor writing.
Like laughing at your own jokes
Exclamation marks don’t tell readers a sentence was funny.
They may tell readers a sentence was supposed to be funny. That’s quite different.
In the newspaper business, the exclamation mark is sometimes known as a shriek or screamer. These names give a clue to why they best left on the shelf.
It is often used to add emphasis to sentences. It’s versatile, you’ll see it used to show surprise, anger or joy.
You’ll see it used far too often.
Fake hysteria
The exclamation mark is the punctuation equivalent of raising your voice – maybe hysterically. Hence the name ‘shriek’.
Here’s why you should avoid them:
- They distract readers. Not in a good way.
- They are an excuse for lazy writing – funny or dramatic writing doesn’t need propping up.
- Once people start using exclamation marks, they usually overuse them – which makes writing look amateur.
- They hint at a gushing bygone world of “what-ho Jeeves!”, “lashings of ginger beer!” and “golly gosh!”. - Your readers will wonder if they’ve stepped into a time warp.
- They make your writing seem inauthentic.
As an editor, I told a young reporter working for me who used one in a story that was his year’s allocation gone.
I was only half-joking. If you must use exclamation marks, use them rarely. Once a year is too often.
The reporter got the message. I never saw another one in his copy.
Engines of War
“I will ignore all ideas for new works and engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvement I see no further hope.”
Julius Frontinus, chief military engineer to the Emperor Vespasian, circa AD 70.
Companies are singular not plural
A company can have many employees. Yet in law and in grammar it is a single entity. Use singular verbs.
You should always use singular verbs with companies, even when the company name sounds plural. The same applies to countries, political parties, governments and partnerships.
All are singular.
Personal
Some people think using they instead of it makes writing more personal. It can do. But that’s not the point.
Marketing departments like to use plural when writing about companies because they think that gives readers a point of connection. It makes us think we are dealing with human beings.
That may be true. Even if the company in question are a bunch of great people who really are fun to do business with. Yet that’s also not the point. The company still a singular legal and grammatical entity.
And anyway, we all know companies are staffed by humans.
Singular adds clarity
The problem here is that incorrect grammar makes your writing and, more important, your meaning, unclear.
There is another reason. If you read a company described as plural in print on a website, that’s a clear sign that the writer, editor or publisher has second-rate grasp of language. Those of us who have worked for a long time in written communications know the writer or maybe whoever employed that writer, is unprofessional or, if that sounds too harsh, sloppy.
Warning sign
Most readers may not spot this as an error on a conscious level. Yet they know what professional writing looks like and many will subconsciously recognise the words in front of them are not professional, even if they can’t articulate why. They may have an inkling there is something wrong here.
When that happens they will be wary of what they read. Consciously or subconsciously they’ll think that if the writer doesn’t know enough to get simple grammar correct, it’s unlikely they did a professional job of fact-checking.
Make the meaning clear
When you write they do you mean the company or all the people who work for the company? If you mean the employees, then make this clear. There’s nothing wrong with talking about, say, the staff at my local café.
Resist all temptation to treat companies as plurals. That goes for countries, political parties, governments and other organisations. It gets difficult with rock bands and sports teams which are now widely talked about as if they are groups of people. But there’s no legal implication in these cases.
Cold comfort
The life of the journalist is poor, nasty, brutish and short. So is his style.
– Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm