facepalm | Steve Woods

Liability lost in translation

16/01/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

As this blog has pointed out previously (posts passim), it is not unusual for bilingual signage to have text that tells the speakers of one language one thing and those of the other language something completely different.

The bad advice given can cover such varied topics as how far one has to travel to legal liability for loss of or damage to private property.

The latter is the subject of a photograph which appeared in your ‘umble scribe’s social media feed this morning and concerns legal liability at an unknown railway station operated by Trafnidiaeth Cymru, also known as Transport for Wales.

In translation, the Welsh text on the sign reads:

You can leave your bike here for free, but at your own risk

On the other hand, the English text reads:

Bicycles may be left here free of charge but at our risk

Judging by the patina on the sign, it’s been there a long time and somebody has yet to take the railway company to court to determine exactly where legal liability lies given the sign’s bilingual ambiguity.

Your correspondent wonders how many of these confusing signs have been installed across Cymru.
Da iawn, Sports Direct!

03/12/2024 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

As spotted on the Sports Direct website.

Needless to say, some parts of the Welsh media have been having a field day with this elementary orthographical error, with Nation.Cymru jesting as follows:

We can neither confirm or deny that Sports Direct are selling Egnland hats as well!

It looks like the product has now been withdrawn from sale as it does not come up in search results on the company’s website, as confirmed today (4th Dec.) by Nation.Cymru.

Update 02/01/2025: Nation.Cymru reported yesterday that the bobble hat has now reappeared with the correct spelling of Cymru.
Shropshire news – a century behind

30/11/2024 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

The impression is frequently given that these modern times are the era of 24 hour news coverage, but that itself can be very misleading, as can what is and how it is reported.

Evidence for this comes from today’s Shropshire Star website, which features the following headline under the UK News heading.

Whilst it is encouraging to see coverage in the regional press of matters of more than local importance, one has to ask the following question of the Star’s editor: what is this doing under the UK News heading?

When I was a lot younger, I recall being told in school that news of Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805 took three months to reach settlements in northern Scotland.

It seems that news of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921 and the subsequent foundation of the Irish Free State in December 1922 has yet to reach Hollinswood Road in Telford where Salopia’s Ministry of Truth is situated.

NB: The paper does have a separate World News section.

Update: 17.00h, 30/11/24: In a textbook case of (lack of) editorial perspicacity, there is now a second Irish election story filed under the UK News heading.

Update: 01/12/24: There seems to be no end to the paper’s political and geographical ignorance as this morning a third story was posted as UK News.

Additional research has since revealed that the Shropshire Star routinely files Irish news under its UK News heading. Neo-colonialism and ignorance are therefore alive and well in the newspaper of record in my home county.
Bristol Live exclusive: M4 diverted via Somerset

01/10/2024 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities

The London to South Wales motorway, otherwise known as the M4, runs from Chiswick in the west of London to Pont Abraham Services near Pontarddulais in Sir Gaerfyrddin (that’s Carmarthenshire for monoglots. Ed.). It passes through or close to the major towns and cities of Slough, Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Casnewydd (Newport), Caerdydd (Cardiff) Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr (Bridgend), Port Talbot and Abertawe (Swansea).

Route of the M4. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Or rather it did: until a traffic report on Sunday in Bristol Live which saw road repairs move it several tens of kilometres south from South Gloucestershire, the unitary authority in which Tormarton is situated to Somerset.

Fact checking is important when reporting the news, except it seems when one works as a Reach plc ‘journalist‘: or the newsroom atlas has inexplicably gone missing; or is non-existent.
Curved handles

29/09/2024 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

Friday’s Bristol Live/Post had a piece on an appeal to the public for information on an incident that happened a while ago in Easton. The vital part of the appeal reads as follows:

Investigating officers have released a picture of a man, who was riding a silver road bike with curved handles, who they would like to identify in connection with the assault. They said it took place on Stapleton Road on Wednesday, August 7.

Curved handles? Since when has a bicycle had handles, let alone curved ones.

At first, your correspondent believed this was just another of Reach plc ‘journalists’ publicly displaying his/her ignorance of the English language, bearing in mind the fact that the correct use of terminology – le mot juste as the French would have it – is vital for comprehension and a lack of confusion on the part of the reader.

The police press office also provided a useful picture of the suspect, plus bicycle complete with those mysterious curved handles.

Those infamous curved handles. Image courtesy of Avon & Somerset Police.

Anyway, your ‘umble scribe went looking for Plod’s original press release on the Avon & Somerset Police website.
.
The following sentence can be read therein:

The man pictured is described as white, slim, in his 20s or 30s and has dark hair and facial hair. He is seen wearing a black Adidas hooded top and tracksuit bottoms. He is in possession of a silver road bike with curved handles {sic].

That’s right! Those curved handles actually originated at police headquarters out at Portishead and not in Bristol’s infamous Temple Way Ministry of Truth.

This is curious as the police allegedly require high standards from their staff as a recent advertisement for a communications officer reveals.

You will have strong oral and written communications skills, an exceptional eye for detail…

The use of the phrase curved handles does show that the author has written communications skills but not strong ones, whilst the lack of an exceptional eye for detail is displayed by an ignorance of the importance of the correct use of terminology.

Words matter, except in Plod’s press room, whilst the ‘journalist’ responsible for copying and pasting the original press release should have been diligent enough to notice the original error and not repeated it, but as a former sub-editor cum media studies lecturer friend pointed out, today’s media studies student (and by implication graduates. Ed.) do not have a very high standard of English.

Finally, hose curved handles are known to most folk outside the police press office and Bristol Live/Post as drop handlebars. 😀
Days out ideas. Time machine required

25/08/2024 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities, Social Media

When parliament rises for the summer recess, the period until it reconvenes in the autumn is traditionally known as the silly season. This time of year was traditionally when the press would scramble around desperately for something newsworthy and printable.

This has changed somewhat in recent decades due to the emergence of the 24 hours news cycle driven by technological change, including the rise of social media.

However, the need to find worthwhile to publish is exacerbated when the silly season also includes a public holiday, a time when the great unwashed needs to be kept amused and entertained, which brings us to a piece in today’s edition of the Bristol Post/Live.

Yes, you did read the headline correctly. It does say 2024. Sadly, in this particular item, Bristol’s Reach plc local news title has not followed standard Reach procedure and included affiliate links to time machine providers in the copy, so those intent on visiting Bristol’s hinterland last year will have to go and look for their own, at least until the proofreader returns from holiday. 🙂
Crowdstrike and Microsoft – culprit identified

19/07/2024 Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Security, Social Media, Tech

The BBC reports that a massive IT outage is causing chaos around the world, affecting airports, railways, broadcasters and untold companies..

Cyber-security firm CrowdStrike Holdings has admitted that the problem was caused by a dodgy update to its software which is allegedly designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from hacking.

At the same time, Microsoft has said it is taking “mitigation action” to deal with “the lingering impact” of the outage.

Although Crowdstrike has admitted liability, social media had long since decided who was to blame and where.

This is Alan Ferrier on Mastodon, who wins the prize for the best attribution of blame.

The disaster known as Mary Elizabeth Truss was ousted from her comfy job misrepresenting the long-suffering burghers of Norfolk at the 4th July election. She was recently seen at the extreme right-wing Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where the perpetual victim, one Donald John Trump, has been anointed its presidential candidate despite his being a convicted felon 34 times over, confirmed business fraudster, document thief, adjudicated sexual predator, congenital liar, oath breaker and golf cheat.
Bristol Live exclusive: man given dog’s face

08/07/2024 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Oddities

Cross-species organ transplants – a technique also known as xenotransplantation – are becoming more common in modern medicine.

Such transplants usually involve pig or cow organs, but a new species has now entered the list of donor transplant species, according to today’s Bristol Live/(Evening) Post.

However, judging from the headline the means by which the victim’s rebuilt face was provided sounds brutal, almost as if it was performed with malicious intent and without the use of anaesthetics, unless of course the author didn’t proof-read his piece adequately and failed to notice the absence of a simple two-letter preposition. 😀
BBC exclusive: police turn axe into firearm

16/06/2024 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media

As any fool knows, there is a world of difference between edged and bladed weapons such as axes and knives which are used at arm’s length and ranged weapons used at a distance and firing projectiles such as arrows, bullets, shells and the like.

Today’s BBC news site features a world exclusive: the Hamburg police have been able to convert an axe so it fires bullets, thus coming up with a combined edged/bladed and ranged weapon; or if that is not the case, that’s one interpretation that can be placed on the headline in the following screenshot.

If by some chance the German police have not pulled off this incredible feat, somewhere in the depths of Broadcasting House, there is likely some hapless person who fell asleep in or was absent from school English lessons or media studies lectures when the subject of ambiguity – i.e. the quality of something having more than one possible meaning – was brought up.

To save the hapless BBC hack any future embarrassment, your ‘umble scribe suggests that she or he visits Al Jazeera’s piece on the incident to learn how to write an unambiguous headline as per the screenshot below. Note the use of the hyphen, BBC person. 😀

One final thing: the item being carried by the person shot by Hamburg police was not actually an axe, but a slate hammer* (Schieferhammer), a tool used by roofers. This was confirmed by finding a German language media report of the incident, where Schieferhammer figures prominently in the headline. The BBC was not the only British media outlet to misreport the item used by the police’s assailant; the Independent had the man attacking police with a pickaxe.

* = Also known as a slater’s hammer. The photo below illustrates how it could be mistaken for a pickaxe (the hammer in question can just be seen in screenshot of the Al Jazeera report. Ed.). However, how the BBC managed to construe it as an axe is beyond your ‘umble scribe’s ken.
You couldn’t make it up!

14/05/2024 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities

Opticians chain Specsavers is rightly renowned for its advertising slogan, “Should have gone to Specsavers“, which has been applied to every bad decision ranging from one’s choice of partner to driving ability.

Talking of the latter, yesterday’s Daily Post carries an article which combines skill behind the wheel with the aforementioned opticians, in which the driver ended before the crown court in Abertawe, which some also call Swansea, for an incident which occurred in Castell Nedd (Neath) in November last year.

No further comment is necessary on the headline behind the story. However, your ‘umble scribe is intrigued by the first sentence: “A driver on his way to Specsavers struck two elderly pedestrians with his car while reversing through a pedestrianised shopping area“.

What was the driver doing in a pedestrianised area – where he should not have been – anyway? Exercising his over-developed sense of entitlement. For his lack of care for other road users, the perpetrator ultimately received a 12-month community order, a two-year driving ban and must pass an extended driving test before he can regain his licence.

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