Spotted in Bristol’s Old Market Street this morning.
Whether it has been dumped far from home and/or is trying to make its way home is not clear from its demeanour.
This not the first occasion a bilingual Welsh sign has been used in England, as reported by Nation Cymru with this example of the English city known in Welsh as Caerwrangon and Worcester to the local monoglots.
In my first paid job after graduating, your ‘umble scribe received further instruction in English, namely adapting what he wrote to fit in with his then employer’s house style, part of which included the avoidance any ambiguity.
As Merriam Webster points out, ambiguity is defined as “a word or expression that can be understood in two or more possible ways: an ambiguous word or expression“.
If only those writing today’s newspapers had also received such training as your correspondent or access to a newsroom dictionary with the above definition for the entry ambiguity
Experience would suggest neither situation obtains, particularly in the titles of the Reach plc stable of regional “news” titles, as this ambiguous offering from the Daily Post/North Wales Live implies.
Your correspondent diligently read the piece to discover how and what Loggerheads Country Park has been serving weary travellers down the centuries, all to no avail. 🙁
The stylebook of Associated Press (AP), the largest news agency in the USA is a highly regarded reference work for journalists wishing to improve their written English.
The same cannot be said of the AP Stylebook Twitter account which posted the tweet below on Thursday.
The offending post has since been deleted, the BBC reports.
Before its deletion, the advice was widely mocked by Francophones and Francophiles. Even the French embassy in the USA joined in the derision, briefly changing its name to the “Embassy of Frenchness in the United States“.
Writer Sarah Haider responded that there was “nothing as dehumanizing as being considered one of the French” and that a better term was “suffering from Frenchness“, whilst political scientist Ian Bremmer suggested “people experiencing Frenchness” as a possible alternative.
Washington Post journalist Megan McArdle also joined in the fun: “The people experiencing journalism at the AP have their work cut out for them“.
After the tweet had been deleted, those in charge of the AP Stylebook Twitter account said their reference to French people had been “inappropriate” and that it “did not intend to offend“.
The moral of this story: think before you tweet.
The Bristol (Evening) Post?Bristol Live website has a Bristol News menu item on its website. Today the home page revealed the item below had been added to that category.
At this point a number of significant howevers enter the narrative. Firstly, the army has no aviation training centre either in Bristol or its immediate environs, according to its website.
A second however could be levelled at the second part of the Reach publication’s classification of this item as News. It’s actually what could be classed as gossip, i.e. idle talk or rumour, especially about personal or private affairs of others, except that informant in question has gone running a national Sunday ‘news’ publication in the Reach plc stable.
Thirdly, for those whose who are really desperate to read this alleged news, it can be found here.
The Galleries shopping centre in Broadmead in Bristol opened in October 1991. Originally managed by managed by Capital & Regional and Aviva Investors, the complex is now in the hands of LaSalle Investment Management, whose registered office is in Chicago, IL in the United States.
However, this has not stopped them from trying to appear a local company: note the phrase “Proud of our city“
However, despite their pride in our city, LaSalle still manages to fail miserably as shown in the photograph below.
Last time I looked there was no Bristol Suspension Bridge. There are, however, a few suspension bridges around the city, but none of them is named after the city of their siting.
Somehow a photograph of the world-famous Clifton Suspension Bridge designed by Brunel but not opened until after his death has been used in error.
Ask any Bristolian its whereabouts and the answer is likely to be:”Bristle Suspension Bridge: where’s that to?”
One Mary Elizabeth Truss has the distinction of being the prime minister of the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.) with the shortest term of office, staying in post a mere 49 days.
However, that did not stop her crashing the economy with the budget cooked up by her and her Chancer of the Exchequer Kamikwasi Kwarteng‘s disastrous 2022 mini-budget, as well as being profligate with other people’s – i.e. taxpayers’ – money.The Mirror reveals that Truss’ so-called ‘Jenga‘ lectern specially made for her cost the public purse £4,175. That equate to an ependiture of £85 for each of the forty-nine days she served. The Mirror piece reveals that Truss also had a second similar lectern made, but that was paid for by those gullible people who pay membership subscriptions and donate to the Tory Party.
It wasn’t as if Downing Street had a dearth of lecterns at the time; current alleged prime minister Rishi Sunak never bothered to have a bespoke lectern made and is using a predecessor’s cast-off that “was purchased under a previous administration” at a cost of £3,050. What an absolute bargain the former Goldman Sachs asset is.
When she was pretending to be the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (FCD), Truss gained quite a reputation for her spendthrift ways. These included using half a million pounds of public funds to hire a private jet for a visit to Australia. At the time Truss was roundly criticised for her reluctance to use a regular, cheaper and faster scheduled service. The most expensive business-class ticket for the former foreign secretary’s entire itinerary on Qantas would have come at a cost of £7,712 to the public purse.
Mary Elizabeth’s final months as Foreign Secretary were likewise characterised by a similar propensity for spending others’ money, racking up £2m worth of air miles in six months on 20 overseas trips..
However, it was not just Truss’ love of air travel that drew the media’s attention. Back in September 2022, Sky News reported that Foreign Office expenditure during Truss’ tenure included 2 trips to the hairdresser for her at a cost to the taxpayer of nearly £3,400. Then there was nearly £2,900 spent by her department at the Norwich City online store – £1,318 on 21 October last year and £523.50 on 21 March 2022 by an unknown purchaser for unknown goods. Truss is allegedly the Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk, so that might explain this anomalous FCD expenditure.
If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.Even though he was speaking specifically about the language of politics, Orwell’s words are also pertinent to other fields.
Although his works have been out of copyright for over two years, Orwell does not seem to be very popular reading amongst the hacks kludging together the Bristol (Evening) Post/Bristol Live, if one takes a look at the headline to this article which runs counter to the late great journalist’s advice.
Instead of adhering to Orwell’s advice and using the word transcript, the Temple Way Ministry of Truth headline writer has used four separate words and we’re back into the “What I did in my holidays” school of writing that should have been eliminated in primary school, not rewarded with public visibility and a decent salary. 🙁
Today’s fourth estate is densely populated with irresponsible harlots whether one peruses the national or local press.
At this point your ‘umble scribe, would refer readers to a piece in today’s Daily Post/North Wales Live, which reviews an Indian restaurant in Corwen and whose headline is shown in the following screenshot.
The first comment below the piece at the time of drafting also uses the insult to describe the flippant use of comparison and hyperbole in it, whilst the other 2 reader comments were similarly dismissive.
A restaurant winning an award for its food is hardly a match for the feats of Owain Glyndŵr, the last Welsh of Wales proclaimed by popular support, who lead an armed rebellion and 15 years long war of independence against the English colonisers during the late Middle Ages. Amongst his other achievements, he was He also an educated lawyer and formed the first Welsh Parliament (Senedd Cymru), which sat in Machynlleth.
Owain’s body was famously never found, so his date of death is unknown; he just vanished into the hills, although it is not known whether Welsh curry houses retreat into the uplands when their time is up.
Anyway, in case any passing restaurant reviewers working for Reach plc’s Welsh titles happen to be reading this, please find below a handy reference guide showing the difference between Welsh heroes and restaurants to avoid further confusion. 😉
It might be the festive season, but the mission of Reach plc titles all over the country to murder the English language and sow confusion instead of enlightenment continues unabated.
Christmas Eve saw the publication of the piece shown in the screenshot below where the person responsible for the headline seems oblivious to the fact that there are differences in meaning between chances and changes and doesn’t have the nous to check their copy after drafting
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I wonder if the ‘journalist‘ responsible will be tucking into roast turnkey this Christmas Day lunchtime. 😀
Reach plc, owners of the Mirror and the Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.), also control a large swathe of the local regional press across the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.).
One of the accusations frequently levelled against Reach’s regional titles is that the news they carry has been dumbed down, particularly since the ousting of sub-editors who until some years ago provided a modicum of quality control over what was actually printed.
A further criticism often directed in Reach’s direction is a lack of investigative journalism, i.e. form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, which may involve months or years researching and preparing a report.
Your ‘umble scribe does not know if months or years of research have gone into preparing the flurry of seasonally inspired investigations that have appeared in various Reach title in the past week, but they do show the great sacrifice that has been made around the country by the waistlines of the reporters involved.
A small selection of this fearless sleuthing is shown below.
First up the Bristol (Evening) Post
The budget supermarkets Aldi and Lidl seem to have attracted particular attention, as per this poultry effort from The Daily Post/North Wales Live.
In the south of Cymru, Wales Online, formerly the Western Mail, has opted for a hyper-local approach, focussing its rapier-like skills on Cardiff’s independent retail catering sector. Note the whole story squeezed into the headline, thus saving the reader the bother of engaging with the piece, all apart from the verdict.
Finally in this brief excursion around some of the local titles in the Reach stable, we arrive at the Liverpool Echo, which goes in for a comparison of Marks & Spencer with our old friends Lidl. Note the glaring grammatical error in the headline, as well as the use of the first person singular in the verb conjugations.
