Things I Wish People Wouldn't Say - 3

Ten to the Dozen

Everybody knows that it means really fast, as in "She was talking ten to the dozen", but why?  In fact, it doesn't.  As a dozen is twelve, doing something at a rate of ten to the dozen is a doing at two-twelfths below pace.  That's nearly 17% below normal.

I, and many other people, say "Nineteen to the Dozen" to convey the same meaning.  This is, in fact, the origin of "ten to the dozen", but I've yet to find a reasonable explanation, other then stupidity, for why the "ten" version came into existence.  There is a theory, to do with steam-powered pumping engines, that could raise 19,000 gallons of water for every 12 bushels of coal burnt - hence the nineteen to the dozen.

The obvious difference between the two phrases is that, if you'd never heard either of them before, you would expect nineteen to the dozen to be faster than normal, and faster than ten to the dozen.  90% faster in fact.

So, dear world, please stop saying "ten to the dozen" and let's get back to "nineteen to the dozen".

Rugger, bunkers and buzzards

On Monday, my lovely daughter, a living Angel of the North, came home from school with the news that she's going to be in the girls' rugby team, playing in the county schools tournament in 4 weeks' time.  All we need to do now is get her some boots, and teach her a bit about rugby.  Thus far, she's got away with understanding three basic concepts:

1. When they run at you, tackle them - which it seems she enjoys
2. When you have the ball, try to run past/through them - which it seems she enjoys even more
3. Only pass backwards - which she'd rather not do, as she's quite good at concept 2 (above)

The teacher has described her as "Fast with the ball", which backs up concept 2, I suppose?

I found all this out via text message while I was walking the dogs in the ever-approaching gloom on Greenham Common.  It's a strange place, with obvious connotations for anyone born more than 30 years ago.  The US Air Force left on 11th September 1992 (9/11 if you prefer), after 41 years, taking their nuclear arms and cruise missiles with them.  There is still considerable evidence of their time there, with many of the concrete bunkers still remaining behind triple layers of fencing, festooned with warnings of barbed/razor wire and a Thames Valley Police Dog training zone.  Missing from the area though, according to a study a few years ago, is any trace of abnormal radioactive activity.  Phew!

It's very popular with runners, probably due in no small part to the tidily laid paths that stay relatively well-drained.  Hence, I headed off-piste with the dogs into the gorse-ridden centre of the former runway (most of which was broken up and is now under the A34, apparently).  When in use, it was the longest military runway in Europe (over 10,000ft long - 3km), and now it makes a very long, if rather flat, area of common land.

I was gazing upwards, as I often do, and was watching a group of around 20 birds drifting northwards while circling clockwise (as viewed from below)*.   I was just trying to decide what sort of birds they were when they stopped their circling and headed off northwards as one.  I looked for a moment at the dogs, and then back upwards, spotting my new company.  A buzzard was gliding about 30ft above my head, using the brisk wind to keep its ground-speed very low.  I was treated to a good 20 seconds in its company as it twisted and twitched to maintain a more-or-less straight line before it made a 90 degree turn to starboard, using the wind to tear away from me on a broad reach.

A good start to the week, I think.

*Anyone that knows me well will know that I counted them.  There were 19, but "around 20" makes me sound less sad.

Things I Wish People Wouldn't Say - 2

"Me Neither"

Let me first say that I'm not trying to condemn what other people say, I just want to let you know what my thoughts on the matter are.  I may also suggest an alternative that would give me a frisson of excitement if I heard it uttered by someone else.  But, as I (and others) have so often been reminded in a couple of online places, language evolves, and dictionaries should be descriptive, not prescriptive.

That said, "Me neither" annoys me.  Not so much that I would physically twitch, or spend more than a millisecond considering it.  I certainly would never go so far as to "correct" someone for saying it.

The first thing that I might do differently is the pronunciation.  I've always preferred "either" and "neither" to rhyme with "scyther", rather than "seether".  Not only does this pronunciation seem to fit with the spelling (if we consider how a German would pronouce the "ei" combination), but it reflects the origins of the words around 800 years ago.  There's an immediate problem with this though.  "Me nyther" just doesn't flow as nicely as "Me neether", which has an almost pleasant internal rhyme.  I say "almost pleasant" because I find the "ee" sound to be a bit naff, but that's tremendously subjective, and not something I'd ever realised until I started writing this.  Let's carry on saying "Me neether" for now, as I've failed to convince myself that "Me nyther" is better.

Moving onto the other word, we're presented with an obvious problem.  In my experience, "Me neither" is generally used in this sort of conversation:

"I'm not going to Olivia's party tonight"

"Me neither"

That's where the problem arises. I don't know all the correct syntactical and grammatical terms, so I'm going to try to stick to layman's terms.  "I" is the subject of the first speaker, the person avoiding Olivia's party.  So, the second speaker wants to say the same thing, using two words to convey:

"I, also, am not going to Olivia's party"

This can then be gradually reduced without losing any meaning, because it inherits so much from the first speaker's statement.

"I, also, am not going to Olivia's party"

Let's get rid of the ugly commas

"I am not going to Olivia's party either"

Let's get rid of the repeated object

"I am not going either"

I can think of a word that means "not...either"

"Nor am I going"

Let's get rid of the repeated "going"

"Nor am I"

Let's get rid of the repeated "am"

"Nor I".

So there you have it; my preferrred version of "Me neither" is "Nor I".

Not only is it grammatically correct and has no ambiguity of pronunciation, it is a syllable shorter.  The only two downsides are that it has no internal rhyme, and that it would need changing to "Nor me" if the first speaker had said:

"Olivia hasn't invited me to her party."

As I mentioned earlier, I accept that "Me neither" is here to stay, but I would love it if someone said "Nor I" just once.

Things I Wish People Wouldn't Say - 1

"We don't mind, so long as it's healthy"


It's the standard response that is trotted out so often these days.  In the 1990s, it was almost de rigeur to find out the sex of your child before it was born, via the wonders of ultrasonic examination.  Now it seems to have become the fashion to do it the old-fashioned way, by counting bits and pieces when they come out.  Just as banjos are "in", so is "having babies the proper way".  There's even the anti-caesarian backlash, who regard having a baby extracted by surgical means to be cheating, and somewhat recherché - probably the same people who insist on organic vegetables. But I digress.

So, when a couple is asked if they want a boy or a girl, the standard answer is now "We don't mind, so long as it's healthy."  This is such an accepted phrase that the asker often feels inclined join in the last couple of words of the response, with a knowing nod and smile.

However, in light of the nation's recent celebration of all things Paralympian and wonderful, can this really continue to be a valid response?  How can we continue to demand good health as a basis of whether our child will be acceptable in our eyes? Would those trite words come back to haunt you if your child was born with a chronic condition, phsyical disability, or mental impairment? Of course, you'd still love your child, so why put pre-conditions on that love?  I'm always tempted to ask "So what would you do if it wasn't healthy? Have it adopted and try again?"  I've never said this of course, as I don't like being punched, and I quite like having friends. Despite everything, I quite like children too, so long as I'm allowed to talk to them properly.  Blimey, that's another massive subject, so I'll stop digressing again.

Perhaps the inspiration that was supposedly injected into a largely lethargic nation by the extraordinary physical and mental achievements of Paralympians will put a stop to this.  Perhaps the phrase will be replaced by "We don't care, so long as it's inspirational".  To be given the opportunity to use this phrase (no matter how ironically) is one of a very small handful of reasons I can think of to have more children.

I might share with you some day what some of the others are...

Crap Song Lyrics - 1

I just read an article on the NME web site with 50 crap lyrics, and I really thought they could have done much better. For example, "This is man's world, but it would be nothing without a woman or a girl" came in for criticism for neglecting 50% of the population.  Still, no-one ever said music journalists were intelligent.

In an effort to redress the balance in favour of truly crap lyrics, I'm going to start sharing some favourites of mine that I've discovered over the years. My particular favourites are unromantic lines in love songs...

Boys II Men - I'll Make Love to You
Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 weeks, and it won a Grammy too.  It does include this unfortunately unromantic pair of lines though:

Throw your clothes on the floor

I'm gonna take my clothes off too

Sounds like they're still Boyz to me.

JLS - Love You More

Jack the Lad Swing (did you know that?) is what the letters stand for, but they seem to lack a little imagination when it comes to sweet-talking the ladies.

Day one I first laid my eyes on you.

Day two I can't help but think of you.

Day three was the same as day two.

Day four I fell in love with you.

Seriously? "Day three was the same as day two?"  For today I'm going to ignore the ghastly stress on the word "the" that is induced by putting these lyrics to that tune.

Can you imagine gazing intently into the eyes of your beloved, whispering something along the lines of, "I remember that day when first saw you. The next day, I couldn't stop thinking about you.  The day after that was the same as the previous day. The day after that I fell in love with you."

So not only are you completely killing any kind of narrative, and losing the emotion of the moment (by repeating day two on day three), you're also telling her that it wasn't love at first sight, but that you had to spend two full days thinking about her first, before falling in love.

How unflattering that sounds, not even taking into account that someone who analyses their romance in that sort of detail is unlikely to be the catch of the century.

More Crap Song Lyrics as I find them...