My latest rant

Sometimes I just need to rant. Be afraid, you are my captive audience.

I’ve got a bone to pick with someone

What’s that sound I hear? Probably my dear old mum spinning in her grave.

Well OK, she was cremated so that analogy isn’t quite right, but you get my drift.

Gotten … can you believe it? GOTTEN? The past tense of get is GOT, not gotten.

It appeared in the headline of a travel story I clicked on the other day, and out of curiosity, I did a quick search on Stuff for “gotten”. Holy crap, there were dozens of them! There were 10 pages of results, and in just the first three I found 14 used incorrectly (ie: not in a direct quote or as part of the term “ill-gotten”, which is a whole different kettle of proverbial fish).

GOTTEN? Goddamit … it’s everywhere.

I started my working life as a proof-reader before I moved on to being a sub-editor, and the importance of not using weird Americanisms is something I learned early on in my working life. Even before I started my working life, in fact, thanks to the language rules hammered in to me by my aforementioned dear old mum.

And once I embarked upon the grown-up world of working, it was the legendary Jim Valli who continued to shape my respect of the English language.

I feel incredibly lucky to have had the two of them help me hone my craft, and it saddens me when I see the sloppiness that is slowly but surely taking hold when it comes to the written word.

Let’s be clear, though: I don’t consider myself a “grammar Nazi”. That title, which so many others proudly claim, is just a wee bit obnoxious: I care about the language, I’m not a fascist or an arsehole about it. I might be an arsehole about other things (in fact, I’d pretty much put money on it), but not when it comes to the language.

Why?  Well, if you are an average Joe Bloggs posting on Facebook or leaving a comment on a message board or news story and you mix your tenses, misspell a word or even do something dodgy with an apostrophe, I’ll just ignore it and carry on with my day because your inability to get shit right doesn’t really have an impact on me. Well … OK, so I will probably silently judge you before moving on, but I don’t care enough to shame you online and so long as what you’ve written is actually in some sort of readable form, I’ll deal with it.

Unless, of course, you are taking the piss out of someone else for getting something wrong. In that case, you are fair game.

That all changes when it comes to those who are paid to give us accurate, correct information: publishers of all news media, and of books. If they get it wrong, I get upset. Especially when it’s the news media getting it wrong.

GOTTEN? Holy crap, yuck.

It really does hurt my feelings because it’s my chosen industry, my chosen career. I cringe every time I see a glaring error, because as the people who we want to buy our product become more and more disillusioned and complain about falling standards, every error makes it more difficult to defend.

Any-hoo, back to “gotten”.

Let’s get Oxford to clear it up, shall we?

Usage

As past participles of get, got and gotten both date back to Middle English. The form gotten is not used in British English but is very common in North American English. In North American English, got and gotten are not identical in use. Gotten usually implies the process of obtaining something, as in he had gotten us tickets for the show, while got implies the state of possession or ownership, as in I haven’t got any money.

So there you go Stuff, it’s not a word: not for normal, English-speaking New Zealand. It used to be way back in the olden days in dear old Pomgolia (ie: England), but not for century or two.

Of course, Americans use it, along with a whole bunch of other words that we also don’t use. Such as mom. And covfefe.

Ugh, gotten. I feel like I need to go wash my mouth out with soap.

Only one pig in this story …

Gareth "Moggy" MorganGareth “Cat Killer” Morgan is at it again, showing us all how to win friends and influence people.

And yes, that was sarcasm on my part.

Our favourite tanty-throwing political wannabe has had a crack at Jacinda Ardern, comparing her to “lipstick on a pig”.

How much longer do we have to put up with this over-inflated, irrelevant dinosaur?

 

How about we worry about the REAL issue

Over the past week or so there has been a good bit of whinging over the planned name of a new organisation that aims to help vulnerable children in this country.

The old Child Youth and Family is being shut down so it can be replaced with a new agency next year: the Ministry for Vulnerable Children.

The Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft is having a moan: the name is, apparently, “cripplingly disappointing”. And Labour’s Children’s spokesperson Jacinda Ardern says the new department should improve the well being of “every child” not just those labelled as “vulnerable”.

FFS, what is wrong with these people? We have an appalling record of child deaths in this country. Far too many of our kids are killed by those who should be caring for them: of course they are fecking vulnerable. And of course those kids who are vulnerable need more help than others.

Instead of bleating over the name of the organisation, how about looking at WHY there are so many people abusing their children.

And don’t blame poverty, don’t blame society, don’t blame the government, don’t blame the music they listen to: blame those who are doing the damage. Blame the people who are hurting their kids.

We need to stop encouraging everyone to play the victim card and start making them take some responsibility for their own actions.

Our kids deserve to be safe. And the people who hurt them deserve to be held accountable.

ONLINE
Planned ‘Ministry for Vulnerable Children’ labelled ‘stigmatising’ and ‘cripplingly disappointing’

And the winner is … Chorus

Business concept isolated on white

The gushing news reports would have us believe that everyone in Dunedin is celebrating their little corner of the world winning the much-hyped Gigatown competition but let’s be honest: it’s Chorus that should be doing all the celebrating.

This year-long marketing “competition” was a brilliant marketing ploy for the company: the lovely citizens of the various towns and cities wanting access ultra-fast broadband took part in quizzes and promotions that used the “gigatown” tag, and directly promoted Chorus. In return, they got the opportunity to be the town finally selected for the big Gigatown deal.

I’m not saying that ultra-fast broadband wouldn’t be an awesome outcome, and getting it for a while at a reduced cost is even better. And the $200,000 development fund and $500,000 community fund Chorus is offering is the icing on the cake. But really, how good is that proverbial cake? The publicity Chorus has received from this competition is phenomenal, with news stories popping up everywhere each week to keep the momentum going. How much would that level of promotion over the course of a year have cost the company? I’m betting a lot more than the probably-tax-deductible $700K they’ve stumped up for those two funds.

There’s no doubt Dunedinites will benefit from getting UFB, and getting it at a discount is not to be sneezed at. However, we already pay too much for fairly average broadband in this country so in reality, the prize is probably more of a “UFB at the price it should be” offer.

Congratulations Dunedin. And congratulations Chorus: I’m not having a dig at you guys for running a marketing campaign masquerading as a competition, because that’s how all giveaways work. However, dragging it out for an entire year or more is pretty impressive.

Weather or not you believe it …

The whole global warming debate continues, and while it’s hard to see it as global warming when we froze our collective arses off here in New Zealand last summer (but had an almost tropical winter), there is no doubt that something dodgy is happening to our climate.

So let’s call it climate change, which covers all the weather wonkiness and makes it easier to comprehend for those who stick their nose out the door on a chilly day and proceed to bitch about what a crock global warming is because “it’s so cold” and that they can’t believe how cold it is in Southland all the time. Because, of course, their short-term memories have been frozen into a state of malfunction by all the cold weather last summer that so they conveniently forgot the incredibly mild winter and pretty spectacular spring of the year before. Oh, and the awesome autumn we enjoyed this year.

But I digress. Sea levels are rising, average temperatures are up and greenhouse gases are at 800,000-year highs. Bugger.

In this video, Hank Green (my favourite geek) from SciShow explains an October 2013 report by the United Nations about global warming and tells us five things we really need to know about our warming world.

Yes indeed, it is getting warmer.

Ice, ice baby


It seems like everyone in celebrity-land is jumping on the ice challenge bandwagon at the moment, with a raft of famous faces taking part in a soggy challenge in the name of a good cause.

And it has to be said: Bill Gates has geekified the whole thing and taken it to a new level.

Do I detect a spot of deja vu? Didn’t we already do that here? OK, so our watery warriors were acting in the name of the Cancer Foundation and the northern hemisphere Johnny-come-latelys are raising awareness of ALS, but you get my drift.

For anyone who may have been residing under a rock for the last little while, the ice bucket challenge involves dumping a bucket of ice water on your head to promote awareness, and to encourage people to donate to the cause. If you do the challenge, you also get to nominate others.

Celebrities have taken to it like the proverbial duck to (icy) water and the ice bucket challenge has exploded on social media.

Unfortunately, there has also been a lot of grumbling about it all online, with complaints about it being a waste of water, the whole slacktivism argument and reminders that we’d be better off just donating to the cause.

While I usually agree with anyone who pokes a sharp stick at slacktivism, in this case I reckon it’s pretty inoffensive. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or motor neurone disorder, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) is a terrible illness that offers little more than a grim and short life for those diagnosed with it. Every muscle in the body eventually atrophies until the sufferer dies

Awful, truly awful.

A friend of my in-law’s died from this disease and each time they visited her they saw her struggle more and more just to swallow, to speak. Just to breathe.

It’s also relatively rare, so anything that raises awareness has got to be a good thing. Awareness means there is more chance of research, and the more research there is, the better the chance of one day finding a cure and/or prevention.

While I’d like to hear that all those well-paid celebs uploading their cutsie videos are also chucking a few dollars at the research fund, I can’t feel to peeved about them putting the spotlight on this disease.

Slacktivism normally bugs the living crap out of me, particularly when it’s done via Facebook or other social media sites. You know what I mean: the stupid, pointless status updates about how there are people in this world with [insert illness/fear/whatever here] and how if you are brave enough you’ll copy and paste this post into your own status to show your support. Ooooh, yes, very supportive.

Or the equally stupid, equally pointless cryptic updates that involve mention of the colour of your undies, or some outrageous statement about being knocked up to raise awareness of breast cancer but with the warning to not let the men in your life in on the secret, just to make it fun. Um, sure. Because we all know breast cancer’s fun, right? And cryptic messages that we keep secret from half the population? What an awesome way to raise awareness.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

The ice bucket challenge is raising awareness. Let’s just hope it also raises some cash.

Oh, and really northern hemisphere dudes, us Kiwis were a tad tougher about the whole thing, it being the middle of winter and all!

 

The stench of oversharing

(This is the Online column, written for The Southland Times)

What would Benjamin Franklin make of all this interweb malarkey?

During a chat about the perils of Facebook this week, a workmate reminded me of the old saying that compares houseguests and fish, but I reckon the internet has given Benjamin Franklin’s famous quote even more oomph.

The United States founding father and inventor of the lightning rod and bifocals said that both fish and visitors stink after three days but I suspect that if @bennyF happened to be around today he would extend his range of things that stink to the pleasingly alliterative families, friends and Facebook. And perhaps he would shrink that timeline, too, because three days is a tad generous when it comes to smug status updates, drama queen moves and pointless hashtagging.

It’s a strange old world we now live in, where social networking via Facebook and Twitter means we know a whole lot of stuff about almost total strangers and even more about our nearest and dearest. And that can make things more than a little uncomfortable.

There’s that person you followed or friended because you met them at a friend’s party or they made an interesting comment on a friend’s Facebook or Twitter feed: suddenly you are getting all their updates and know the intimate details about their life that should really be saved for those who know them well. One person who friended me after a chance meeting via a mutual friend-of-a-friend and a cold beer shared with the world every angry word between her and her then-partner, the perils of menstrual cramps, a three-week battle with thrush, an ongoing comparison of the best home cures for constipation for those following the Atkins diet, her brother’s relationship woes, her thoughts on the pedigree of the aforementioned brother’s “cheating slapper of a girlfriend” and the financial crisis facing one of her colleagues. Until she popped up on Facebook, I didn’t even know her last name or where she worked, but after hitting that little button to accept her friend request I knew far more than I ever wanted to about her life, and the lives of those around her.

After just a couple of weeks, I quietly deleted and blocked her and hope to never run across her again.

But perhaps even worse that the over-sharing semi-stranger is the over-sharing family members. It’s easy enough to block someone you don’t really know but when family members are littering your feed with drivel you’d rather not have to read, it can be a lot more awkward. It’s all about attention seeking, from their I’m at the gym/my child is a genius updates to the endless photographs of every boring, mundane meal they stuff into their gobs, or those cryptic “life is so hard” posts designed to have everyone asking in their very best pretend-concerned-online-voice: oh, are you OK 🙁

I don’t care about your latest sweaty efforts at the gym, I don’t care that you believe your child is some sort of prodigy (besides, my cat is a genius and furry, that’s even better), and I certainly don’t care about your Sunday roast. Sure, if you’ve been to an awesome new restaurant, share your thoughts. Or if you’ve just had an amazing degustation menu, show us all a photo or three. But if you’ve just dished up meat and two veg? No one needs to see that.

And if you ever feel compelled to make one of those drama queens posts telling the world how hard things are for you, then when a concerned friend or followers asks if you’re OK you reply with “I don’t want to talk about it”, be prepared to be unfriended. You aren’t Greta Garbo and you really aren’t that interesting.

Small victory for fat chicks

Radio presenter Rachel Smalley found herself in the poo after a not-so-timely comment or two this week but it was her attempt to weasel her way out of it that offended me.

Smalley thought her mic was turned off after a news story about the effectiveness of an emergency contraceptive pill for women weighing more than 70kg. Obviously gravely offended by the knowledge that the average New Zealand bloke-ess weighs in at  (gasp) 72kg, she was heard to comment that we Kiwi chicks are “heifers” and a “bunch of lardos”.

Outrage ensued both online and off, and Smalley did the cliched “apology” thing: I’m so sorry, please forgive me, yada, yada, yada …

But let’s be honest here: she was apologising because she was caught out, not because she felt bad about what she said. Because if that had been the case, she wouldn’t have said it in the first place.

As someone who falls into the slightly more generously proportioned category, I’m not particularly offended by her comments. I am, however, offended by yet another person in the public eye who has cocked up and expects us to believe that suddenly, they have seen the error of their ways and want us to forgive them.

On Facebook, several people commented that Paul Henry has said worse. And yes, he has. And I have no doubt he will continue to say things that offend the masses. However, at least he owns it. Love him or hate him, there’s no denying the man says what he thinks and would never consider offering a bullshit apology just to stay in the good books.

I’d have had more respect for Smalley if she’d just told all us heifers to fuck off and eat a pie.

ON THE WEB

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