Monday listings

[jadesfire]

There may be actual content later. Or not. We'll see how we go.

In the meantime, some links that came up this morning and I thought you might like:

Asus and Intel invite people to design their ideal computer

Clive James has some news on the next Bond film (remember to bring your pinch of salt to this article ;))

Councils try to ban the use of Latin. I have mixed feelings about this one. Some phrases *are* confusing, although you can normally work out what they mean from context. But "e.g." and "etc" shouldn't be, I wouldn't have thought. It's trickier than it sounds from the headline, shockingly [/sarcasm]

Secrets of Great Characters according to 6 sci-fi authors. Great, great advice on building characters and worlds for them, applicable to all writing, not just science-fiction. Including contributions from Elizabeth Bear and Kim Stanley Robinson.

Comments

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

I did have a campaign years ago to stop the revenues department using legal latin (and legal English) to defaulters, because most defaulters barely have a grasp on English.

"When you appeared in court on the 29th of November, your case was adjourned. Unless you have continued to pay £23.50 per week, you must appear in court on 7th January."

Guess what - every single recipient of the letter containing that phrase rang up to find out if they should appear in court. "Unless you have continued to pay" is apparently a subjunctive tense. Woo hoo!

[jadesfire2808.livejournal.com]

...oh dear... It's most inconsiderate of the English language to do all these strange things...

I do understand wanting to make things clearer, and generally approve, although taking out even things like "etc" and "eg" seems a little extreme. Mind you, I often underestimate people's ability to misunderstand things. Also "council does something that actually helps people" doesn't make such a good headline ;)

[hellenebright.livejournal.com]

True, too true

"Council bans non-muslim Members from eating during Ramadan" sounds so much better than "Council asks non-muslim members not to scoff everything at the start of the meeting, so non-muslim members have nothing to eat at sunset" (real example, not my Council)