22/06/2007 by Lee.

I know that languages evolve and change over time, and the English we speak today is quite different from that of just a few centuries ago, but there is a growing and disturbing trend of just making stuff up that is really starting to get to me. Some people are trying to feign intelligence by sticking bits of words together. The biggest misuse at the moment seems to revolve around the word or prefix “pre”. According the OED “pre” means “before”, from the Latin “prae”. So for example “predict” (comes from the Latin praedicere) means to make known before hand. Whilst at work the other day I heard mention of a “pre-awareness” campaign for our potential customers. Surely awareness takes one of two forms, you either are aware or you are not, so (bearing in mind the meaning of pre) pre-awareness is simply a campaign to make people not aware?

It happens at home too. Have you pre-heated an oven lately? An oven has two states of being; on or off, hot or cold. To be “pre-heated” it is to be cold, as pre heating an oven is in its cold state. Going on holiday soon? Will the airline commence “pre-boarding shortly”? We’re all pre-boarding! We’re not yet on board! And don’t even start me on the idea of getting “on” a plane, wouldn’t you rather get “in”? The airlines then come up with another little cracker at the end of your flight, “If Gatwick is your final destination today…”. Oh where to begin? First off, surely your destination is “final” by definition or it wouldn’t be your destination and secondly who the hell has a destination of Gatwick? I thought I’d go home (or on with holiday etc) rather than stay at the airport.

Airline staff are amongst a growing list of professions that are inventing English to suit their roles. Does anyone other than the Police use the word “proceeding”? Personnel became Human Resources or even just resourcing in some cases. Advertisers are often telling us about “New and improved” products, but which is it? New would indicate it never existed before whilst improved means an existing product has been refined to be better, so how can anything be new and improved?

Then there’s the cosmetics industry. Does “Boswelox” exist or was it a drunken slurred version of “bollocks”? There’s pro-retinol this, pre-tensium that, active hydratherapides the other! It’s all crap! My favourite product though was an anti bloating remedy called Deflatine (pronounced deaf - la - teen), isn’t that just “deflating”?

Did English speakers of the past go through this same angst at what they saw was the changing face of their language? All words have to be made up at some point, but cobbling two together for marketing or smugness purposes just seems wrong.

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22/06/2007 by Lee.

Do people that have been blind since birth dream, and if so what do they see?

Although to the seeing the images we see when asleep can often appear fragmented and random at least we have a point of reference, i.e. we’ve seen them or similar before. If you have never seen anything, what form do dreams take? Some research has suggested that colours may be the answer but if you’ve never seen red or blue how can you dream in colours or even describe that to a researcher?

Perhaps then it’s smells. I don’t recall smells in my dreams but maybe that’s because my olfactory senses aren’t as heightened as those with a visual impairment. Now sounds, we can all relate to. I can certainly recall sounds from my dreams, so surely the blind can have dreams with sounds. The trouble is, this has now led me to another question…

What do the deaf and blind dream about?

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22/06/2007 by Lee.

Most of us have used phrases that although they seem quite normal to us, are actually quite weird when you stop and think about them for a moment. Gathered outside a newsagents this morning for example was a collection of pimply and acne ridden youths starting out on their paper round. Many of them were wearing the uniform of todays youth, the hoodie, cap (why they wear both is beyond me) and white jogging bottoms. Naturally, feeling slightly superior I looked down on them a little whilst thinking to myself, “More chavs than you could shake a stick at.” But was there?

I’m pretty confident that had I had a stick to hand I could have pulled over and shaked it at most - if not all - of them. But why would I do this and to what end? At what point would I stand there with my stick and think, “Oh, there’s just too many of them, I can shake no longer”? What would I gain from shaking my stick?

Most phrases have a history, a relevance, even if the root cause is now lost in the mists of time. I know what it means to “let the cat of the bag”, I’m aware of why something is said to be “ship shape and Bristol Fashion” but what the hell did we do in the past that involved shaking a stick at something until there were just too many and you could shake no longer?

One suggestion is that dates back to farmers counting their animals by pointing a stick at each one, but this makes no reference to the shaking of the stick. Other suggestions are that it comes from battle, where one would shake your stick at an enemy. Now, call me picky but if I was going into battle, 1) I’d arm myslef with more than a bloody stick, and 2) Once armed I’d put it to better use than merely shaking it at someone as they would probably just cut me down with a sword whilst thinking, “what the hell was he doing with that stick?”

This has left me feeling all at sea, so I shall cut and run and give the subject a wide berth from now on.

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