language | Steve Woods

Golden Arches anthropophagism?

04/06/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

The photograph below popped up in your ‘umble scribe’s social media feed this morning.

Judging by the use of the term restroom, the sign was apparently affixed to the door to the toilets of a fast food outlet somewhere in the USA, allegedly in a branch of junk food giant McDonalds, according to the original social media post.

Note the three exclamation marks at the end of the phrase. One is usually sufficient.

It is not known how long the chain itself – or indeed the United States as a nation – has permitted cannibalism either within or outwith toilet facilities, let alone endorsed the practice.

One pertinent question springs to mind: “Do you want fries with that?

Bon appétit !

Just ignore the smell and the sound of running water…
For UK, see England

02/06/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

Ever since Æthelstan became King of the English in 927 CE, some in England – starting with Æthelstan himself – have had difficulty recognising where England ended and the rest of the world began. Indeed Æthelstan meddled so much in the land of the Scots that they allegedly nicknamed him “The Bastard“.

Given the dominance of England within the Untied Kingdom, this has persisted down through the centuries that separate the present from the days of Ælfred of Wessex‘s grandson.

The latest manifestation of this Englandshire = the entire UK occurs in yesterday’s online edition of Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s unfortunate newspaper of warped record, which managed to defy both demographics and geography in one awful little puff piece masquerading as “news“.
A screenshot of the headline of the offending article is offered below.

Although Wells is described in the piece as “England’s smallest city“, there is no empirical evidence provided of its lack of size. Your ‘umble scribe used a little-known research technique called using a search engine to provide an answer; in this case 5 seconds’ work gave a census population figure of 12,000 for Wells.

However, Wells is not the Untied Kingdom’s smallest cathedral city. Cymru has two cathedral cities that together have a combined population of well under Wells’ 12,000 souls. First of all there’s Llanelwy/St Asaph (pop. 3,485) and Tyddewi/St Davids (pop. 1,751), which is actually the UK’s smallest cathedral city in terms of number of residents.

Your correspondent is surprised that today’s ‘journalists’ are not familiar with this research technique he often uses, which is recommended they use as a matter of course. 😀
New abbreviation in the wild

25/05/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Social Media, Tech

Ever since it was first coined in 2002, the online world has benefited from the creation of the slang abbreviation TL;DR, i.e. too long; don’t read, indicating that a body of text is not worth one’s while to read.

The abbreviation is used in both upper and lower case versions.

As the Wikipedia entry states, ‘TL;DR is commonly used in online discussions, comment sections, and social media posts. Writers often employ the acronym to summarize a preceding lengthy text, allowing readers who prefer brevity to quickly understand the main point. Conversely, readers might use TL;DR as a critique, signaling that a text was excessively verbose or lacked clarity‘.

Official recognition of the abbreviation came some 11 years after its first appearance, as Wikipedia explains.

In August 2013, TL;DR was officially added to Oxford Dictionaries Online, recognizing its widespread use in digital communications. Merriam-Webster also documented the term, noting its establishment as part of modern digital lexicon.

TL;DR has now been joined by another new slang abbreviation, AI:DR. This denotes that the text in question has been produced by generative AI, that environmentally costly means of producing low quality output (affectionately known as slop. Ed.) without human intervention.

There is already speculation that AI is being deployed in regional newspaper offices in titles owned by Reach plc, but that would prove difficult to verify as the quality of their content starts from a very low base anyway. 😀

Your correspondent trusts that readers and the wider public will not be shy in using this new abbreviation accordingly.
For UK read England (and English)

14/05/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

On Monday the country’s best known toolmaker’s son ‘Sir’ Keir Rodney Starmer, in a vain effort to stem the flow of support for the Farage fascist fan club otherwise known as the Reform Party UK Ltd., made a major announcement on ~~immigration~~ racism and xenophobia, namely to the effect that he was in favour of both, despite a side serving of the usual ‘I’m not racist, but…‘

His speech met generally with condemnation from the left and varying degrees of praise from those on the right, such as ‘Honest’ Bob Jenrick, some of whom also believed he hadn’t gone far enough to be beastly to those pesky forrins to whom they would have been even nastier.

Anyway, this was a speech in which Starmer embraced his inner Enoch Powell, echoing phrases from the latter’s notorious and deeply offensive ‘Rivers of blood‘ speech from 2nd April 1968. Where Powell remarked that the country’s white population ‘found themselves made strangers in their own country‘, Starmer stated that the UK risked becoming an ‘island of strangers‘.
Another ill-conceived utterance in his speech was that immigration and immigrants had done ‘incalculable harm‘ to the country. In particular, this drew justifiable ire from many whose grandparents or great-grandparents had migrated to Britain in the 19th and 20th centuries along the lines of ‘how dare he…‘. This reaction from tax campaigner Richard Murphy is a prime example of this sentiment.

Quite right, Richard. They come over here and do irreparable harm by (say) keeping the National Health Service running, paying their taxes and so on.

Another facet of the toolmaker’s son’s speech centred on his remarks about the use of the English language. Starmer is on record as saying:

Britain is an inclusive and tolerant country, but the public expect that people who come here should be expected to learn the language and integrate.

A remark of a similar nature and of the same import was also made on Starmer’s social media account.

Which language? Starmer is conflating English, the language of England with the whole of the Untied* Kingdom, parts of which have their own indigenous languages, like Cymraeg or Gaelic. He seems completely ignorant of the fact that modern English is the product of three waves of historical incomers, i.e. immigrants, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, etc. who arrived after the Romans left in the 5th century CE, Norse Vikings who settled here and the French-speaking Vikings from Normandy who invaded in 1066. There are very few words from Britain’s indigenous languages in modern English.

The fact that modern English is a mongrel language brought by immigrants also seems lost on Starmer.

However, this imperative to speak English has not gone down well in either Scotland or Cymru (where Cymraeg has equal legal status with the language of invasion. Ed.), as The National reports.

In Cymru, the radio personality, TV presenter and influencer Jessica Davies took to X/Twitter to make her feelings known.

Well done, Keir. By your racism you have shown that you are well and truly a product of your father’s profession.

* = Misspelling is deliberate.
Another Bristol Live exclusive

21/04/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics, Social Media

Another day, other news.

Your ‘umble scribe awoke this morning to hear that Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic church, had died aged 88 years.

In a situation eerily reminiscent of the demise of Mrs Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Mountbatten-Windsor in September 2022, when she had been visited just two days beforehand by a certain Mary Elizabeth Truss, the pontiff’s death comes very shortly after an audience with a certain James David Vance, who has been appointed to preside over vice by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

Social media has been awash this morning with posts about the similarities between the two deaths

However, all this speculation is pointless, as is any explanation that the pope was a very ill man.

For the real reason for the passing of the pontiff, one has to consult Bristol ‘Live’, the West Country’s newspaper of (warped) record.

Under the Bristol News header, this Reach plc title seems to have an exclusive scoop at to what or who was actually liable for Francis’ demise – West Country folk reacting.

Now look what you’ve done, Bristolians and neighbours!

Unless, of course, it’s yet another example of bad English usage and even worse journalism of the putting the cart before the horse variety.
The new British invasion

13/04/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics
One of my regular weekly listens is The Coffee Klatch presented by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich and Heather Lofthouse of Inequality Media.

Bob’s and Heather’s are two of the few voices of sanity I hear coming across the Atlantic from a country where the head of state wants to Make America Grate Again (or something like it. Ed.) when he’s not on the golf course.

However, what has surprised me in the last two weeks is Mr Reich’s increasingly regular use of British English vocabulary.

Yesterday, for instance, he used the rude and informal term shite to describe one of the authoritarian Trump regime’s latest outrages, whilst the week before he defined another as bonkers.

We’ll return to bonkers later.

However, it seems your ‘umble scribe is not the only one to have noticed British English. Yesterday’s Guardian drew attention to the increasing use of British English terms in the USA, particularly amongst the young.

It states:

The most common was bonkers, meaning “absurd”, which was applied to topics from politics to sports to internet trends, according to the language learning platform Babbel.

The rest of the Top Ten Briticisms are:
- Amongst, rather than “among”;
- Queue, as opposed to “line”;
- Wonky;
- Cheeky;
- Snarky;
- Cheers, in the context of thanking someone;
- Keen, i.e. enthusiastic;
- Maths instead math; and finally
- Nil.
The piece notes that this phenomenon is partly fuelled by British musicians such as Charli xcx, as well as newspapers such as the Grauniad creating US editions, as well as general “global culturization“.

However, if your correspondent were to pick holes in the piece, it would be with the following assertion:

In addition to the list of words, researchers examined the demographics of the speakers. They found that the use of “bonkers” is most common among gen Z, whose members accounted for 77% of uses in the database. People aged 66 and older didn’t use it at all. Meanwhile, 90% of “bonkers” speakers were women, and 97% lived in urban areas.

Mr Reich, like your ‘umble scribe, is over 66 and therefore incapable of using vocabulary such as bonkers according to the academic researchers quoted.

In case Mr Reich happens to read this, corrections and clarifications can be submitted to the paper should you so wish. 😀
The Felon’s thought police

11/04/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media

In 1948 an old Etonian then living of the Scottish island of Jura wrote a novel about future authoritarian dystopia.

The novel was written as a warning, although in recent decades even allegedly democratic governments seem to have used it more as a manual to control what their citizens not only do, but also think.
The novel is, of course, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and the main method of mind control was via the so-called thought police.
Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police.

Along with the Thought Police, Orwell also developed the idea of thoughtcrime, i.e. the offence of thinking in ways not approved by the ruling regime.

Moving forward from 1948 to 2025 and the presence of the state’s thought police is very apparent, particularly at present in the United States of America under the regime of the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who has a mission to Make America Grate Again (or something similar. Ed.).

The Felon’s thought police have been particularly active, expunging DEI policies.

However, the thought police have also been active in the far-flung reaches of Uncle Sam’s domain, where the job of policing thoughts and ideas critical of or hostile to The Donald, his rule and his cronies falls to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service,, commonly abbreviated to ICE.

In a social media post which has since been deleted, ICE included ideas in a list of of targets from which it was keeping Trump’s Grate America safe, according to the Huffington Post.

Ideas thought illegal include any objections and/or criticism of US support for the continuing Israeli genocide in and annexation of the Palestinian territories of the Gaza strip and West Bank.

But returning to the far-flung reaches of Uncle Sam’s domain referred to above, these also include the confines of the grandly titled Pituffik Space Base, recently the venue for an insult our allies session by the deeply unpleasant JD Vance (posts passim).

The alleged vice-president’s remarks during his brief three-hour visit did not go down too well with the base commander, Col. Susan Meyers, according to Military.com. In the aftermath of Vance’s brief stopover, Col. Meyers sent a message to all personnel at Pituffik seemingly aimed at generating unity among the airmen and Guardians, as well as the Canadians, Danes and Greenlanders who work there, following Vance’s appearance.

It is not clear whether Meyers is still serving as commander of the 821st Space Base Group following her email, but the email itself will have come to the attention of the thought police.
JD’s worldwide charm offensive continues

08/04/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Politics

Back in 1936 an American writer and teacher of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills called Dale Carnegie wrote a self-help book entitled How to Win Friends and Influence People. According to Wikipedia, over 30 million copies of the book have been sold.

Nevertheless, judging by both their actions and statements – both private and public – it can be safely assumed that none of the senior members of the Trump regime have bought copies, assuming of course they are intelligent enough to read.

Their playbook seems to be the complete opposite of Carnegie’s goal, i.e. How to Lose Friends and Irritate People.

Kindly step forward with no style at all one James David Vance (born James Donald Bowman. Ed.), inexplicably made vice-president of the United States by the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

As revealed in so-called Signalgate (posts passim), James David, ably assisted by Pete Hegseth, The Felon’s totally unqualified pick for Defence Secretary, who though it perfectly fine to insult European NATO allies. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/no10-slams-trump-cabinet-attack-on-freeloading-europe_uk_67e26eabe4b06e4e058d2f42, the relevant part of the Signal messaging thread reads as follows:

Vance said: “If you think we should do it let’s go. I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

Hegseth then replied three minutes later, saying: “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”

For those that don’t know their history, the only time NATO’s Article 5 has been invoked was by the United States after the September 11th attacks. Several of those free-loading European nations contributed to the subsequent US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, putting their troops in harm’s way for Uncle Sam.

Now James Donald is at it again. This time he’s insulting the Chinese, referring to them as peasants. His words are reported to have been the following:

We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture. That is not a recipe for economic prosperity. It’s not a recipe for low prices and it’s not a recipe for good jobs in the United States of America.

In response Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said:

“It is surprising and sad to hear such ignorant and impolite words from this vice president.

I’d agree with Mr Lin that it is sad, but not surprising given James Donald’s past remarks in respect of European allies, not to mention his appalling attitude to Greenland and the obsession of his boss therewith.
Mermaids, volcanism and… Google Translate!

18/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Social Media, Tech

Google Translate, the Mountain View behemoth’s translation service is noted for not being very good on technical terminology, even of the most basic kind. Furthermore, it also struggles with a little thin called context, i.e. the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea and in terms of which it can be fully understood.

When Google Translate gets the context wrong and confuses protecting the public with ancient Greek mythological figures, the result is at the very least amusing and at must alarming and downright dangerous, as revealed by the following social media post by Prof. Jenni Barclay of the University of Bristol.

Prof. Barclay’s research is the reduction of risk and prevention of disaster in volcanic settings, with a particular focus both on volcanic processes and the social processes that amplify volcanic risk.

My question for Prof. Barclay is are mermaids a social process? 😉

Mis-translations definitely are!
All day?

06/03/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

A crime against the English language appeared in my social media feed today. It loomed out of a photograph of part of the menu from an unidentified McDonald’s drive through somewhere in the United States.

Dies irae* if you roll up at 1.01 pm?

It centres on the use of the word day whose meaning for this context is provided by Merriam-Webster:

“the time of light between one night and the next”.

When combined with the words all and breakfast one would expect the fare proffered to be provided throughout the hours of daylight between sunrise and sunset; or at the very least to be available between the business’ opening and closing times.
Not “ONLY UNTIL 1PM” as the menu shouts loudly.

The picture seems to have been taken some while ago, as the price of eggs in the USA has rocketed due to avian influenza and Walmart is rationing egg purchases. The egg shortage has not gone unnoticed under the golden arches either: Newsweek reports a customer of a McDonald’s in Fairfield, Connecticut was charged $7.29 per Egg McMuffin and complained about it on social media.

* = Day of wrath (usually divine. Ed.).

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