Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Reviews: #NZGT and the Herald, in reply to martinb,
Feel like I need somewhere to mourn the tactility of broadsheet.
Fair enough. When in the UK, I'd go out every morning and buy the Berliner format Guardian and the broadsheet Daily Telegraph. Guess which one I tended to read first on the train?
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That aside, I quite like the redesign and the website is much cleaner.
There are things about website re-design that don’t work for me but nobody ever nails it straight out of the box. And to The Herald’s credit, yesterday they had people on Twitter monitoring reaction and making a serious effort to respond to qubbles and bitches in a useful way.
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Deborah Hill Cone, Rhys Darby and Jeremy Wells have all been allowed to use their New Zealand Herald columns to inform us, redundantly, that they were writing columns for the New Zealand Herald
I can understand the sheer terror of facing a blank page and an immovable deadline – who hasn’t? But the one time you abso-fraking-loutely shouldn’t be vamping until you hit your word count is your debut. What's even more mystifying about Hill Cone and Wells' feeble efforts is they’re not exactly blushing column virgins.
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Speaker: How the Key transcription gaffe…, in reply to Russell Brown,
It was an item about how homosexuals cause hurricanes.
I wish it was true - though one's Evil Namesake should be profoundly thankful it isn't. :)
So the point of this column? That it is possible to engage government(s) by online communication. After all, they are all made of people who put their trousers on one leg at a time.
Another takeaway from this: Admitting you fucked up, and putting your ego to one side while making a prompt good-faith effort to put things right? Yes, Internet, it can be done without undue trauma.
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Hard News: Before Lust, in reply to Emma Hart,
If we were all “sex is so boring and dull we’re all so over-exposed”, it should be no more controversial to say ‘vagina’ than to say ‘leg’.
And anyone who agrees with Larkin that sexual intercourse began "between the end of the Chatterley Ban / and the Beatles' first LP" needs to get out the house more. :) Our generation didn't invent sex (and the quite contrary treatment of it in culture high and low), and never has.
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Hard News: We ... WHAT!?, in reply to Collin2012,
I don’t buy that the Americans would purposefully change the Prime Minister’s words, that would be a real PR/diplomatic disaster.
Neither do I, but considering the Forum isn't exactly a fixture on the US State Secretary's calendar - and Clinton wasn't there to work on her tan - it's helpful to avoid gratuitous and easily avoidable offense.
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Hard News: We ... WHAT!?, in reply to Toby,
I’m trying to think how it would go down the other way round, ie if a NZ transcription of secretary of state put (bellicose) words in her mouth.
I suspect by now the Mandarins of Foggy Bottom would have extracted grovelling corrections and apologies from both McCully and Grosser with a blunt butter knife and a pair of eyebrow tweezers.
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Hard News: We ... WHAT!?, in reply to Danielle,
Remember the first time you ordered water in a restaurant over there? And the second time? And the third? And every other time until you just put on an American accent to save yourself some trouble? :)
Weird thing is I had not problems making myself understood in continental Europe where it was faintly embarrasing coming across people who spoke English like live-action Abba records, but England? Let's just say there's a pub in Greenwich where a barman and I were reduced to a state of excruciating mutual incomprehension. And no - speaking really really slowly and incredibly LOUD doesn't help. Not at all.
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Hard News: We ... WHAT!?, in reply to Phil Lyth,
No, not to a New Zild ear. But what if the transcription was being done back in the States by a person who has to contend with hearing English spoken in its many glorious forms from around the world?
Oddly enough, I expect the US State Department to hire from the other end of the gene poll to the "If American was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for those gud-darned wetbacks!" crowd. Just as I expect MFAT and the staff of our embassy and consulates in the US to be able to turn out accurate minutes/transcripts of non-trivial meetings with rebel colonists who don't speak proper English. :)
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Hard News: We ... WHAT!?, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Key really owes it to the world of diplomacy (and future generations) to improve his diction and to slow down when he talks -
Or, you know, The US State Department could, like, hire some people who were paying attention. Sorry, Ian, but listening to the audio Russell posted I don't see how any reasonable person could say Key's diction was at issue here.
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