language | Steve Woods

Noun becomes terror organisation

20/09/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media
Antifa or anti-fascist is a noun with the following definitions:
1. a political movement whose followers are left-wing activists who oppose fascist authoritarianism, capitalism, and extreme right-wing ideologies such as nationalism, xenophobia, and white supremacy; and
2. a group of such activists, or a member of such a group.
Opposition to fascism has grown in recent years with the increasing prominence of extreme right wing politics and politicians, particularly in western democracies.

Not least of these prominent extreme right wing politicians is 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 is on a personal mission to Make America Grate Again (or something similar. Ed.).

The Donald has made no secret in the past of his hatred for those expressing anti-fascist sentiments and standing up to his extreme authoritarian regime; and if you are opposed to anti-fascism, Donny, you know what that makes you, don’t you?

The Tangerine Tyrant has now gone further than he ever has before, posting the following on Truth Social his social media platform that defies nominative determinism.

Yes, you read that correctly. A noun is now ‘A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION’.

Just like antifa, organization (to use the US-EN spelling) is a noun. Amongst others, it has the following definition.

A group of persons organized for some end or work; association.

As is usual when The Donald starts throwing his weight about on social media, there has been some criticism, particularly from those with expertise in terrorism, not to say outright ridicule, but more on the latter presently.

The most clear criticism your ‘umble scribe has seen has emanated from ex-US Navy man Malcolm Nance who replied to Trump’s invective as shown below.

As regards the mockery of Trump’s flawed logic, untold numbers of social media users have posted about members of their families who have been involved in anti-fascist actions.

Your correspondent also posted a photograph of a prominent anti-fascist activist from 1942.

Major-General Dwight D. Eisenhower photographed in 1942.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Those of us with long memories have not forgotten the last time Uncle Sam displayed noun-based hostility. In 2011, the war on terror was declared by then President George W. Bush and resulted in such horrors as the Guantanamo Bay detention camp (which has yet to close. Ed.) and so-called extraordinary rendition, i.e. the state-sponsored abduction of people in a foreign jurisdiction and transfer to a third country, usually for interrogation linked to the use of torture.

Taking all the above into account, one has to credit Trump with one thing: he’s doing a great job of making America grate.

Update 23/09/2025: It was announced overnight that Trump has issued an executive order designating the aforementioned noun as a domestic terror organisation. In the text of the executive order, a common Trump playbook tactic is apparent – accusing one’s opponents of exactly the kinds of actions – e.g. doxing and physical assault – his MAGA louts have been inflicting on their perceived opponents for years. Anyway, the very best of luck on your witch hunt against a noun and an idea, Donny! Your action is reminiscent of another Don and his epic quest against windmills* in La Mancha.

* = The Donald also has a well-documented hatred of of a particular kind of windmill known as a wind turbine.
Hotels and roundabouts

03/09/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

Commenting on the present intimidatory actions of the far right out in the streets, this still from a well-known scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail currently doing the rounds on social media has been given the meme treatment.

No further comment is required apart from saying that in the film, Clees and his companions within the castle were all playing forrins, insulting and humiliating Arthur and his knights of the round table.
Gourmet baked goods

01/09/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

The story of baked pastry dough wrapped around is tasty filling is a long one. Sometime before 2000 BCE, a recipe for chicken pie was written on a tablet in Sumer – the earliest known civilisation – in southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq. Ed.), according to Wikipedia.

Moving forward a couple of millennia, the 1st century Roman cookbook Apicius includes several recipes involving a pie case.

It would therefore seem evident humans have been munching pastry baked around a filling for at least two millennia.

Coming right up to date, one of today’s largest producers of baked goods in the Untied Kingdom is Greggs, founded in the Gosforth area of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1939. From the 1970s onwards, Greggs embarked on a string of acquisitions and mergers. In June 2025 the chain had 2,649 outlets and also employs over 33,000 staff. Some items are only sold in particular regions, whilst the company also sells some of its products (e.g. bakes, melts and pasties) through the Iceland supermarket chain.

As a mass market supplier, Greggs is frequently mocked for being down-market and this brings us neatly to humour and punning, a social media staple.

Greggs Benedict?

Sounds delicious!

However, there was once – but no longer – an actual Greggs Benedict available under a fine dining ‘experience’:

For breakfast and brunch, don’t miss out on the “Greggs Benedict” – the Greggs Sausage, Bean and Cheese Melt reimagined with smoked ham, poached Cacklebean eggs and a velvety Hollandaise sauce. Our ‘Full English’ celebrates the icon that is the Greggs Sausage Roll alongside bacon, mushroom, tomato, baked beans and a choice of eggs – scrambled, poached or fried. The dish also comes as a vegetarian and vegan option.

Bon appétit !
Making America Grater Again

22/08/2025 Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media

In political science lectures many decades ago, one of the myriad facts we students absorbed was that authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in the 20th century had a tendency to rewrite history along the lines of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell‘s dystopian novel Nineteen Eight-Four.

Whilst it may be argued that all nation states include total fabrications and distortions in their national fairy stories (e.g. the fictional King Arthur in English/British history. Ed.), some are more accomplished than others in their incorporation of lies and events that never occurred, some are more prone to this practice than others; and the United States is a past master of telling itself fibs. Some of the US of A’s biggest lies were examined in a three part documentary series by historian Lucy Worsley in 2019.

Indeed, one might say that the American national story is dominated more by the lies it contains than by the ugly truths of the course of American history if it chooses to omit, such as the genocide and dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants and the cruelty and exploitation inherent in chattel slavery and the plantation system.

Having spoken extensively above of American lies, it’s time to move to Washington, DC and the presently blinged-up man cave otherwise known as the Oval Office, currently occupied by the country’s Liar-in-Chief, 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 is on a personal mission to Make America Grate Again (or something similar. Ed.).

The Donald has taken to his Truth Social* social media echo chamber earlier this week railing that museums and universities were not telling ‘proper’ US history and were too “WOKE” [sic]. He wrote the following.

As regards one of Tangerine Insurrectionist’s targets, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, this was on the receiving end of his ire for having the temerity, much to Trump’s wounded pride, of mentioning his two impeachments in his first term of (subsequently removed. Ed.) from its exhibit on The Limits of Presidential Power.

What Trump’s social media post merely indicates he wants bully US institutions into doing in order to pander to his own exceedingly vain, distorted, white, racist, privileged world view. This line of action has a name: historical revisionism, something to which the now defunct Soviet Union was prone during its existence from 1922–1991 (e.g. prominent but out-of-favour individuals being deliberately edited out of photographs and the remainder of the official record).

Wikipedia defines the phenomenon as follows:

Historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) scholarly views or narratives regarding a historical event, timespan, or phenomenon by introducing contrary evidence or reinterpreting the motivations of the people involved. Revision of the historical record can reflect new discoveries of fact, evidence, and interpretation as they come to light. The process of historical revision is a common, necessary, and usually uncontroversial process which develops and refines the historical record to make it more complete and accurate.

One form of historical revisionism involves denying the moral significance or accuracy of the historical record. This type of historical revisionism is called historical negationism, and is contentious as it often includes denying the veracity of genuine documents, or deliberately manipulating statistical data to reach predetermined conclusions. The destruction or alteration of cultural heritage sites is also considered a form of illegitimate historical revisionism when it serves to deny the cultural or historical claims of ethnic groups.

Trump’s social media post shows all the hallmarks of historical revisionism, but at the same time, he seems determined to make America safe again for ignorant, racist, insecure, selfish and entitled old white men like himself.

Note in particular the word again. Trump is harking after an imagined lost past. As for museums and the future, The Donald doesn’t realise that museums serve to collect, preserve, interpret, and display objects of cultural, historical, or scientific significance. Their primary functions include safeguarding heritage for future generations and facilitating education. If the future is involved, the role of museums and the like should be educating people about the mistakes of history, not airbrushing or erasing them.

* = No irony was intended in the naming of the platform. Ed.
Gemsbok

15/08/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Social Media, Tech

One neoligism (posh for new word. Ed.) that has become prominent in recent times is doomscrolling, defined as the activity of spending a lot of time looking at your phone or computer and reading bad or negative news stories.

This can naturally be extremely depressing, hence the tendency of folk to seek comfort in online content not concerned with people’s inhumanity to their fellows to alleviate the feelings of despair, be this fluffy cat and dog photos, even fluffier photos of sheep (yes, I’m looking at you, Mastodon! Ed.). These are joined by wildlife and avian photography.

One of the sources of wildlife images that turns up in your ‘umble scribe’s timeline comes courtesy of Namibia Weather. This features a live webcam at a waterhole in the Gondwana Namib Park, which claims to be Namibia’s first live webcam and regularly posts stills from the feed on Mastodon.

The wildlife varies by the minute if you watch the live Youtube feed. Besides wildebeest, other large mammals that regularly visit the waterhole are South African oryx, otherwise known as gemsbok Note the striking monochrome facial markings.

Sometimes cats, dogs or even sheep are just not a good enough antidote… Happy browsing! 😀
Coloured curvaceousness

24/07/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

Some consumer clickbait from yesterday’s Bristol ‘Live’, a Reach plc local news title.

Articles for the same product also appeared in other Reach plc titles such as the Manchester Evening News and Birmingham ‘Live’, although their readers were not informed that curvaceousness comes in four colours, as were the good burghers of Bristol.

The reason for this is because the headline writers on those papers can recognise ambiguity, unlike those at the Temple Way Ministry of Truth.
The entire history of English in 22 minutes

17/07/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media

After Mandarin Chinese and Castilian Spanish, English is the third most spoken native language in the world today, as well as the world’s most widely learned second language, according to Wikipedia.

How it reached that position is a long and complicated story which has been reduced to a 22 minutes’ historical romp by the excellent Rob Words on YouTube.

Rob’s story of English from its earliest origins to the present day starts a long way from the shores of present-day England or even the eastern shores of the North Sea of what is now Frisia, northern Germany and Denmark where most of the origin stories for English start.

No, Rob starts in Asia around the shores and land between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea where it is believed the original ancestral language of English began, before moving both west and east to become the ancestors of the modern European languages and those of the Indian sub-continent based upon Sanskrit, the so-called Indo-European languages. For want of an actual name that has survived down the centuries, this ancestral language is referred to as Proto-Indo-European.

On the move westwards, the branch of Proto-Indo-European from which English developed is known as Proto-Germanic, which predated not just English and German, but also Dutch, Frisian and the Nordic/Scandinavian languages, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish.

The story of English on the island of Britain actually begins in the 5th century after the departure of the Romans and mercenaries from across the North Sea who eventually settled are involved.

The influences of subsequent invasions – such as the Vikings and William the Invader‘s wine-drinking, Francophone former Norse marauders are also noted, as are the roles of Shakespeare, Caxton‘s printing press (especially Chancery standard English. Ed.) are all covered as is the effect on English of England’s/Britain’s role in invasion, conquest and colonisation since the mid-sixteenth century.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video as much as me; and learn something too, which I definitely did.
Ambiguity

10/07/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media

The dictionary definition of ambiguity is “the fact of something having more than one possible meaning and therefore possibly causing confusion“.

Any sensible person would therefore believe that ambiguity has no place in a newspaper headline.

However, newspapers are not written nowadays by sensible people: or so it would seem.

This is exacerbated by the modern media practice of trying to cram the entire story into the headline in a condensed form, as shown by the screenshot below of this piece from the Daily Post, a title in the Reach plc stable which serves the north of Cymru.

For the benefit of passing illiterate Reach ‘journalists’, an unambiguous version of the headline would read “Prisoner with smiley face tattoo and links to North Wales on run”.

It has since been rumoured that the smiley face tattoo has been recaptured by police. 😉
Spot the difference

27/06/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Politics, Security, Social Media

From my social media timeline.

For those unaware of the actions of the racist US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency under the less than benign presidency 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, the mock-up US road sign is on the right (naturally. Ed.).

The cruel actions of ICE are all part of The Felon’s chief mission to Make America Grate Again (or something like that. Ed.).
First… for greenwashing

25/06/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Tech

First Group has a virtual monopoly on public transport in Bristol via its buses and GWR Trains. However, its inability to run any service to timetable – no matter how important – has earned it the nickname of Worst Group.

First Bus was all over the local media at the start of June when it announced the opening of a new bus depot in the city’s Hengrove area for servicing its fleet of electric buses which will eventually total 74 vehicles.

Your ‘umble scribe recently tried out one of the new double decker electric buses on the Number 24 route, which runs between Ashton and Southmead Hospital. On the whole the experience was very positive. The bus was clean, the ride silent and smooth. However, at this point a significant however enters the picture, namely that your correspondent was less than impressed by the greenwashing on the sides of the bus.

According to Wikipedia, greenwashing may be defined as follows:

Greenwashing (a compound word modeled on “whitewash”), also called green sheen, is a form of advertising or marketing spin that deceptively uses green PR and green marketing to persuade the public that an organization’s products, goals, or policies are environmentally friendly. Companies that intentionally adopt greenwashing communication strategies often do so to distance themselves from their environmental lapses or those of their suppliers.[6] Firms engage in greenwashing for two primary reasons: to appear legitimate and to project an image of environmental responsibility to the public.

Whilst the engines of the new buses produce zero greenhouse gases or particulate emissions, that does not necessarily mean the vehicles are entirely free of emissions, especially when significant elements of the vehicle produce particulates due to wear and tear caused by their function. The two components involved are the brakes and tyres.

Until First acquires vehicles with zero tyre and brake wear, they should continue to be called out for being less than honest with the (travelling) public.

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