Londoners warned of divebombing by seagulls
My linguistic week began when Richard Dixon, @Linguagroover, replied to an email I had sent him in which I had said I was “suffering from itchy feet borne of watching my friends come back from holiday with tattoos and suntans while I work six days a week”. He responded to my whining kindly, before adding at the end, with his customary delicacy, that I had meant “born”. The shame!
So here, for any other born/borne miscreants, is the definition:
born
the past participle of bear in the sense of give birth to
borne
the past participle of bear in the sense of carry, support, accept responsibility for, tolerate, endure
When I tweeted this, @almostidealist responded that she had recently confirmed her long-held suspicion about the difference between loath and loathe. I challenged her to define the difference in 140 characters or less – and she did. “You can be loath to do something or you can loathe doing it. C’est tout.” Super.
Oh, and while we’re at it, does anyone else have a blind spot with gauge? I missed a guage and was picked up on it by another sub. Having consulted the dictionary, I can assure anyone else who thinks they both look wrong that yes, indeed, it should be gauge, for both the noun and the verb, when you are talking about measuring or determining. Guage doesn’t exist (although there is a paint called guache). And it’s gouge for when you gouge someone’s eyes out. Please excuse the example.
Then on Tuesday evening, lounging outside a pub, I was ambushed by “sartorial”. A friend and I were admiring another drinker’s dress when from stage right appeared a lady in a baggy playsuit. We were less impressed with this outfit. When our gentleman escort returned from the bar and asked what we were talking about, my companion replied that we were having a sartorial discussion. It’s a word that I read occasionally and have never until now had cause to write – yet I have always assumed, as I am wont to do, that I know what it means. Something along the lines of “witty” or “ironic”, perhaps related to “sarcastic”. NOPE! As she uttered the words, I realised I had no idea what it meant. I owned up, and was informed that it related to fashion in some way. The next morning, to the dictionary I went.
sartorial
of or relating to a tailor or tailoring (from the Latin sartor, meaning tailor or patcher)
My favourite Which?ism of the week was the following: “the home phone is the domestic workhorse”. Don’t worry, it won’t be appearing in the magazine!
My favourite headline of the week (or was it a standfirst?) was spotted by our production editor. The Evening Standard treated us to: “Londoners warned of divebombing by seagulls”. Damn considerate of those seagulls, I say. In response, @jowadsworth provided the picture that graces this blog post.
On Wednesday, my blog passed the 10,000-hit mark. Hurrah! Who knew there were so many word nerds in the world? Not me, that’s for sure. I was pretty certain when I started out that this blog would only be read by my mother (under duress) and my boss (then the lovely Kit Davies). So thank you everyone for reading.
On Friday, I had a little train-related trouble. Well, to be specific, the trouble began the night before when, through no fault or action of my own, I got caught up in a Stella and drug-fuelled bottle-wielding fight on the train. I am beginning to really hate taking that train late at night. As a result, I was a bit shaken up and couldn’t sleep. But OH, I could sleep the next morning alright! Zzzzzz all the way from Brighton to… St Albans – which, considering that I work in Marylebone, was not where I wanted to be.
When I eventually got to work, following my detour and extended nap, I got stuck in to the party conference brochure I’m currently pegging my way through. I reached the section on the iPad and stared. The iPad can register 11 simultaneous touches. What? Now I have no reason to believe that this is not true. In fact I am confident that it is true. But… why? We only have 10 fingers, right? Now if I still worked at The Grocer and Vince was sitting there chortling away, I might make some cheeky comment about the 11th digit. But I don’t and he isn’t and I can only innocently throw the question wide open. Why the 11th touch?
I leave you with this, a little comment I overheard last night on the train, which has been making me chortle ever since. Man earnestly reassuring his friend that he is doing a good job at work (and very well and nicely, I should add): “Look mate, you don’t have to fit into a round hole just because you’re a square peg.”
