Grammar: Neologisms 25

Pastel-hued

New expressions, or good takes on old ones: "Oft observed, but ne'er so well expressed." Clichés are not "colour", they are as exciting as an old sofa that's losing its stuffing. Use your imagination.

New to me: obnubilate (cover with clouds); assibilation (T becomes S)

Pastel-hued euphemisms, genteelisms: Like “passed away” or “gender-affirming healthcare”.

Monday-morning quarterback: wise after the event

completely asinine on many levels

with the detached air of a scientist viewing guineapigs

bien-pensantery

I’m not bitter, don’t put it in the paper that I’m bitter! (Says something bitter.)

Of any attempt to slow climate change: The WEF wants to use it to steal our platelets.

classic deconstructionist stylistic filler text (on Judith Butler)

sludge trudge: mudlarking

bringing a spoon to a knife fight

Talk left but walk right.

progressive pieties, dulcet psychobabble (atlantic.com in a piece on polyamory)

hair-on-fire panic (Simon Schama, 2024)

social justice worrier

Fox News haircut

This is the lean forward moment. (Says a man trying to sell a diamond necklace.)


I wasn’t telling what they were selling: We weren’t on the same page or singing from the same hymn sheet.

Deinococcus radiodurans is a type of bacteria that is resistant to radiation doses that could kill a human being, can withstand acid, dehydration and cold, and is able to survive outside of the International Space Station for three years. Scientists call it Conan the Bacterium. (@qikipedia)

Preaching on Sunday, so have been carefully grinding the serial numbers off a P.G. Wodehouse joke and swapping in a couple of moving parts from Ælfric of Eynsham. (@jembloomfield)

This morning’s Today prog interview with Kim Leadbeater is depressing. She brushes away carefully expressed concerns and offers only peppy enthusiasm and emotional mood music. (@JonnyWorst. Leadbetter is the proponent of the assisted dying bill.)

Weird, dehumanised management speak. (Fergus Butler-Gallie on Paula Vennells)

The @DWPgovuk computers are so ancient they have to be wound up every Monday. (Paul Lewis)

curated peppy homilies (Audrey Luwig re LinkedIn)

To quote the beloved Molly Ivins, if her IQ drops any lower, we'll have to water her twice a day. (@AlessandraAster)

These people are one chromosome short of being a potato. (@AlexTaylorNews)

Wow, if the average IQ of these people were a speed limit we'd be passing them on foot. (@sourpatchlyds)

If you believe that, your brain may be stuck in the “off” position. (@WildfireWhisper)

He had the IQ of a house plant. (Bill Pronzini)

vice-signalling (Pedr Ap Robat. Example: Defund the RNLI – they’re just a taxi service for illegal immigrants! You need to let your cohort know that you have all the right [wrong] opinions. Move on to cruelty to children and make it clear you're in favour.)

On sex and gender Kemi Badenoch’s position is not out of step with the public and she may be able to embarrass Starmer, who has shown bewildering levels of prevarication on whether biological sex matters when it comes to single-sex services, sports and spaces. (Sonia Sodha)

We’re Icarus and our wings are beginning to melt. (@rustbeltenjoyer on American “planning”)

Adapted, seemingly in the dark with a shovel, from Amy Liptrot’s prizewinning memoir. (Kevin Maher, Times on The Outrun)

Budget Day coverage is so over the top. Jeremy Hunt is going to make a speech, not emerge from a chrysalis. (@JoanneLimburg)

I realise now that medical transition was sold to me as a hardware fix for software issues. (@HazelAppleyard_)

The guff about “a consent-based process” is eyewash of course. (Brynley Heaven on a proposed nuclear waste dump site)

Please remember that there is no morally coherent difference between the animals you love and the animals into whom you stick a fork. (@garylfrancione)

"Poshlost" – an untranslatable Russian word that means: "petty evil or self-satisfied vulgarity". Vladimir Nabakov described it as "Corny trash, vulgar clichés, Philistinism, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic". It is a desire to drag all things down. (@MrEwanMorrison)

The lenses in your retrospectoscope need to go back to specsavers; they have acquired a strange rose-coloured hue. (Rowley Cottingham)

Firms owe the council millions in unpaid business rates, but as we have tried to pursue them we have come up against patsy directors registered on Companies House, and phoenixing, where firms have shut to re-open under a new name in the same property but are able to avoid their business rates liability. (Report on Oxford Street and American Candy stores).

Stunning how stupid this Tory governmentt is. Unprecedented, historic. Labour at their silliest were never this regularly, rake-steppingly ridiculous. (@stephen_collins)

Lightgassing: When one person agrees with another person's false beliefs in order to be supportive. (@omni_american)

Old people are not listening to Bing Crosby while being amazed email exists. (Via FB. And an old person is typing this.)

More here, and links to the rest.

Clichés in Quotes 12

I'm launching a new journal: The Journal of Academic Clichés We will only accept papers which claim to be game changers and/or paradigm shifters. All articles must have "of critical importance" in the introduction and end with "more research is needed" even when it isn't. (@DrNeilStone)

Police had the place incompletely surrounded, and when the unhardened criminal ran into the non-assembled crowd, the police fired discriminately into it, an unnecessary evil, and a guilty bystander was non-fatally slain. Since his timely death, the tributes have been trickling in. (@AdamCSharp)

Semenya tends to slip into motivational-Instagram-graphic speak, which also abounds in her new memoir, The Race to Be Myself. She will answer a brief question with a broad, sermon-like delivery, invoking a royal “we” or “you”. (Guardian 2023)

People use such lazy language to describe certain places. I grow weary of hearing 'cosy pub', 'windswept ruin'. I have never come across the tepid fiction of a 'quiet graveyard'. To me, they are a choir of whispers, sites crowded with chatter. (C.L. Nolan)

It was there in all its glory... it has been cut down in its prime. (BBC Breakfast on Sycamore Gap. And can we call breakfast shows "breakfast shows", rather than just "breakfast"?)

“Pop” is so versatile. - pop in/ pop it in/pop out/ pop it out/ pop up/pop it up/pop it on/are you having a pop at me? A pop of colour/popped/popping - not readily used by non native speakers but ubiquitous across dialects in the UK I think. (@Resjudicatamyft. Pop up, pop it on the bed, pop through, pop under.)

 Just going to pop my Walkman on so I can listen to pop while I pop to the pop-up pop stall. (@pjm56tw.  Also “take a pop at someone” and “fireworks were popping off all round”.)


Remember how it works, folks:
For politics, use sports metaphors
For sports, use war metaphors
For actual war, use incomprehensible gibberish
(@dave_brown24)

Cancel culture has eroded free speech. (Tom Stoppard. You’d think a playwright would notice he’s speaking in clichés.)

I noticed as the years went by that fewer and eventually no job applicants listed "current affairs" as one of their hobbies or interests. The lie about enjoying hill-walking was a hardy perennial, though. (@AodhBC)

Nothing irritates me more than people who characterize a Black history fact as “overlooked”, “unknown”, “recently discovered.” Just because you didn’t know doesn’t make it new. (@profblmkelley. See “remote Hebridean islands”. Inhabitants are inclined to say: “To us, London is remote.”)

@theguyliner asks: What common phrase do you loathe for absolutely no reason? Mine is when someone refers to a place they used to live as their ‘old stomping ground’ – makes my teeth itch. (In the UK, it's "stamping ground", but "stomping" is making ground, as is "chomping at the bit" for "champing.)

Twitter denizens came up with:

We're putting the world to rights.
guilty pleasure
sassy
back in the day
Famalam, hollibobs, doggo. (Pupper, kiddo.)
blooms for flowers

“I've got nothing against gay people as long as they don't flaunt their sexuality."

It just happens to be...
dark arts
curating

"Food" washed down with "beverage".
on a bed of...
veggies
eatery
portion
prep in advance

My music, my Victoriana, my Christianity
We like to work hard and play hard.

box clever
to the manor born
hun, babe/babes,
smashing it/killing it/hustling
yummy mummy
bedding in (work context)

reach out
in branch
Love you to the moon and back.
jammy
And the rest, as they say, is history.
It’s not that big of a deal.
ramp up
savvy
Ta muchly!

And I can’t stress this enough.
Price point for price. (Or "price tag".)
this one (for a person present)
Me time.
It speaks to...
methinks
'Asking for a friend' - it was mildly amusing the first ten million times I heard it.
all the feels

"Emotional rollercoaster". It always seems like people say it because they think that's what they're supposed to say. See also "It would mean the world to me".

closure
forever home
in my DNA
This too shall pass. (Adds: “It’s got a tinge of ‘and can you stop going on about it?””)
of this parish
artisanal
"the rents" for parents (also spoons for Wetherspoons and shrooms for mushrooms)

"En route", mostly used by people going to the most dull and banal places ever.

People “serve their country in uniform” for many different reasons. From “so that everyone has the same rights” to “so that college students wear conservative clothes”. “I didn’t serve my country for snowflakes to tell me I’m not politically correct.” (Parody on T shirt) I didn't serve my country for 30 years to be disrespected by people here at home. I didn't serve my country for six years to be told what kind of plant I can have in my yard. I didn't serve my country for four years and work hard all my life only for some druggie to come and rob me of my pension. I didn't serve my country for 30 years, have my life threatened, and lose dear friends in Iraq, to come home, to be in prison (lockdown). I didn't serve my country for 3 years, 4 months and 18 days to have a bunch of multi-millionaire so-called athletes disrespect our country (take a knee). I didn't serve my country for 21 years in the Army and have pieces of my body missing in the process to return to civilian life and become a shrinking daisy and I don't expect my son to be one either. (Be a shrinking daisy: stay out of the sun, wear a hat and use sun screen.)

'Doffed' seems like an 1980s motoring hack word. Like interiors being 'swathed' in leather. (Hilton Holloway. I bet they used “livery”, too.)

Press release puffing a big redevelopment. In a few pars it gets in 'cosmopolitan', 'iconic', 'exciting', 'vibrant' (three times), 'breathtaking', 'thriving', 'bustling' and 'desirable'. But no 'vision', so not quite the full set. (HP)

Something something... unelected...blah blah blah... bureaucrats...blah blah unaccountable Europe...blah...take back control... (Mike Bealing)

A friend has just mentioned coming across a man who thinks that giant hornets are a 'false flag.' If you use terms such as 'false flag', 'wake up' (unless you're my husband and it's 5 am and a crisis), or 'sheeple', my Facebook page is not the Facebook page for you. (LW)

Perry Mason: The police want to talk to you.
Suspect: Yes, the newspapers say I’m being “sought”.


LITERATURE

Whip smart, hardworking, empathetic and wickedly funny. (@KMC4wauk on Kamala Harris. “Whip smart” is usually applied to women, because we’d expect them to be dim, wouldn’t we? And “wickedly” funny – woman is critical, shock! Plus I hate the "whip smart" construction.)

The Brontë sisters originally published under male pseudonyms to avoid being called "whip-smart" by reviewers. (@robpalkwriter)

Literally don't want to read another The X of X book. Don't even want to see them in the shops. Not The Violinist of Baden Baden, The Insurance Salesman of Wormwood Scrubs, or The Dog-Walker of Brickhill. None of them. (@Stephen_May1)

I can’t admit to being terribly enthralled by Moehringer’s evocations of Africa (‘The sun beat down from a hot blue sky’) or by his encouragements to emotion (‘Her tears glistened in the spring sunshine’). The reader may be amused by his making the Duke the first person in history to stand in front of Sandringham and say: ‘I was struck again by the beauty of it all.’ But that is part of his chosen genre, and may be forgiven. (Philip Hensher in the Spectator on Spare, allegedly "by" the Duke of Sussex)

Is everybody in publishing really always so "thrilled" so much of the time? Must be exhausting. (@larapawson. See also job applicants being "passionate" about sales, marketing, widgets or whatever. Can we bring back "enthusiastic"?)

@ClareDederer asks what words in blurbs put you off a novel:

We always watch out for (or at least giggle at) the phrase “what it means to be human.”

searing indictment
irreverent, aka not funny

I really, really don't want to read a book titled The Blank's Wife or The Somebody's Daughter. Can she not be a person in her own right?

If it says it’s “astonishing,” I’m all “I doubt it.”

sweeping, multi-generational
tour de force
whimsical
lyrical (also "melodic", "retelling" and "Gaiman")

Pynchonesque – they never are.

I don't want harrowing. I want to be warned, but I don't want to read it, thanks.

gripping, must read, journey

charming, feelgood, heart-warming, picaresque
achingly beautiful
heartbreaking
elegiac
pitch perfect

Unflinching. Makes me want to try and punch the book to see if it flinches.

If I saw any novel described as 'essential' I would turn against it.

In my first publishing job, I had to write blurbs for academic books. The struggle to find adjectives I hadn't already used dozens of times on previous blurbs was real.

I’ve never quite understood what to expect of “luminous”.

life-affirming
cerebral
zany
provocative, thrilling, mesmerizing
romantic
astounding debut
plaintive
virtuosic

Lovecraftian.
mystical
numinous
essential for our times
ambitious
unputdownable
masterly
urban, edgy
cracking

The next...
The phrase “wit and wisdom.”
“Tolkienesque” is a sure sign it will be disappointing.

I love the blurbs composed for the most opaque literary fiction, when the poor editor clearly doesn’t have a clue what the book is meant to be about.

tender, poetic
dazzling
nuanced
a gem
urgent, important – just let me decide that on my own
laugh out loud

empowering
Orwellian
Page-turner. I mean, that’s the process, right?
If the book 'limns' anything. Anything at all
relevant
poetic, epic

amazing, book of the year, blockbuster None of these tell me anything about the prose style, setting, theme, etc. They just make me think the book isn’t expected to sell well.

More here, and links to the rest.

Grammar: Clichés 11

 

For decades when describing buildings or cities, writers have used "sits" instead of "stands" or "lies". Give them their due, they may be trying to say "is sited".

A white geometric spire against a blue sky. A golden statue of an angle sits at the highest peak. (The angel is quite clearly standing on a sphere which is balanced on the point of the spire. You try sitting on that lot.)

What sits underneath St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Most are already more than familiar with the altar and baldachin of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome as well as the confessio that sits beneath of it. What they may not, however, be as familiar with is exactly just what sits beneath that, beyond what they can see with their own eyes. Today I thought it would be of interest to show a little bit of what, archeologically speaking, sits behind and beneath this, for there is a great deal more to it than meets the eye. (liturgicalartsjournal.com. Lies, lies, lies.)

Herakleia, founded in the Hellenistic period next to a Greco-Carian city under Mt Latmos, once sat on the ocean. (@AntiokhosE. Stood next to the sea?)

With the assembly rooms being scheduled for demolitions, what will happen to the original Jacobean ceiling that sits in the foyer? (How about “the foyer's original Jacobean ceiling”?)

An abandoned 22-story building in Lake Charles, Louisiana — damaged by hurricanes Laura and Delta — was imploded today after sitting vacant for nearly four years. (@Rainmaker1973. Buildings stand. Sometimes they stand vacant.)

One copy of Chesterton’s essay came to rest at Notre Dame, in Indiana, while another sat in the British Library on Euston Road in London. (Guardian. Reposed? Was housed?)


Can we stop using "trigger" to mean "cause"? The first trigger that is itself untriggered. Rebel without a trigger. It is the trigger, it is the trigger, my soul! Trigger was a character in Only Fools and Horses.

Likewise I wouldn't miss:

retard
broken
restored to its former glory (We know what "restored" means.)
hidden from prying eyes (We know what "hidden" means, too.)

Houses destroyed by tsunamis, typhoons, twisters, tornadoes and storms are always “reduced to matchwood”. How about splinters?

And dry forests "go up like a tinderbox". When did you last see one of those?

Why must myths be “exploded”? Couldn’t they be debunked sometimes?

April 2023: Journalists and commentators are using "banned" when formerly they'd have used "dropped" or "scrapped". When a new government comes in, they "scrap" the previous regime's policies. At the same time the cliché is: “I don’t like banning things”.

Tensions are rising in Moldova and Transnistria. (Increasing. Presumably they mean “getting more tense”.)

Survivors are pulled or hauled from wreckage.

Under the watchful eye of...

A writer-in to the Observer complains that people have recently started overusing “incredible”.
Someone else moans about “just last week”, claiming that it should be “only last week”. Mike Nichol adds: Jonathan Bouquet’s article reassured me that I am not alone in railing against the tsunami of clichés that now creates daily a perfect storm of verbal garbage. It is surely not rocket science for journalists and broadcasters to draw a line in the sand and embargo phrases now well beyond their sell-by date.

However, "When did people suddenly start using the expression..." is the expected intro for this kind of moan.

Neil Fisher (@nfmusic) asks journalists if they could possibly avoid the word “maestro” for conductor in captions, headlines and standfirsts.


Rich people always have “deep pockets”, never “bulging handbags”,  or even “fat wallets”. And the government are still keeping their gold sovereigns in large wooden boxes, or "coffers". But it’s all contactless these days.

Beautiful people, especially men, are always talked of as having “cheekbones”, even if theirs aren’t particularly prominent.

mired in (Or, still worse, "marred in". I get1,680 results for “marred in civil war”, 2,660 for “marred in debt”. Writers should go out and walk in some mire and get their boots dirty. "Mired in" means "stuck in the mud", and to "mar" is to "spoil".)

When we talk about women and girls’ sports, do we have to use the word “dream”? Likewise in the context of women becoming scientists, astronauts etc.

When writing a resignation letter, the disgraced politician always claims he doesn’t want to be a “distraction” from the government’s magnificent and high-minded project.

Any department called “something studies” (cultural, women’s, black, media) has a lefty slant and teaches students to deconstruct all phenomena (“texts”) looking for subliminal messages left by capitalism to induce false consciousness – I mean, unspoken assumptions about gender, hierarchy, empire, capitalism, turning people and things into commodities etc.

Music reviews of the early 80s all referred to “swirling” synths and “chiming” guitars.

When did the violins of empathy become tiny? They were originally full-sized violins played by street musicians who specialised in tear-jerking tunes like Roses in Picardie or Hearts and Flowers. They became a metaphor for maudlin bids for sympathy, and you hummed the tune while miming playing the instrument.

More here, and links to the rest.

Mired in a slough

Predictions for 2025

Americans will come up with more and more silly reasons why white middle-class people can't use public transport.

They will also have conniption fits about 15-minute cities.

A Lord of the Rings reimagining will delve into Sauron's unhappy childhood, his ostracism as a teenager, etc.

Moomin! the stage show will combine panto, physical theatre, acrobatics, hanging upside down - and of course songs.

The Guardian will write approvingly about polyamory without mentioning the legal and equitable aspects.

Black Friday? Why not a “buy nothing” day!

A severe storm will be predicted by weather men. People will be sarcastic about their bins being blown over. The storm arrives, power goes off, trains are cancelled, trees fall and planes are diverted to Cologne. The year after, the whole thing happens again.

There’ll be a panic about the snow panic in New York and the UK. There’ll be jokes about the country shutting down after a few flakes. Drivers will spend ten hours in their cars in the Pennines. Next year the same thing will happen again.

On Twitter, people will ask “How will children sign legal documents now they’re not taught cursive”, and “Are audiobooks reading?”, and will claim “You’ll find someone when you’re not looking”.

The following are always “coming back”: rickets, bed bugs, scabies, TB, syphilis.

I was getting worried that The Guardian hadn’t done a wild swimming article for a while but thankfully they’ve started 2024 by rectifying this, I’m sure everyone is v relieved. (@LukeTurnerEsq)

I see the Guardian has another "countryside is racist" article out today. (@DavidPGCSE, 1 Jan 2025)

We'll be told that:

There's a crisis in masculinity and we need a new way to be a man. It's women's fault, of course.

Woolworths is coming back to the high street!

Kids today are actually a new species.

Kids have an attention span of three minutes and play Minecraft for hours.

No more stiff upper lip – why we’re now a nation of criers (Times, Jan 2024. Every year for the past 50.)

Ratcatchers are called "rodent operatives" these days!

More women are skipping college to make six figures as electricians, car mechanics and truck drivers. (@nypost. When they're not coining it as strippers and escorts.)

More here, and links to the rest.

Buzzwords of 2024

As always, long words, misty concepts, bloviating and navel-gazing were popular.

reset

agency (Everyone has agency. So what about “You are responsible for everything that happens to you”?)

Mari Lwyds are everywhere. A few years ago it was Krampus.

Attractive women being called “ugly” by TRAs and incels. (And TERFs are "smelly".)

When talking about unions, you must say “over a barrel”, “in hock” and “magic money tree”.

Snow is forecast: There are thick drifts, roads are closed and drivers spend ten hours in their cars in the Pennines. 
Everybody: Single snowflakes seen! Britain shuts down ha ha ha! Oh dear the power’s gone off. I say it’s jolly cold. Where did we put the candles/head torch/extra duvet? How soon do we start eating each other?

"New paradigm" is back from the 1970s.

Twitter is asked: What phrase makes you roll your eyes? The responses are a salami slice through 2023 and the 2000s generally.

accountability, problematic, triggered
mask, cis, whatever
empowered, equity, learnings
toxic, inclusive, kiddos
equity, Win-Win, zero sum

identify as, context, patriarchy
pronouns, wait his turn, I got this.
hypervigilance, climate change, laser focused
genocide, -phobic anything, safe space…
speaking power to truth, healing journey, Just sayin’.

common sense, safe and effective, lived experience
gender assigned at birth, That's just the way I am.
conspiracy theory, Let's unpack that, community
It is what it is, at the end of the day
Let me be clear...

living your best life, follow your heart, my truth
Rest in Power, greater good, The science is settled.
marginalized communities, gender-affirming care
fur baby, white privilege, reimagine
stunning and brave, my journey, existential

trauma response, triggering, heal
queering the..., feminine energy

Adjectiving verbs with a Y – evadey, spy-ey, popular January.
Not to be in any sense spoilerific, but...

People telling others to “cope”.

There are a lot of moving parts... (of a complex situation)

[Absolutely anything] starts with the self.

It’s not the cold, it’s the humidity.


Have the hipsters shaved their beards off? Are there hipsters any more?

agentic: There’s a lot of “agency” around.

An incentive structure has been set up where tons of ppl pretty much can't survive without competing in some kind of victimization Olympics. And of course those ppl get out-competed by a bunch of a**holes who could do just fine, but see that victim Olympics is the game. (@HephaistosF)

What to Say About the Duchess of Sussex: She is such a tasteless, crashing, bourgeoise arriviste snob, it's repulsive.

warm desking: hot desking, but in an area of four desks. You sit with the people you work with, you just move round every day.

crunchy women: what we used to call an “earth mother”. Or perhaps Gwyneth Paltrow. But why crunchy? They eat crunchy granola? “Crunchy millennial tropical trad-wives” says @nealjclark over a pic of a long-haired woman breastfeeding.

Health-worker vaccinated here. No health issues so far. Meanwhile there are so many “Christian” crunchy women that lie to prove a political point and wish death/infertility on you while miscarrying every year despite of not being vaccinated. (@perromediano96) (In the 70s they hated popular culture and scientific medicine etc, and believed in astrology, spoon-bending, Jung and dualism.)

Don’t make me tap the sign.

Effects of lockdown: shoe shops sell 60% trainers and 40% shoes. After lockdown people couldn’t get their office shoes back on, or found they got blisters.

Effects of lockdown 2: Some cafés and food outlets cleared out tables and chairs, and have never replaced them all. Instead we’re offered stools and a counter – or nothing. Americans eat from brown bags while walking and slurping coffee from a sippy cup and we’re expected to do the same. Do we eat like tramps on a park bench? There are fewer and fewer places to sit down. Solution: seek a café where people work on laptops. However: tables and chairs rarely match and tables are far too high. This makes eating with a knife and fork difficult, too. You feel like a child who needs to sit on an Encyclopedia.

Oh, “brisket” was pastrami all along!

Anything other than 100% support of trans people is “transphobia”. Support of women, or claiming they exist, is also transphobia! Any criticism of men is “you just hate men”. It’s the sloppy thinking I mind.

Are the Israelis scattering Gaza with bombs disguised as tins of tuna? Sounds like the rumours that in WWII the Germans dropped exploding chocolate and pens.

Feb: “disgusting” is code for anti-Semitism

Where did all this mimosa come from? Something to do with Valentine’s Day?

Cuddles are now snuggles.

coded: “Do I code as female?”

February rumours: Primark is closing, David Irving is dead, Pope says you can eat what you like during Lent.

Prophecies of doom: Google is closing its search facility. Twitter was doomed as soon as Elon Musk took over and everybody is leaving or will leave. A year on it looks much the same. Those who joined with the sole aim of getting “engagement” and publicising their thing have moved to duller pastures. We don’t miss them. Those who like arguing about epistemology have stayed.

People really enjoying calling each other narcissists and attention-seekers. As someone points out, people may need attention. There’s even something called “care-seeking”.


Fresh (and there's an irritating silly voice women adopt to say "fresh!" in adverts):

Ultimately, they all want us to see Richard III in a fresh new way. (Guardian on a play about RIII with Michelle Terry as Richard)

UK Eurovision entry is “fresh, modern, contemporary”.

Rescued chairs painted greige will “have a fresh look that will appeal to younger buyers”, claims Bridget (paraphrase).

Grey bathrooms are also “fresh and modern”. They have “metro tiles” (lavatory) and square basins, sinks, loos and bidets.

When you’re my age, you’ve seen “fresh looks” come and go.

March 2024

"Genocide" is being used to mean ethnic cleansing. “Send them somewhere else” is not the same as “kill them all”.

People confuse non-binary with non-biological, and autonomic with automatic. They’ve heard about the autonomic nervous system, but think it means most of our behaviour is automatic.

People still producing “But your loo at home is unisex!” as the ultimate gotcha. It doesn’t contain ten stalls with doors and walls open at top and bottom and it is not constantly visited by strangers, or – still worse – colleagues. Equally annoying are those who say “Language must evolve!” as if it had a mind of its own, every time an organisation removes the words “woman” and “mother” from its website/brochure/leaflet.

It looks as if academies can make up their own ways of disciplining children. The slightest thing becomes an “infringement” and if you collect too many you are isolated all day with only a sandwich for lunch. (Wasn’t it called “detention” in our day? I fear some parents love the idea.)

Narcissist now means “nasty person” and all nasty people are “narcissists”.
Who are the “neoliberals”? What is “neoliberalism” and why is it responsible for all society’s ills?

March 17
This week’s meme:
Well they all have mental health, don't they? No one uses the term mental illness, why don't they? People are getting away with literally murder because the words mental illness are not used. Crisis teams telling people to have a bath, a cup of tea or a walk. (@LizPeecock)

March 2024
doordash: Came out of nowhere. Bad because exploits delivery drivers. Disabled say “necessary”. Big row over why can’t they microwave?

Who is this Eckhart Tolle everyone is so crazy about? Sounds medieval but prob still alive and churning out “benign, self-congratulatory, soothing” mottoes. (Paul Fussell)

Late March kerfuffle about women protesting that the Garrick Club is still men-only. Today's trope: What does it matter if a club for influential people who run the country doesn’t include half the human race? (First women accepted a few months later.)

You have to pre-emptively condemn evil, or people will complain. They’re still complaining that headlines don’t read “SHOCK! HORROR!”

“Who hurt you?” tagged onto practically anything – a love of X, a hatred of Y, an interest in Z.

April 2024
This week nobody wants to work any more.

2024-04-13 Everything is “hard” this week. Things "go hard".

2024-04-17 Hey guys, it’s 2024 and Russia wants its empire back. (Not looking so sunny for Russia, December.)

The Cass Report is published. Everyone is suddenly an expert on research methodology. (@RedMags60. Because they don’t like its conclusions.)

Is “healing” something an injured party has to do? It’s just “get over it” in a new hat, isn’t it?

Qualia popular late May, no idea.

divisive: all-purpose boo word

Some Americans are terrified that Harris and Walz are “communists”. Harris wants equality! Walz is the descendant of German immigrants who have been communists for generations! Harris wants “equality of outcome” instead of “opportunity”.

emotional regulation

high trust, low trust

Percival Everett – where’d he come from?

Temu: an online marketplace operated by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings. It offers heavily discounted consumer goods mostly shipped to consumers directly from China. Went live in the States in 2022, says Wikipedia. Become a byword for terrible quality.

pickle ball: Tennis with ping pong bats?

received a cancer diagnosis: has cancer

2024-07-23
thug

Resilience – it was everywhere and now it’s gone.

agency (used to be autonomy)

hoovering: sucking you back into an abusive relationship.

“Beautiful” to many means “highly over-decorated”, or “I can’t imagine how they did it”. Horror vacui. If you want "engagement", post a picture of a fan vault.

September
Labour is already “Liebore”.

slop for AI output and more

Subaltern (progressive buzzword like carceral). Just used to mean subordinate or subsidiary but sounds good and keeping up with the cool crowd.

Late Oct
soft power

2024-12-07 This goes hard!
2024-12-09 Manifesto popular this week.

seed oils (all year)

More here, and links to the rest.

Technophobia 13

Phasing in technology

Do you remember when everyone’s video player/recorder had a set of flashing noughts? It’s 2024 and some tweeps still don’t know how to create a thread by replying to their own posts.

PSA: When using Find/Replace in Word, remember it’ll change any word with that letter combination even if it’s in the middle of a completely different word where such a change would make no sense. You know, before you send sample pages to an agent. (@cocoskeeper. Select Advanced Find and Replace and make it the default.)

Anyone know how to put a keyword setting into twitter to filter out any content containing them? And does it also work for names? (@OwdAlbert. Click More, find Privacy and Security, and follow the steps to Mute Words.)

Yesterday a user opened by telling me "The software doesn't work." Upon remotely accessing, it turned out what they actually meant was "I don't know where the icon is." (@whispous)

For my entire 30 year career so far, my favorite part are the people who are TOO BUSY to learn something simple that will save them HOURS. If I had a nickel... (@one_dunkirk)

My old employer sent me away from one of the eight computers the sales staff used. He needed to check his emails if a customer had faxed yet. I said: "Why don't you use one of the others?". He said his emails were on the computer I was using. (@Formula1Wimbo)

Whoever posted yesterday about the fact that Word can read your work out loud, may your head always rest on the cool side of the pillow. (@ParanormalJunk2)

The feeling when you find out that your company basically depends on a single elderly Java programmer maintaining antediluvian legacy code. And the gentleman is about to retire, to boot. (@Agippo_Vermith)

Just read on Linkedin. For German lawyers to create a pdf, they need to print it on paper and then scan it to a pdf.  But a judgement was given so that this "extra step" is not necessary any longer. Digitalisation for Germany is progressing at a snail's pace. (Tehn Yit Chin @tehnyit. And I've just read that some German firms are phasing out fax machines.)

Pah, simple! A friend who works at a German archive has to print out every email received (I assume not including spam) and any response has to be printed and passed around on a round robin before they’re allowed to reply. Both original email and reply are then archived on paper. (@priddy)

At my current job as a tax collector, the woman training me had had this job for 20+ years. She was showing me how to do the Excel spreadsheet for the monthly totals, and wasn't using any formulas. She would use the calculator to add everything up and just document it. (@raspbrrytea)

We stopped having computer labs in school because "everyone knows how to use the computer now" and suddenly they didn’t any more. (@GOOPREALM5000)

Shoutout to everyone who remembers the days before satnavs, when you’d go to visit someone on the outskirts of London and four hours later you’d pass Big Ben for the second time while screaming. (@SoVeryBritish)

What I’ve learned from this post is there’s a remarkable number of people who think satnavs are somehow the work of the devil and not to be trusted. (@RobTemple101)

My beloved wife has just informed me that she accumulates Chrome tabs until Chrome eventually crashes, at which point she gets rid of them by clicking “don’t restore”. (@A_Luckmann. Bookmark your frequently visited sites, and save your files in a folder on the hard disk. It'll display them in alphabetical order!)


I once asked someone on a Teams call to share their screen and point at the problem. They shared their screen and then pointed with their finger at their own screen. (@RhysTEvans)

Zoom call member: I can’t see my desktop if I’m sharing my screen. (Solution: At top right, click "Exit fullscreen". You can also fix the Chat so that it pops up in the centre of the screen. I should make Youtube videos, shouldn't I?)

We’ve been using Zoom since lockdown and people still won’t mute themselves in a meeting of 20 people when one person is speaking. Even if you’re sitting there in silence, if your mike is on it will disturb the sound.

The academic who gives a Zoom lecture but doesn’t plan to record it and make it available: another case of “Oh yes, I use this dirty, demonic technology but I’m too holy to do that”?

About 25 years ago the magazine I was working for discovered the intranet concept and asked us to put up a photo and bio. Half of us did, but nobody designed the presentation so they were all different. That was the end of that for a bit. Then a colleague started running the internet from head office. Suddenly he had a whole department, and older, grander colleagues wondered what they were all doing. Then the mag put their whole archive online for free for a time. Now they have a whole separate online mag.

Big joke when social media arrived (20 years ago) – "The company’s account is run by an intern". Surely now a whole department?

When the firm I’d just joined got Macs instead of dumb terminals and a central server, they didn’t know they could save stuff locally. But at the same time they didn’t know there was still a central server and the whole magazine was not “in their machine”.

A few years ago:

Me: You can watch TV on your computer.
Them: I can’t because the computer is in the coldest room in the house.
Me: Get a space heater.

Others explain that “watching TV” can only happen if the whole family is sitting together on the sofa. Most people have caught up, and are watching TV on their phone.


Amazon is phasing out its checkout-less grocery stores with “Just Walk Out” technology, first reported by The Information Tuesday. The company’s senior vice president of grocery stores says they’re moving away from Just Walk Out, which relied on cameras and sensors to track what people were leaving the store with. Just over half of Amazon Fresh stores are equipped with Just Walk Out. The technology allows customers to skip checkout altogether by scanning a QR code when they enter the store. Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped. Instead, Amazon is moving towards Dash Carts, a scanner and screen that’s embedded in your shopping cart, allowing you to checkout as you shop. (Gizmodo.com. You had to put your glasses on and fiddle about with your phone before you could enter the shop. A writer to the Times letters page complains he has to pull over and put on his reading glasses before he can operate all his car's whizbang technology.)

A friend points out that many are strangely passive about Facebook. They moan that they don’t see posts from certain friends any more, when they just need to visit the friend’s page. And if they like or interact with the posts, that friend will appear in their newsfeed again.

People in the mid-90s who came to computers late simply couldn’t see that some of us had been using the things for at least a decade, and that this meant we were far more expert than the newbie. They bluffed and threw their weight about and wouldn’t listen when we tried to tell them how to do things.


Is there a word/phrase for that process where people first complain about technological change, then accept, then embrace it? (Lee Jackson, 2012. I call it "tomatisation": Tomatoes are poisonous, deadly, an aphrodisiac, condemned from the pulpit, decorative, delicious with cheese.)

Every new technological advance especially if social (blogging, twitter, the Internet, mobile phones) does a “Five Boys”: appalled, cautious approval, I’ve adopted it!, five prominent women say it has changed their lives, its days are numbered, it’s as dead as disco.

Geeks invent way of chatting, discussing, debating, getting help, making friends. Civilians don't want to know. Twenty years later when everybody has a computer and mobile phone a clunky version of the same thing is invented and it becomes this year’s must-have. But there are still those who just refuse to use a computer or any kind of technology.

A friend writes: I NEVER do Facebook, but when I sneakily take a peak for some reason, I LOVE your photos.


The spiral cords of old-fashioned phones used to get very tangled, and hence shorter and shorter. Every now and then you had to dangle the handset while the cord unwound itself. Men never did this. OK, some men. One Branestawm-like colleague let the cord wind itself until he could barely lift the handset to talk to anybody. Men never cleaned the cords, either.

Mice used to have a central trackball that got very dirty over time. The mouse ceased to work efficiently, and it was necessary to dismantle the mouse and clean the trackball. Men never did this.

Another thing men never cleaned – typewriter keys. (It was fun. Cleaning fluid, a toothbrush and toothpick.)

They never changed typewriter ribbons, either. The ribbons were supposed to switch direction when the reel came to an end. Sometimes you had to do this manually. Some humans continued typing on the same patch as the letters became fainter and fainter. Others typed everything in red because they didn't know how to switch to black.

It’s 2023 and I have a smart meter and a little gizmo that shows how much electricity I use – except it shows nothing. And I still need meter reading visits? And I need to supply a meter reading to query my bill? Well, EDF Energy? (The smart machinery is installed in the original metal cupboard, inside a cupboard, which may be the problem. It’s 2023 and to make the up-to-date technology work I have to remember to open both cupboard doors occasionally. The little gizmo shows nothing, as before.)


More here, and links to the rest.

Contradictions 12

 

Even when unattributed, all encountered in the wild. Some names have been redacted because people have lost jobs for having the wrong opinions. Direct quotes are in italics.

I still think it's funny that people get surprised that young folks don't want kids when you've spent their entire childhood telling them that motherhood is the lowest possible aspiration in life and that pregnancy will ruin their lives. (@wrowclif)

I have a question for older people. Why do you have children, if you’re going to spend the rest of your life denying young people what they want, insulting them for being lazy, stupid and ignorant, deriding their taste in music and fashion, and taking away their rights? (@PaulbernalUK)

I was overwhelmed with information about how tough it was to be a parent at the same time as I was being told it was the most extraordinary, blissful, transformative rite of passage and that there was no other love like it. That I was, in essence, living half a life by not having children of my own while simultaneously being so incredibly lucky to pursue a responsibility-free... girl about town, career woman existence. (Article in the Times on infertility)

Kids today are hyperactive couch potatoes with a short attention span who play Minecraft for hours.

Men: Women ought to get married and have babies.
Also men: I'm not ready to settle down.


You can't claim the Jews killed Jesus while also insisting Jews are from Europe.

Pro-Pals resurrecting millennia-old antisemitism to own Israel at the same time as saying Jews aren’t indigenous to the land. Make it make sense.

I do not understand Progressives uncritically supporting the Palestinians who deny equal rights for women and criminalise homosexuality.

Jew haters reject Israel for being an "ethnostate" (despite having over 20% minorities). They also reject Zionism because Jews aren't a "real" ethnicity (despite Zionism starting as a secular nationalist movement). Could you please at least make your hate consistent?


You don’t know what a woman is but Kamala Harris lost because she’s a woman.

It’s academics’ job to be critical about everything – but not gender.

If the Garrick Club can bar women, why can’t lesbian clubs bar men? (Dec 2024 the Garrick Club now admits women.)

If genitals don’t define gender, how does removing them affirm it? (Internet meme)

I don’t understand why I have to accept everyone as they are, but I have to change, because everything I do upsets them.

When woke politicians talk about wanting more women in government when they pretend not to even know what women are, I weep.

Somehow like 95% of people are "queer" now yet "queer' is still a marginalized minority. It's amazing.

If gender is perfomative and is identity, why are surgery and hormones necessary to affirm it?

If all human beings have a gender identity, why do only trans people get theirs protected in law?

Aren’t “trans” and “non-binary” mutually exclusive?

I love how they claim there are only about 10 gender-critical people in the world and/ or everyone is a 'Bot' while simultaneously making massive lists of 'transphobes'.

I don’t get it. If trans rights are supported by the majority and rejected by a minority, where is the source of the genocide impacting trans people across the west? How can you be widely accepted by society whilst also being the victim of social cleansing?

To make the claim transwomen are women you have to simultaneously know what a woman is, and deny you know what a woman is in the same sentence. Once you've achieved that, pretty much everything else is plain sailing.

So how come misgendering is literal violence and actual literal violence is celebratory, peaceful protest?

"It was only tomato juice," said the man who claimed he’d die if you called him Colin.

Why, when people who claim a synthetic sex identity want to pee, there is only a handful of them going about their lives who are no threat, yet when anyone speaks about the harms of the ideology, there are vast swaths of them being murdered and oppressed?

Curious that the same people who don’t believe in a higher power have decided gender is some invisible ‘essence’.

Still can’t stop laughing that in Spanish a non-binary person is either “no binario” or “no binaria”.

When women had evidence to support their arguments against the GRR Bill Scotgov rejected it on the basis of being "anecdotal." When trans activists and Scotgov funded groups had evidence to support their arguments it was valid because it was "lived experience."

It always amazes me how the same people who are absolutely convinced of the power of women's words to hurt trans people are also the ones so skeptical of the danger of men in women's spaces.

Them: We must respect the language people use to describe themselves and people who don’t do this are appalling. Also them: I wouldn’t personally describe you as a feminist.

We condemn female genital mutilation, we are shocked by past abuses like foot-binding and the castrati, but... if it's happening now in our culture it must be OK?


People I know, in the past: "You should be more aware of how you come across to others!"
People I know, currently: "You should stop caring so much about what others think!"

America: Be yourself!
Also America: Be like everybody else.
Also America: Have therapy to find yourself. That’ll be $60.

Hey you. Be yourself. But also tone it down a little. Read the room. But also speak your mind. Be responsible with your future. But also take risks, life is short. Kindness is everything. But also you'll get nowhere if you're not fighting. Don't sell out. But also grind/hustle. (@PrinceVogel)


Bibliolaters: "The Bible is perfect, but we fail to understand it correctly because of our sinfulness."
And also: "The Bible refutes evolutionism, and everyone should be able to see that perfectly clearly." (@SteveTiger999)


Doctors being so bad at identifying Autism is hilarious when you consider how good children are at figuring out who's Autistic when they're deciding whom to bully. (@AmberlynWhite)

@IntrovertProbss The people that always complain I don’t talk enough never seem to actually listen when I do speak

"I am religious and live by faith. Evolution is a religion that requires faith so it's stupid and wrong". (@grenangle)

Everyone should be free to express themselves however they like. <turns off replies> (@oliverburkeman)

I get so confused when y’all go on and on about how society doesn’t allow men be emotional. It is women who are punished for emotions, it is women who get told that we can’t do or be certain things because we’re “too emotional”. (@onosowobo. She adds “While we worry about men’s feelings.”)

100% of the pro-life protesters “should have been aborted”.

Feminists used to say that looks don’t matter but we should also wear ugly clothes and no makeup.

People say we have a lot of different selves, there’s no such thing as free will and all actions result from subconscious prompting or habit – and at the same time assume criminal responsibility exists and the guilty should be punished.

We need to sell things, but we don’t want people to buy things because it’s bad for them.

How can we have austerity (boo!) AND consumerism (boo!)?

Live in the moment, but learn from experience.

Schrodinger’s migrant: refuses to work while taking our jobs.

Men who mansplain how to fight the patriarchy are the patriarchy.

Every time a (prominent) man is accused of sexual crimes, someone will say "he's innocent until he's proved guilty", as if that meant he really was innocent. At the same time many complain that headlines are too bland, and not sufficiently condemnatory – we don't say "Bestial Monomaniac Charged with Unspeakable Crimes". That's because the accused is innocent until proved guilty.

Moan about Twitter and Facebook but resist advice to curate your feed: “Too much trouble,” “I don’t have the time”. Both mean “I don’t know how”.

I am a middle-class libertarian and I’m against banning things, especially smoking in pub gardens, but people who play loud music on public transport and say "Can I get a latte" should be shot.

In the 19th century, the groom said to the bride: "With all my worldly goods I thee endow". The law stated that on marriage, ALL a woman's possessions became the man's. And everybody knew this.

More here, and links to the rest.

Outrageous Excuses 23

 

The president of South Korea says he tried to stage a coup in order to "send a message". (@PopulismUpdates)

Pro-Yoon legislators argued in the party meeting that the president declared martial law because he was "lonely" and "needed a friend to talk to." (@BluRoofPolitics)

Many otherwise smart people lose their minds when they hear arguments against eating meat. They say things like: eating meat is natural to our species; it's tradition; other animals eat meat too; it’s the purpose of animals to be eaten; animals don't feel pain. (@victorckumar. I'd add: Plants scream when you pick them. We are omnivores - we have canine teeth. If we didn't eat meat many cattle and sheep would never exist and that's as bad as killing them. Vegetarians look so pale and sickly. How do they get enough protein? Or Vitamin B?)

The US worried that maternal mortality had risen. It turned out to be an artefact of a change in the way data was gathered. Christopher M. Zahn, interim CEO of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, responded: “reducing the U.S. maternal mortality crisis to ‘overestimation’” is “irresponsible”. Why? Because it “undermined... all the hard work of health care professionals, policy makers, patient advocates, and other stakeholders”. Noahpinion.blog continues: This is absolutely breathtaking, and not in a good way. One of the most prominent doctors in the field of obstetrics is openly arguing that positive data about U.S. health should be suppressed, and that popular misconceptions based entirely on data artifacts should be encouraged to persist, in order to motivate the public to devote more resources to the goals he thinks are important. (Americans are big on motivation.)

Telegraph: 'Heathrow officials responding to a complaint about security staff wearing Palestine flag badges claimed that employees wore them to let travellers know they spoke Arabic.' I'm not buying this. (@GillianLazarus)

Merriam-Webster asked what grammar hill tweeps would die on and then deleted all answers reading “Woman: adult human female” before closing the account. Excuse: “We let an intern run our socmed account.”

The almost-nude man painted blue in the Olympics opening ceremony was An "interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus" to make us "aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings".

Bullfighting preserves Spain’s biodiversity.

Billionaire socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein who has been dubbed ‘Catwoman’ shows off her new face, despite denying extensive plastic surgery and claiming her looks are down to her ‘Swiss Heritage.’ (@OliLondonTV)

Rioters’ defence lines so far:
My client has had a difficult home life
My client suffers from long term addictions
My client has a long running problem with alcohol
My client has mental health problems
My client understands he has been 'foolish'


TRUTH IS NOT IMPORTANT BECAUSE...*

In life it’s important to know when to stop arguing with people and simply let them be wrong.

Nobody ever changes their mind as a result of argument or disconfirming evidence.

On attrappe pas les mouches avec le vinaigre.

You can’t put out a fire with gasoline.

Fools give you reasons; wise men never try.

Reason is important, but it's not the be all and end all.

No reply is best.

No point telling people they’re wrong, they’ll never listen or change their minds.

Just ignore them.

Adversarial argument never uncovered the truth. (Popular in the 80s.)

Legislation can’t change minds. (But it does. Conversely some people haven’t noticed changes in law that took place 200 years ago.)

Argument never changes minds. (Your interlocutor may go away and think about it – and change their mind.)

Don’t oppose them, it only encourages them.

People never change their minds – except sometimes they flip. An anti-gay marriage campaigner is now for it, an anti-Muslim campaigner spent so much time debating with missionary Muslims in Bradford markets that he converted. Also if people never change their minds why bother propagandising them?

Our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done. (Katherine Maher)

We spend a lot of time taking down alleged arguments that are no more coherent than "my favourite colour is pancakes." This must stop. People say stupid, wrong things to us to soak up our time, not because they even believe what they are saying. (@stuartlosaltos)

Don’t waste your time with explanations; people only hear what they want to hear. (Paulo Coelho)

We need to stop trying to be tolerant of intolerance. So many people talk about "you have to have a calm discussion to change their minds". No. There’s no reasoning with racism. We need to make it socially taboo and embarrassing, strong peer pressure is more effective. (@AmusedApricot)

Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. (Mark Twain)

The idea that there is no objective truth or that we shouldn't bother trying to find it is just an excuse used by people who don't want have their opinion changed by facts... I believe there is still an underlying truth even if we can't find it. (Christina Rees)

* It might disprove my argument. And if we let people try to change other humans' minds you might attempt to change MINE!

WE CAN’T POSSIBLY DO THAT BECAUSE...
Interesting tidbit on Rory Stewart's experience as minister in DEFRA. Plan to plant 500 million trees, at minimal cost to the public, opposed by environmental groups on the basis that they wanted to micromanage "the right trees in the right places". (@AnyaM8_)

Americans: We can’t have healthcare and public transit because the government would have to do it and they’d be useless. (@AndyGJBurge. Other reasons for not having public transport: we'd have to mix with poor people and poor people are likely to be... you've got it.)

More here, and links to the rest.

Junk Statistics 11

Junk or not junk? This one seems trustworthy:

Between 2012 and 2017, sales of cacti and succulents rose 64% in America. (Times)

And these:

There are 500,000 giant redwoods in the UK, planted by the Victorians, and they are starting to outgrow neighbouring trees.

Just 6% of the total number of immigrants in the UK are asylum seekers. Just 37% of those arrive on small boats. Most commonly they are from Iran and Afghanistan. When assessed, the majority are judged ‘genuine’ and granted refugee status or other leave. Yet, parts of the electorate are somehow convinced that they are a major problem confronting all of our everyday lives. (@aljhlester)

Some good news in London, where the number of cycling trips has increased from 1.19 million a day last year to 1.26 million this year. (@TransportActio2)

The SNP has lost 32,000 members in less than 15 months. (March 2023)

Half of people in London don't have a vehicle. (And something like 10% don’t know a river runs through it.)

In the UK:

86% don’t want TW in Womens’ changing rooms.
83% don’t want TW in Women’s toilets.
79% don’t want TW in Rape crisis centres.
89% don’t want TW in Women’s sports
84%+ don’t want TW in Women’s’ prisons.

Women:

are +51% of the population
but +70% of the poor
and +83% of single parents
doing +66% of the work
producing +50% of the food
but earn just +11% of the pay
and only +1% of the land

But a car ad claims they make 60% of the buying decisions.

44% of the world’s gasoline is consumed by the US.

90% of homes in Israel use a solar water heater.

However:

33% Of Women Will Go On Dates Just For The Free Food. (eviemagazine.com)

Over 40% of adults in the UK are single. Sixty-three percent of men and 34 percent of women under 30 report being single, according to a Pew study.

"At age 45, on average, married men are making $37,138 a year more than single women, $35,479 more than single men and $33,849 more than married women." Report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. (@g_lamarche)

The brain needs 40 to 80 repetitions of something to form a neural connection.


50% of marriages do not fail. There was a period after no-fault divorce became legal that the divorce rate got that high because suddenly a lot of people who had wanted to divorce were able to. But that was temporary. The divorce rate is way lower now. (@PetticoatShrink)

The unprecedented high rate of modern divorce is sometimes blamed on the following factoid:

Historically, the average person had 2-3 beloved spouses die during war or childbirth. (@wil_da_beast630)

And, a historian points out, most researchers fail to take into account divorce rates at other times and in other cultures: medieval Muslim societies, and 19th Japan, experienced high divorce rates.

This reminds me of the paper I read where it looked at the archaeological record and estimated that historically only 20% of men reproduced (violence, disease, etc.) whereas nearly 100% of women reproduced. This implies that the 20% of men were fathering 100% of the children. (@sivori)

See also sexual partners in our day: men exaggerate the number, women reduce it.

60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

3/10 go to university today. Most of them graduate with a 2:2 from a rubbish poly in 50k debt and then go and work in non grad jobs. (@LeoMars75. He earlier said their 2:2 is in “media studies”.)


More here and links to the rest.