Apple's app ads

Apple's latest TV ad (short for advertisement) is for apps (short for applications). Apps are software tools you can download to your new 'i'-branded App (short for Apple) gear - one tool, for example, remembers where you parked your car. Especially useful if you've parked at the Trafford Centre, or you're blonde and you've just parked. App's app ads got me thinking about another word I've seen shortened that just doesn't work.

I subscribe to a writing magazine which uses zine (short for magazine) a lot, much to my disgust. It sounds wrong. Whereas people say 'flu (short for Influenza, and usually written without the apostrophe...but not by me) and ad, have you ever heard anyone say zine instead of magazine? My brother says apps because he's a walking App ad (though I bought his Mac - short for Macintosh - off him, so I'm part of the revolution). If people say it, and it becomes part of everyday language, I think it becomes more acceptable to write it. Zine sounds wrong, it's lazy, and it's regularly used in a writing magazine of all places.

That darned 'flu!

Looks like we're all going to die. Again.

It's not AIDS. It's not SARS. It's not Osama Bin-Lid, nor even feathered-friend 'flu.

No. It's swine 'flu! And it's coming to an over-reacting GP near you!

Let's start with the basics: the name. Swine 'flu. I understand 'flu can be pretty awful, but if you're going to be rude about it, then do it properly. What's wrong with calling it Bastard 'flu? You can really get your teeth into that. "I've got Bastard 'flu!" It just sounds better.

The really scary thing about Bastard 'flu is that, unlike bird 'flu, you don't have to be having sex with a runny-beaked chicken to get it. All you need to do is sit in your GP's waiting room where someone else sneezes. Oh no! Now I've got Bastard 'flu!

The news media love it. Especially TV. The boring, endless credit crunch had knocked the stuffing out of Fiona Bruce's hyperactive eyebrows, but now they're bouncing round with glee again thanks to the spread of Bastard 'flu. Gives reporters a chance to wear surgical masks and look like they have real news to report on. "We've been told to wear this for our own protection," they pronounce earnestly. Yes, and it conveniently hides their mouth as they grin at the preposterous scaremongering they're inflicting on us all.

There are two things you need to do to avoid getting Bastard 'flu: Turn the TV off, and act as normal.

Fewer, less, or under?

The supermarkets have opened a new front in the war on "fewer."

For those of you who live in a cave, or on Facebook, there's a stealth campaign underway to eradicate the word "fewer" from the English language. "Less" is indeed more, since it's used and abused everywhere, often at the expense of unfashionable "fewer". Most famously in supermarkets, with their "10 items or less" checkouts.

In a bid to obfuscate the issue even more, some supermarkets have replaced the word "less" with "under". I'm sorry, but "10 items or under" is even worse than "10 items or less". And it still begs the question, what the hell is wrong with "10 items or fewer"?

According to a learned friend of mine, "fewer" sounds too posh. Yer wot? It doesn't sound posh at all. It's just unfashionable. Like me, apparently.

TV Hell - DFS

Only one good thing could ever come out of the credit crunch: A closing down sale for DFS.

How come these guys seem to have an advertising budget the size of Sir Fred Goodwin's pension? Not a Coronation Street goes by without some leggy, slow-motion blonde hurling herself into a cushion-infested sofa. I end up clenching the arms of my own chair, almost protectively. As if my poor beleaguered sofa feels threatened in some way. In defiance I scream "I don't want that leggy slow-motion blonde near MY furniture!" Actually, now that I come to think of it...

Other than slow-motion blondes, does anyone take their half-price/sale ends Monday promotions seriously? And why do some sofas look like Rubik's snake? Do you sit on it, or twist it and arrange it into a toy dog?

Whaddaya mean you don't remember Rubik's snake?

But you're right. I don't get interior design.

The trouble with fiscal stimulus

I have several problems with the phrase "fiscal stimulus."

The first is that it often spurts all too eagerly from the craggy jaws of Gordon Brown. Is it me, or is his mush looking more and more like a Google Earth view of the Cairngorms? Apart from the annoying habit where he buries his tongue in his lower lip after every sentence, watching him speak is like watching several lumps of dough bouncing round a washing machine.

I reckon one of the reasons why "fiscal stimulus" has been seized upon so keenly by the media is because it sounds nice when you say it. "Fiscal stimulus". There's a pleasing assonance in there, and lots of sibilant s's to slip off the tongue. This doesn't apply if you have a lisp: "fithcal thimuluth" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Also, I think "fiscal stimulus" sounds vaguely sexual, which is my second problem with it. Every time I hear it I think it's describing an act of sexual gratification using a clenched hand. Either I have a warped mind, or my dubious interpretation nevertheless accurately describes what our leaders are doing to the economy.

My next problem with "fiscal stimulus" is that it's one of those phrases that disappear as fast as they appear, always to the convenience of those who coin them in the first place. It's disposable language, invented by spin doctors and clever PR. It'll go the way of "weapons of mass destruction" (which was replaced by "regime change") when the political and media agenda move on. Expect "fiscal stimulus" to disappear as quickly as "credit crunch", to be replaced by phrases along the lines of "improved public spending efficiencies", "adjusted tax thresholds" and "pension recalculations."

After a year-long hiatus...

...The World is Bonkers is back.
And the world is even more bonkers than it was before. I'd change the title of the blog to reflect this, but then my legion of fans wouldn't be able to find it.
I've since finished a postgraduate course in creative writing, so I'm more literary and aloof than ever. I laugh in the face of popular fiction, and want to punch the faces of Richard and Judy. What do they know? Have they done a postgraduate course in creative writing? The only texts they read are the ones viewers send via their mobiles to win a holiday to Butlins. I have news for you, Richard and Judy, the alphabet carries on after the letter C.
With my rediscovered nastiness and aloofosity (it's clever to make up words) I'm ready for a new season of blogging. I have a whole bag of rants ready to come kicking and screaming into cyberspace. It's hard to be angry and not share it, so I share it, here, with you.

Next time: The phrase "fiscal stimulus", and what Gordon Brown can do with it.