h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As a very long term English teacher... (I started in 1965 and retired seven years ago, although I'm still doing on-line marking)...
I would point out that these are PETTY hates. It's perfectly reasonable for anyone to hate individual words or endings and not use them. I tend to avoid 'ergonomic' and 'hedge' myself.

I hate the word incentivise - and plenty of other proper words!

More PH: neologisms and malapropisms.

Sometimes I wish English standard usage were established the that of the French language is, by means of legislation.

On 'ergonomics', its an outgrowth of early 20th century efficiency planning.

A classic example, an attempt to organize a laundry on the same lines as assembly line one task per worker, failed, the reason being that being forced to stand over an ironing board doing nothing but ironing, rather than each worker performing all the tasks required on any given item, rotating between tasks, the workers would develop intolersbly painful muscle cramps and productivity would collapse.

'Ergonomics' is conceived as the process of making the task as painless and pleasant as possible, working in harmony with the natural capacities and limitations of the human form.

Yes, Mr. X, chocoholic is a "real" word. But it's a very stupid word.

I'm not against neologisms, but some new words are better than others. And yes, this is explicitly a PETTY hate. My problem with chocoholic and shopaholic is that they use a suffix that arbitrarily splits the word alcoholic. In my logic it would make more sense for these words to be "chocolatic" and "shopic" since it's the suffix "ic" that turns "alcohol" into "alcoholic". But then again, shopic is an ugly word and I'd probably pettily hate that word too.

I confess I quite like chocoholic, workaholic and shopaholic. There's something playful about comparing these non-addictions with a serious one.

But they're probably approaching their sell-by date now.

Chocolatic - hiccups induced by the consumption of too much chocolate.

Diarise.

What an abomination for a word!

I have to admit to having used it once and then to poke fun at a colleague.

The poke was missed - he just thought I was talking normally and as I said it I felt a bit of a .

Backfired.

PP.

I'm not familiar with the term, so I looked it up.


It is a dreadful, tinny word.

I am assuming it's something to do with writing diaries. Although it sounds awfully close to something to do with the digestive system.

Farcebook.

I know that Farcebook has been done to death here over and over, but I am specifically niggled by the way that the notion of logging onto a website should be done using a Farcebook log in. Please remove the massive 'Log in with Farcebook' button from websites so that I don't have to complain about it here.

Presumably this is so that everybody that is stalking you or you are stalking on Farcebook knows that you are playing Candy Crush / logging onto your BNP account / looking at pictures of naked women / downloading knitting patterns.

PP.

Hey! I've been on Facebook for years and I've never once downloaded a knitting pattern

Well, I think I accidentally stumbled upon one once, but I left immediately.

"I would point out that these are PETTY hates. It's perfectly reasonable for anyone to hate individual words or endings and not use them."


I know. I'm just sayin', you can't claim they aren't "real" words.

And that's a perfectly good petty hate.

it's International Women's Day.

And therefore, as usual, I spent my journey to work tweeting back to *certain people*

Yes there is. It's 19th November.
Yes, there was a hashtag
Yes, lots of us non-men joined in and used it to raise awareness about men's health issues, in particular men's mental health issues
No, nobody is organising it for you. Get out there and do it yourself
Yes, if you contact facebook / google / twitter you will probably also have a reminder / doodle / hashtag all of your own
Seriously, do it yourself. I have enough on my hands tackling very real issues that affect women
#NotAllFeminists
and
Stop it - this day is for and about women. Take your precious snowflake fragile male ego and bleat about it another day.

I can't think of anything so ghastly as having ones own special day to talk about men's health issues. I hope yours is a lot more fun!

It is also British Pie Week this week. But how much attention do people pay to these 'National/International X Days' really?

<BB<

it's only one thing that gets talked about though
I also talk about beer and football on that day

International Women's Day is a celebration going back well over a century, though. It's not quite the same thing as "British Pie Week" or "National Bring-your-pet-to-work Day".

I really wish people would educate themselves about the history of it a bit. It's a slightly-more-than-petty hate that they don't.

Here's an SMBC comic for International Women's Day. Not so good for Redhead's Day.

http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=4039

I used to love getting bunches of flowers on 8th March when I worked in the old communist countries. Much as I love my sons, I'd far rather celebrate International Women's Day than Mother's Day.