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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2019 5:25:31 GMT
I don't know if "life hack" has made an appearance here yet but it deserves to. On the subject of hacks, I was looking for information about Pilot Frixion pens yesterday. (These are pens with a special ink that turns transparent when heated, so the friction created when you rub the paper makes the ink disappear.) I came across a video about Frixion Pen Hacks.
These are not "pen hacks". This is literally a video about how to use a pen.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Apr 25, 2019 7:13:59 GMT
Those “hack” videos that the misguided share on Facebook... 🙄
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Post by TallPaul on Apr 25, 2019 8:00:24 GMT
I wasn't sure of the year, but thanks to Mr Interweb I can confirm that in 2014 the theme of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures was 'how to hack your home'.
Hacking was something teenage boys used to do in their bedrooms, and now it's a fully paid-up part of The Establishment!
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Post by tysilio2 on Apr 25, 2019 8:17:09 GMT
Hacking was something teenage boys used to do in their bedrooms, and now it's a fully paid-up part of The Establishment! That's not what we called it around here........ |
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Post by Backdrifter on Apr 25, 2019 12:47:28 GMT
I don't know if "life hack" has made an appearance here yet but it deserves to. On the subject of hacks, I was looking for information about Pilot Frixion pens yesterday. (These are pens with a special ink that turns transparent when heated, so the friction created when you rub the paper makes the ink disappear.) I came across a video about Frixion Pen Hacks.
These are not "pen hacks". This is literally a video about how to use a pen.
Recently I had major trouble getting hold of some cough sweets. I badly needed a Hacks hack. I suppose if we need any advice on spinal pain, small wooden sheds, large bags or dark-coloured pins for hammering into wood, we'll have to find back hacks, shack hacks, sack hacks and black tacks hacks. Will we soon see the demise of "recipes" and the rise of "Cooking Hacks"? I'm now diverting off into recalling those 80s and 90s films when people doing devious things with computers was considered all technologically edgy and exciting, and invariably involved someone at some point revealing they were going to "hack into the mainframe." And that in turn has made me think of one of the most annoying lines in a film ever, to go alongside "Is it raining? I hadn't noticed", which is the massively irritating girl in Jurassic Park - "This is a Unix system. I know this!"  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2019 14:32:41 GMT
I suppose if we need any advice on spinal pain, small wooden sheds, large bags or dark-coloured pins for hammering into wood, we'll have to find back hacks, shack hacks, sack hacks and black tacks hacks. If you need a bin bag to hold the box that held a shelving unit you've just installed in your rear shed then you need a back shack rack pack black sack hack. |
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Post by 49thand8th on Apr 25, 2019 16:21:39 GMT
Some fun from The Cut today: www.thecut.com/2019/04/the-petty-writing-mistake-that-drives-me-nuts.htmlI can’t stand pluralizing names with apostrophes. Charles and Ray Eames are the Eameses, not the Eames’s or (God help us) the Eames’. This may be because I occasionally see it actually, non-metaphorically carved in stone, outside people’s houses. I guess it’s usually a wooden plaque, if you want to be precise. It’s when the plural is also capped with a possessive that people really get messed up. ‘WELCOME TO THE JOHNSON’S.’ |
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Post by Backdrifter on Apr 25, 2019 17:01:11 GMT
I suppose if we need any advice on spinal pain, small wooden sheds, large bags or dark-coloured pins for hammering into wood, we'll have to find back hacks, shack hacks, sack hacks and black tacks hacks. If you need a bin bag to hold the box that held a shelving unit you've just installed in your rear shed then you need a back shack rack pack black sack hack. But let's say you needed help in acquiring the innate ability to choose a piece of music while donning a rainproof coat, decorated with images of anti-aircraft artillery, in order to accompany sourcing a pile of bin-bags to hold the box that held a shelving unit you've just installed in your rear shed then you'd need a back shack rack pack black sack stack ack-ack mac track knack hack. |
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Post by Backdrifter on Apr 25, 2019 17:36:42 GMT
If you need a bin bag to hold the box that held a shelving unit you've just installed in your rear shed then you need a back shack rack pack black sack hack. But let's say you needed help in acquiring the innate ability to choose a piece of music while donning a rainproof coat, decorated with images of anti-aircraft artillery, in order to accompany sourcing a pile of bin-bags to hold the box that held a shelving unit you've just installed in your rear shed then you'd need a back shack rack pack black sack stack ack-ack mac track knack hack. AND... If Zachary who works at the Cornish coastal open-air theatre promised to advise on the above but then failed to, resulting in the aggrieved person thumping him one and this led to a lot of stupid gossip about the incident, there'd be a load of back shack rack pack black sack stack ack-ack mac track knack Minack Zac hack lack whack yack-yack cack. |
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Post by paulbrownsey on Apr 25, 2019 18:23:03 GMT
“Reach out” basically means “I’m trying to give the impression I phoned them but actually I just sent an email” A Canadian colleague where I volunteer uses this expression, which I had never heard before and assumed was a N American one. Alas, it has now crept in here but always makes me picture the speaker literally reaching out, as if to touch or even embrace the other person, which would generally be as inappropriate as impossible. And it's so redolent of Diana Ross . |
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Post by MrsCondomine on Apr 26, 2019 16:27:54 GMT
When people believe they "brought" a new dress, or "brought" the shopping, or "brought" theatre tickets.
NO YOU DID NOT.
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Post by Dawnstar on Apr 26, 2019 18:07:20 GMT
When people believe they "brought" a new dress, or "brought" the shopping, or "brought" theatre tickets. NO YOU DID NOT. I think "brought the shopping" is alright in the context of "I brought the shopping home". |
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Post by showgirl on Apr 27, 2019 7:32:49 GMT
Also people who don't understand the difference - & therefore the distinction - between "convince" & "persuade" & who compound this by using the wrong phrase. They say "X convinced me to" -no! "X persuaded me to so something" or 'X convinced me that I should do something" but the 2 words are not interchangeable & being talked round, or into something suggests you feel less sure or positive about it than being convinced.
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Post by ptwest on Apr 27, 2019 10:35:39 GMT
How am I meant to teach my class the ly suffix when you turn on any sports program and hear "he did fantastic", or "The team played brilliant."
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Post by Backdrifter on Apr 27, 2019 16:00:26 GMT
How am I meant to teach my class the ly suffix when you turn on any sports program and hear "he did fantastic", or "The team played brilliant." These are part of this ring-fenced little area of spoken English that exists solely in sports (especially football) coverage. Those truncated adverbs* are akin to the 'footballers tense' players, managers and pundits use when reviewing action - "he's come in, the defender's tried blocking him" etc. * I saw The Truncated Adverbs support Gang Of Four at the Electric Ballroom in 1981. |
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Post by MrsCondomine on Apr 29, 2019 11:25:13 GMT
When people believe they "brought" a new dress, or "brought" the shopping, or "brought" theatre tickets. NO YOU DID NOT. I think "brought the shopping" is alright in the context of "I brought the shopping home". Quite so. At least, until they decide that they actually "brung the shopping home". AHH. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2019 12:36:48 GMT
One I saw a few days ago and meant to mention but forgot: the use of "scare quotes" for emphasis. For example: Made with "real" fruit, or We "care" about our customers. |
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Post by Backdrifter on Apr 30, 2019 17:35:25 GMT
One I saw a few days ago and meant to mention but forgot: the use of "scare quotes" for emphasis. For example: Made with "real" fruit, or We "care" about our customers. Why are those 'scare' quotes? I know of a restaurant that on its awning, under its name it says (in their own quotes) "Italian Restaurant". It just makes it sound sarcastic, like someone archly doing air quotes. |
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Post by Backdrifter on Apr 30, 2019 17:40:41 GMT
One I saw a few days ago and meant to mention but forgot: the use of "scare quotes" for emphasis. For example: Made with "real" fruit, or We "care" about our customers. Why are those 'scare' quotes? I know of a restaurant that on its awning, under its name it says (in their own quotes) "Italian Restaurant". It just makes it sound sarcastic, like someone archly doing air quotes. I just realised we had this exact same exchange on page 24. Look forward to reviving it again in a few pages. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2019 19:33:31 GMT
So we did.
New gripe: people who forget what they said and say it again.
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Post by Deal J on May 1, 2019 11:23:15 GMT
How am I meant to teach my class the ly suffix when you turn on any sports program and hear "he did fantastic", or "The team played brilliant." Tunefully Tunefully Tuneful... L Y! |
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Post by crabtree on May 5, 2019 18:09:10 GMT
I know it is more a regional thing, but 'I like a good musical me', gets on my proverbials.
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Post by Backdrifter on May 5, 2019 19:39:51 GMT
I know it is more a regional thing, but 'I like a good musical me', gets on my proverbials. That's regional, is it? |
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Post by sf on May 6, 2019 18:05:49 GMT
New pet hate: people who use the word 'action' as a verb. When I rule the universe, this will be a punishable offence.  |
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