Secret Weather

Every once in a while, someone you know will make an outlandish prediction about the weather. They will say: “It’s going to be 40 degrees on Thursday.” They will state it as a fact.

Bear in mind that this person is talking about the United Kingdom. In modern times the temperature has not reached 40 degrees centigrade once in this country. It’s not always hot weather – this is just an example. Sometimes it’s: “Three feet of snow are going to fall tomorrow”. Or even just: “It’s going to be 20 degrees” during the depths of winter.

To return to the 40 degree prediction, your only possible response is: “No, it isn’t”. Try as you might to remain mute. Their statement is too ludicrous to let slide. They will then respond with the age-old, childhood argument: “Yes, it is”.

At this point, you have a choice to make. Maintain the yes–no style of debate and wear them down or delve for more information with: “Where did you hear that?” Omitting the ‘...tremendous pile of shite’, end to the sentence. They will say: “They said on the weather.”

What weather? What meteorologist worth his weight in toenail clippings predicts 40 degree heat in Britain? With our climate they’re going out on a limb by saying ‘occasional sunny spells’ or ‘mostly showers’. To resolutely prophesise temperatures exceeding that of the human body would be a sackable offence.

On Friday, when you have shivered your way through the hottest day since records began, you will say: “I see it didn’t quite make 40 yesterday.” To which they will answer: “I know. The weatherman got it wrong again.” Hardly surprising really. Is he wrong when he tells you what to say? Is he wrong when he tells you to steal things? Was he wrong when he told you to set fire to the job centre?

H

In theory, I believe that there is no right and wrong in language so long as you are understood. In practice, the eighth letter of the alphabet is my bête noir.

I’ll clear this up once and for all with reference to the dictionary:

“Aitch – the eighth letter of the alphabet.”

What do you notice? Nothing? – Well done. The fact that some moronic dictionary-writer has omitted the initial H? – Strike yourself firmly in the eye with a sharp object.

It is not ‘haitch’. Even writing it makes me sneer and practice stabbing movements with both hands. Of course it’s ‘haitch’, you say. Why wouldn’t it have the letter that it represents at the start? What kind of an argument is that? You mean like W?

Be wrong to your heart’s content, defy the English language whenever you wish. Just don’t get it wrong and think that you’re right. Face it – you spend your whole life dropping Hs from words. That’s fine. Why do you feel the need to suddenly insert one? Are you trying to prove a point? You are doing.

Pyramid Tea Bags

There are circumstances where innovation is redundant. The tea bag works. There is no need to change it. Its sole function is in the creation of a cup of tea – a duty it fulfils without fail. Making a tea bag pyramid-shaped is of no conceivable benefit. The tea is identical.

Those who market pyramid tea bags would have you believe that the infusion is more rapid. Who are you who can’t wait for a cup of tea? If you do struggle with this Job-like test of patience, then scrunch the bag with a teaspoon.

Jamiroquai

Mostly it’s the singer, JK, but I’ve included the entire band due to their unjustifiably self-satisfied music.

I am both bored with their songs and boiling over with hatred for them. You might think that these emotions are mutually exclusive. They’re not. I hate how bored of them I am and I’m simultaneously bored of how much I hate them. It’s a rare feat to be that objectionable. I can’t even work it out myself, but I don’t need to as there’s no danger that I’m confusing any of these feelings for love. They say it’s a fine line between love and hate, but frankly that’s balls. I hate the music of Jamiroquai.

To cap it all off and to lower themselves below those guilty of war crimes, Jamiroquai’s musicians recruited the world’s most arrogant fawn as their singer. There is only one reason why JK could possibly be so pleased with himself and remain convinced of his talent – that reason is monumental stupidity.

With the physical build of a bipedal vole, the well-spaced teeth of a child’s drawing and the beard of a child, he yelps, pirouettes and side-steps his way through the realms of our collective purgatory. The only thing worse than a prick of such phenomenal magnitude is one who is ignorant of his own pointlessness. And he uses initials instead of a name. Who does he think he is that he doesn’t need a name?

Maybe we can get some satisfaction from his dancing by chasing him all the way to Johannesburg with a pointed stick. A very pointed stick. Then we could leave him twirling the keys to his sports car before seeing if Johannesburg’s street crime fraternity are won over by his antics.

Acronyms

I’m not going to mention any acronyms by name – that would only mean that they have won.

The principle of the acronym is relatively sound. Make a new word from the initial letters of a commonly used term. It saves time and you can also marvel at the outrageous fortune whereby these initial letters form something pronounceable rather than a casualty from the Russian dictionary. Unfortunately, the world has gone acronym mad.

These days there are a number of ways in which an acronym can be tainted by its creator. They can name an organisation or activity specifically to create an acronym. This is unforgivable as the organisation’s proper name is so unwieldy and non-descriptive that only the acronym is used.

Another technique in creating a catchy acronym is to bend the rules and sometimes use the first two or three letters of one of the words in the term instead of merely the initial letter. Well I’m sorry, but there is no bending of the rules here – just breaking them. If it’s not just initial letters, it’s not an acronym. Get out and take your pathetic excuse for an abbreviation with you.

The other factor counting against acronyms is their ubiquity. Every tin-pot three-membered organisation or society has an acronymical name for a start, but within each of these, every action, every policy, every job has been given some ludicrous upper-case title. Never mind that nobody understands it and what it actually stands for has been lost in the dark pages of the grim spiral-bound rulebook. Whenever these organisations are forced to communicate with the real world, they litter communication with these abbreviations as if they’re real words and treat you like a half-wit for not recognising them or remembering all ten thousand of them.

I read an article in the paper the other day where a borough council member turned the titles of every council report into an acronym. These are reports with titles like: ‘External investigation into traffic-flow to and from Whateley Road.’ This kind of thing makes a bad acronym in the first place, but worse than that, he listed a series of reports while making a point, all of them in the form of acronyms, not one of them explained. I don’t work for the council. How do I know what they are? I was less than convinced, so I have written him a letter countering his assertions, citing a number of fictitious reports produced using a random letter generator. As far as anyone outside the council is concerned, my argument is equally as strong as his.

Actioning

It is becoming increasingly common in management circles to use nouns as verbs. There are many nouns which do function as verbs (‘function’ being one) and it has always been one way in which new verb forms have entered the language.

‘Text’ is one such word. Up until relatively recently ‘text’ was just words on a page. Nowadays, you can ‘text’ your friends or Mick Hucknall or whoever’s telephone number you know, provided that you have a mobile phone. This expansion of meaning to become a verb is acceptable as it is the best option available. You can’t just start saying: “Yeah, I marmed my friend”, with ‘marmed’ meaning ‘texted’ it just doesn’t work like that. ‘Text’ as a verb serves a purpose. It filled a niche.

What is unacceptable – and by ‘unacceptable’, I mean, punishable by the forced removal of a hand – is the use of a noun as a verb where there is already a verb available for use. Now why would anyone do this? Why would anyone say: ‘Please action the following,’ before giving a list of instructions? Why? Because they’re a twat – that’s why.

Whenever anyone uses the term ‘actioning’ they are doing so to sound smarter than they are. What they are actually doing is showing everyone that they struggle to eat unaided. You perform an action. You don’t action one. All they mean is ‘do’. Nobody’s fooled. Just because we can’t read your instructions doesn’t mean that we’re dense. It means you can’t write and are trying to make simple things sound complex. This is because you’ve never achieved anything complex, like retaining drool through the ‘closed mouth’ technique.

Please take care when:
Actioning the readage of the above textualisation.
Actioning an enwalkment circumferating the municipal parkery.
Actioning a defecatory relinquishment of anal surplusness.
Actioning the extractification of one’s cranial appendage from encasement within one’s rectalment.