Bollystolly

Heteropterus morpheus underside

Golden Chapel at Pouey-Laün

I'm here as a wikignome. I took the moniker from the British tv series Absolutely Fabulous - Patsy Stone was infamous for her alcohol abuse and her favourite pick-me-up of Bollinger champagne and Stolichnaya vodka or 'bollystolly' as Patsy would call it. I could never afford Bollinger, but vodka was a great favourite until the doctor told me to quit.

I grew up on the southern edge of greater London and just managed to get a third-class science degree from City University London. I became fed up with England under the Wilson then Heath governments, especially with the enforced three-day weeks Heath oversaw. London was quite unpleasant due to the IRA's bombings, and unions caused me some difficulties. So my wife and I sold up, bought a Land Rover, and set off with the intention of driving to Cape Town and shipping to Australia. We got as far as Johannesburg, where I found a job as science writer with the National Institute for Metallurgy now Mintek. Thanks to their editors, I became fairly passionate about speling and gramer.

Then I spent many years as a freelance writer specialising in direct mail before opening a B&B on Westbrook Beach, south of Ballito.

Naturally, I voted yes in the 1992 referendum but became so disillusioned with the ANC mob that I chose to get out. Worth noting perhaps that, under the ANCpf, the SA currency plummeted from better than four to the US dollar in 1995 to almost sixteen in 2016. In short, I couldn't afford to go back to England so ended up here in the Hautes-Pyrenees department of France, north of Tarbes.

Having nothing better to do with my time when the weather's bad, I decided to work on wikipedia pages, many of which need a touch of blue pencil. You'll see below a very few of the things that irritate.

I also had a stab at starting a new page - Jules Browde - who died at the end of May 2016. He was a friend of Nelson Mandela's (and acted for him) as well as a founder member of Lawyers for Human Rights. Definitely a person deserving to be remembered by Wikipedia.

When I'm not at my desk, you might find me out and about with my camera photographing butterflies or churches. I have a good number of pics on Flickr and Panoramio for Google Earth. The pics on this page are of the Golden Chapel of Pouey-Laün[1] and the large chequered skipper.

Sovereign states I've visited (26; bold shows those in which I have had fixed addresses) roughly in chronological order:

England—Wales—Ireland—Scotland—France

Switzerland—Gibraltar—Spain—Morocco—Algeria—Niger

Nigeria—Cameroon—Gabon (my favourite)—São Tomé and Príncipe

Zimbabwe—Botswana—South Africa—Holland—Mozambique—

Namibia—Swaziland—Lesotho—Bophuthatswana

Portugal—Guinea-Bissau

My most memorable border crossing was, with a customer, from Lesotho to South Africa deep underground through part of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which boosts the flow of fresh water into the Vaal river. The Vaal is the main source of water for the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging industrial hub. My customer was providing the cement for the steam-cured concrete linings for the tunnels.

Misdirection

A syntactical error that seems to me to appear with increasing frequency is often flagged by a participle at the start of a sentence.

An example:

Having studied at Oxford as an undergraduate and Harvard University for his PhD, Bayley worked at MIT, Columbia University, and Texas A&M University. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagan_Bayley)

By extension, are we to assume that everybody who studied at Oxford as an undergrad and then gained a Harvard doctorate necessarily went on to work at MIT etc?

Clearly not, yet that is what the construction indicates. The relationship between the two ideas has been given a causal rather than temporal component.

The dangling participle need not be expressed:

Born in Cape Town to Gershon and Gaby Shapiro, Jonathan studied architecture at the University of Cape Town ... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Shapiro) - the 'Having been (born)' being understood.

The error is easily corrected. For instance, 'After studying at Oxford as an undergraduate and Harvard University for his PhD, Baylley worked at MIT, Columbia University, and Texas A&M University.

Because there is no clear link between parentage and university study, the second example is better split into the two separate ideas:

Jonathan was born in Cape Town to Gershon and Gaby Shapiro. He studied architecture at the University of Cape Town.

Is the error attributable to laziness? Is the author perhaps more interested in the flow of words rather than clarity?

Inversion

The topic of inverted word order is lengthy, but there is one form of it that grates ... as do many errors.

There it is ... as do many errors is an inversion of the correct order. The phrase should read as many errors do, with the verb following the subject.

Where the clause introduced by as is wordy, the author might deliberately use inversion:

However, we are obliged to undertake certain closures and redundancies, as would be any enterprise that has to cater in a time of recession for a clientele at once very specialised and notoriously volatile.

If the verb would be were moved right to the end, the sentence would hardly be elegant. But that's not necessary. The verb does not have to follow the subject in its entirety. We can use it after enterprise without losing track of how the enterprise might be parallelled by others:

However, we are obliged to undertake certain closures and redundancies, as any enterprise would be that has to cater in a time of recession for a clientele at once very specialised and notoriously volatile.

But where somebody writes I dislike word inversion, as does any reader, there is no excuse at all.

One of the only

Have you noticed the phrase one of the only now in use by speakers and writers? If not, keep an ear or eye open and you'll become aware that it's used quite a lot. Increasingly, too. And if you think about it, the phrase is nonsensical. One of two makes perfect sense, and so do one of several, one of a thousand, one of many, and so on. If something is among very few others, it might be described as almost the only. But one of the only provides no idea whatsoever of proportion or ratio, since only in this construction could describer ten, a hundred, a million, or any other number.

For me, the phrase is one of many signs that people speak, and write, without thinking about the meaning of the words they're using.

However, some sources claim it's acceptable. Pass me the sick bag.

Comparatively higher (or lower)

In a technical report sent to me for editing were the terms comparatively higher and comparatively lower. I pencilled the words for the author's attention and asked why he had included the word comparatively, as higher and lower were already comparatives and needed no such qualification. He defended his position by saying that in his field the phrase had a special meaning that the unqualified adjectives failed to communicate. He could not explain further.

Being an adviser, I could do no more than recommend. I will never know whether he listened to me. He and other engineers seem to struggle to write what they mean and tend to use redundant words, complicated structures, and very long sentences. Editing their work can take time.

No unexpected problems are foreseen

This delightfully brain-twisting claim concluded a section towards the end of a technical report I edited. In a way, I hope the author ignored my recommendation and left his charming phrase intact. (My recommendation eludes me now; the brain twister never will.)

After the fact

A ewe thought to have been a contender for the title of world's oldest sheep has died after falling off a cliff.

A blackface ewe, nicknamed Methuselina, fell off a cliff on Lewis in the Western Isles. An ear tag showed she was 25 years and 11 months old, which made her the oldest sheep in the world and the story newsworthy enough for the BBC. So far so good. But the report fails to meet the who, what, where, when, why, and how demand of good reporting. We know who, what, where, and when (well, the report appeared on 28 February 2012), but we don't know why or how Methuselina died.

The BBC tells us she fell off a cliff. And after falling of a cliff, Methuselina died. Well, did she die of her injuries, of shock, a heart attack, old age? And for how long did she survive after the fall? Not important, the BBC deems.

Why couldn't the BBC simply tell us the animal died in a fall from a cliff? What's with this after the BBC (and some other sources) insist on? At least 15 people have died after a 6.7 magnitude quake struck the central Philippines ... A 38-year-old woman has died after her car crashed into a wall in Edinburgh on Monday evening. ... Man killed after car struck tree ... Man killed after being hit by car. Each is a headline from www.bbc.co.uk/news.

One of the worst must be At least 300 prisoners have been killed after a massive fire swept through a jail in Honduras .

A fire sweeps through a jail in Honduras, after which 300 prisoners are killed. By whom? Armed guards trying to stop them from escaping? We'll never know, if we rely on the BBC.

Each of these BBC reports presents a mystery ... an accident followed by a killing. An even bigger mystery: why this strange way to report accidental death?

More ...

BBC News (2011-03-19): Three children and an adult have been killed after a gunman riding a scooter opened fire on (a school)

The Irish Times (2012-03-20) - Garda sergeant killed after car hits Wicklow motorway barrier

CBC News (2012-03-19) - Cyclist killed after hit by truck on highway

Nation (ABC News) (2012-03-19) - Pregnant Woman Killed After Car Crashes Into Hotel Pool Cabana

The Washington Post (undated) - Police say 14 children killed after schoolbus falls into a pond in southern India

More ... (2015)

Two people killed after their car crashes into a tree in Minneapolis

Snowmobiler killed after crashing into tree.

Incidences

The use of 'incidences' where 'incidents' is the correct word is another gaffe that's on the increase.

Orientate

Orient is the correct word. Orientate is a back-formation from 'orientation'. Kill, kill!

References