an exercise in percussive maintenance
Tag: meaning of words
Warning: The following post contains potentially disturbing images. Sensitive readers beware!
sexy: 1 (of a person) sexually attractive; 2 sexually exciting; 3 (of a person) sexually excited; 4 exciting and interesting.
~ The Oxford English Dictionary
Continue reading “On Inappropriate Adjectives (or why you shouldn’t call babies “sexy”)”
The wife’s been feeling poorly since last week, with an initial infection leading to full-blown bronchitis and the doc almost sending her to hospital on Monday out of fear that it will develop into pneumonia. But, as he told her, the hospital’s full of sick people (I couldn’t believe this tidbit) and she might end up worse than if she just stays at home (that’s what you call irony). Continue reading “On stuff people say”
Yesterday evening at 8:30 South African time I became an uncle for the second time. No, please don’t offer any congratulations. That’s the whole point of this post. This morning I made the obligatory calls to my father and stepmother (their first grandchild) and to my step-sister and brother-in-law to offer my congratulations. Then my wife asked a very intriguing question: For what am I congratulating them? What did they achieve? Continue reading “On Congratulations”
Happy New Year. Don’t you think it is very fitting that I write my first post of 2013 on the seventh day of the year? Especially since my one New Year’s resolution was to write every day this year. And sure, I could have written the post and then set it to be published on the first, but honestly, then I’d have had nothing to write about. Now at least I get to write about not writing.
I wonder where this whole thing of New Year’s Resolutions got started. (No, I’m not going to check Wikipedia. That’s a distraction and a writer’s worst enemy.) In any event, I think the term is a misnomer. Continue reading “On Resolutions and Intentions (good or otherwise)”
A couple of weeks ago I had myself a nice little rant here about people saying sorry without thinking what the word means. Today I once again realised how easily people can just throw around words without caring what they’re really saying.
I came into my office today to find two identical faxes from the same person lying on my desk. Both carried a cover page saying, in very big letters, “URGENT FACSIMILE”. Naturally, I picked them up before I had even put down my briefcase because here was something urgent that needed to be dealt with immediately. Guess what it was? No, really, guess? Continue reading “On Abusing Words”
if all else fails...use a hammer 