Background Briefing on Radio National played a story on the Intervention this week. I heard most of it, and found it a *little* one-sided: all about how inconvenient the Intervention is, and not so much about some of the positive changes.
It seemed to parallel the ABC TV's recent show quite a lot, given that it was also recorded in the same communitites, with largely the same people, some of whom were related to the young man who recently shot himself near Bulman.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
You win some, you lose some
News today that meh will be added to the 30th anniversary edition of the Collins Dictionary. It will be defined as "an expression of indifference or boredom, or an adjective meaning mediocre or boring" and is attributed to Bart and Lisa Simpson (of The Simpsons).
The following may be old news to some (admittedly I heard of it a little while ago, but only found a good link today), but better late than never. Which is very appropriate, actually: The Collins Dictionary is trying to revive endangered English words, which are threatened with being culled from the next edition of the dictionary. A sample of words, taken from the Age article:
abstergent: cleansing or scouring;
agrestic: rural, rustic, unpolished, uncouth;
apodeictic: unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration;
caducity: perishableness, senility;
calignosity: dimness, darkness;
embrangle: to confuse or entangle;
exuviate: to shed (a skin or similar outer covering);
fatidical: prophetic;
griseous: streaked or mixed with grey;
somewhat grey;
malison: a curse;
mansuetude: gentleness, mildness;
niddering: cowardly;
nitid: bright, glistening;
olid: foul-smelling;
oppugnant: combative, antagonistic or contrary;
periapt: a charm or amulet;
recrement: waste matter; refuse; dross;
roborant: tending to fortify or increase strength;
vaticinate: to foretell; prophecy;
vilipend: to treat or regard with contempt.
Funnily (and fore-bodingly) enough, each of these words comes up as a 'spelling mistake' in my browser as I compose this!
The Collins people have started a campaign to increase the use of these words, so as to justify not giving them the heave-ho come editing time. Apparently celebrities have been engaged to 'adopt' a word, and start using it as much as possible, so it might catch on. Like fetch in Mean Girls, perhaps...
The following may be old news to some (admittedly I heard of it a little while ago, but only found a good link today), but better late than never. Which is very appropriate, actually: The Collins Dictionary is trying to revive endangered English words, which are threatened with being culled from the next edition of the dictionary. A sample of words, taken from the Age article:
abstergent: cleansing or scouring;
agrestic: rural, rustic, unpolished, uncouth;
apodeictic: unquestionably true by virtue of demonstration;
caducity: perishableness, senility;
calignosity: dimness, darkness;
embrangle: to confuse or entangle;
exuviate: to shed (a skin or similar outer covering);
fatidical: prophetic;
griseous: streaked or mixed with grey;
somewhat grey;
malison: a curse;
mansuetude: gentleness, mildness;
niddering: cowardly;
nitid: bright, glistening;
olid: foul-smelling;
oppugnant: combative, antagonistic or contrary;
periapt: a charm or amulet;
recrement: waste matter; refuse; dross;
roborant: tending to fortify or increase strength;
vaticinate: to foretell; prophecy;
vilipend: to treat or regard with contempt.
Funnily (and fore-bodingly) enough, each of these words comes up as a 'spelling mistake' in my browser as I compose this!
The Collins people have started a campaign to increase the use of these words, so as to justify not giving them the heave-ho come editing time. Apparently celebrities have been engaged to 'adopt' a word, and start using it as much as possible, so it might catch on. Like fetch in Mean Girls, perhaps...
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