Archives for Blog

July 2, 2019

A café in the exclusive seaside town of Sandbanks, Dorset has excited caffeine-fuelled rage by replacing pretentious coffee names with down-to-earth descriptions instead. The no-nonsense beverages menu uses simple descriptions instead of trendy names commonly used by baristas. This means latte becomes ‘milky coffee’, mocha is ‘choccy coffee’ and cappuccino is ‘frothy coffee’. Tea is described simply as ‘Not coffee’ and hot chocolate as ‘Also not coffee’.

Apparently, some customers have appreciated the joke saying they hadn’t realised what all the different terms meant until now.

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November 19, 2018

Britain’s Defence Minister Stuart Andrew has declared war on jargon by banning the use of abbreviations and acronyms in his office. A civilian recruit, the Minister was confused by the army jargon used in his new role after discovering that too many conversations were being conducted in a bewildering blizzard of abbreviations.

Andrew, the MP for the Pudsey constituency in West Yorkshire, was a surprise appointment to the role after his predecessor resigned unexpectedly over Brexit.

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October 8, 2018

In a world of spelling and grammatical mistakes, here are two pieces of good news to raise the spirits of those who feel standards of written English are slipping…

First, if you’re on social media you can’t fail to have spotted that airline Cathay Pacific recently had to send one of its aircraft back for an expensive respray after signwriters incorrectly spelt the company’s name on the Boeing 777’s fuselage. It was spotted at Hong Kong airport with “Cathay Paciic” displayed on its side.

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April 30, 2018

I loved this diary item in The Times, which highlighted an unfortunate software glitch. With many Irish expats wanting to return to vote in the country’s abortion referendum on 25 May, the Irish government set up a website specifically so that people can check beforehand if they are on the electoral register. An excellent example of municipal forward planning, I’m sure you will agree.

Flaw hits Irish particularly hard

However, it transpires that the software has a fatal flaw that affects the Irish more than most.

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