Tag: words

Toasted Sandwich Naked

This isn’t my What Three Words location, although a good one to have as my actual one is not very memorable and certainly won’t spring to mind if I am shipwrecked, stuck up a mountain or just lost in Ikea’s one way customer flow.

Never a cross word

It is also not a crossword clue for a Danish Open sandwich. It was actually an unfortunate message I sent to one of my sons and his fiance. I was at the top of ladder at home clearing our attic and found various items of possible use to the next generation and decided the best way of determining if it stayed there or was destined for a new home was a quick What’s App to ask the question as and when I found items. The message ‘Do you want a toasted sandwich maker?’ becoming ‘Do you want a toasted sandwich naked’ unfortunately was a result of auto-correct and my haste!

I do actually have to confess to an earlier mishap with predictive text. Some years ago a more junior colleague was seeking my approval to attend a meeting in Latvia as I had already made it clear it had to be a low cost airline trip. When asked about what they could book for the journey, my text message of ‘you can only travel there by Air Baltic …unfortunately got corrected to…You can only travel there by…. air balloon caused some stress, calls to HR and the company’s insurance department!

Just a lot of hot air

Anyway, back on the home front…I think the wedding is still on but some doubt as to whether any thoughts of a father of the groom speech being a good idea …..

Anemometer..not an easy word to spell or say!

I have an anemometer in my garden, part of a small weather station and to be open and honest, I am a bit of a weather geek. In the uk we often get 4 seasons in 1 day so its actually quite good to have a measure of what is going.

However anemometer is a difficult word to pronounce let alone spell. In English we happily use words of Greek or Latin origin… in this case the Greek word for wind, Anemos. In German they make life a bit easier for themselves and call it a ‘wind messer’…ie a wind measurer. Germans not only are good at cars, beer and sausages…they have some great ‘say it how it is words’ this being one of them.

Anyway back to the anemometer and my ‘obsession’ with the weather. One day a family member on hearing me quoting a weather statistic (that admittedly was probably verging on the soporific) prompted an outburst of ….”Oh you are such a….” and then the silence of realisation that there is no obvious word in the English language that describes this overheated fascination with the weather.

After a little research the simple answer is that the English language doesn’t have one. Strange as we have words for perhaps lesser interests e.g. those embroiled in all matters French (Anglophile) or even booklovers (Bookworms) but for an almost national obsession…nothing!

Why this blog? Click to find out more….

The bees knees….

My grandfather was a doctor and naturally inquisitive and always striving to learn more. Even with something as simple as looking up a word in the dictionary he said you should whilst the book is open read the entry above and the entry below. In this way you will learn more things, admittedly maybe not things you need to know, but that might enrich you.

In the electronic world we live in some will argue that these opportunities don’t arise now…but I disagree. In our news feeds etc. there are often adjacent articles that may catch our eye and will be worth our attention.

I can testify to this as recently as yesterday. The said adjacent article intrigued me…’Large Investment for Bee Network’.

From more detailed scrutiny I learnt of a brave and bold initiative to create 1000’s of miles of cycle tracks in the Manchester (England) area including links to major tourist areas , city centre and outlyng towns to revolutionise cycling in the city.

Now I don’t live in Manchester, not really cycle that much but I do strongly support anything that gets people outside, doing healthy stuff and reducing polution so a tick in all three boxes there. I also embrace any kind of good news story so for this alone, I thank my grandfather. Manchester has been in the worldwide news spotlight in the past but for very troubling reasons – most recently the terrorist attacks at the Ariana Grande concert in the city’s arena.

Oh, and in case you are wondering why the name Bee network? The bee has been the symbol of Manchester seen in city emblems since the 1800’s representing it’s tradition as an industrious city. A very apt name for the evolution of transport in this resilient and growing city.

Sometimes in life you need to go and find the good news, it doesn’t come to you.

Why this blog? Click to find out more….

%d bloggers like this: