Posts by JoJo

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  • Up Front: Girls Can Do Anything. You…,

    I keep expecting her to say something like 'do you know what the penalty for an overdue library book is, Mr Booth?'

    Best line in Bones . EVER.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 95 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: The Missus,

    I have a sneaking suspicion that this is an underlying concern for those against same-sex marriage: "What's the role of a wife, when there is no husband?!".

    I'm sure my mum is quietly worried about who will save whom from spiders when my girl and I get CUed. Like we're both going be standing on a chair screaming to the other one "GET IT!".

    Don't mind me, y'all - I'm just cracking myself up here.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 95 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: Absence of Malice,

    Hawke's Bay, early 1990s. Wagging. (But thanks for the Grange Hill memory-nudge Tom.)

    I never did it because I hated the consequences - I knew I'd get caught by someone, whether parents or teachers. They had pretty good attendance systems, so could quickly check whether someone was acceptably absent or wagging.

    But I found that as a fairly intelligent, academically lazy dissenter, I could rebel in other ways. Creating general havoc by protesting against teachers' actions was much more fun than wagging to watch American soaps. And if you were clever about it, they couldn't punish you with detention.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 95 posts Report Reply

  • Island Life: Abusage,

    In American English, a "factoid" is a small fact, so we're just adopting their (incorrect, ugly, unnecessary, irritating) jargon. But in UK English, which my organisation claims to use as standard, it means a lie that's been repeated often enough to be convincing.

    I prefer "word geek" to "pedant"...

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 95 posts Report Reply

  • Island Life: Abusage,

    At the risk of revealing myself as a public servant ... one of our managers loves to use the word "factoid", mistakenly believing it to mean a small fact. She kept asking me to write a memo giving some factoids from a piece of research.

    I had to check that she didn't really want me to write a memo containing incorrect information that had been repeated often enough that people thought it was true.

    And we're "going forward into the future" here. It makes me want to beat my head against a wall.

    Wellington • Since Jul 2008 • 95 posts Report Reply

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