Confusion between "Over-" and "Under-estimate". We were watching a programme last night on which the presenter said, "You can never under-estimate the power of the North Sea".
Here's one a friend of mine pointed out many years ago - "you're comparing apples with oranges" used to mean "this is an invalid comparison".
Surely comparing apples with oranges is a perfectly rational exercise, in fact a very good idea? They are both fruit, with many similarities (e.g. size) but with distinctive differences (e.g. texture), so they are ideal candidates for... comparison!
Not if I complain that my apple has a very thin skin, and doesn’t easily divide into segments, or that my orange is not crisp or makes very poor cider.
Surely comparing apples with oranges is a perfectly rational exercise, in fact a very good idea? They are both fruit, with many similarities (e.g. size) but with distinctive differences (e.g. texture), so they are ideal candidates for... comparison!
You can itemize the differences, but it's hard to rank an apple vs an orange, because they are such different fruits, whereas it's much easier for people to rank a Gala vs a Golden Delicious.
This very minute I heard a BBC commentator reporting from Brussels on the Brexit situation, saying that the deal had a "reviewal clause" every five years.
Agreed, but it would be more sensible than comparing (say) a transistor to a brontosaurus.
Yes, but I think the expression is supposed to put us in mind of an everyday situation where someome might make an inappropriate comparison. For example...
A: Don't eat the really big orange. Too much citric acid is bad for your stomach.
B: But I ate a really big apple yesterday, and you didn't say anything.
A: Yes, but apples don't contain nearly as much citric acid as oranges.
Whereas it's kind of hard to imagine a situation where someone would compare a brontosaurus to a transistor. Though it could work as a hyperbolization of the original saying.
A: The government should hold more referenda. That's how they decided things in ancient Athens.
B: Holy cow, you're comparing a modern post-industrialized society to an ancient city-state?!
I get annoyed when people use “reflecting on/upon” when what they mean is “thinking about “.
This may simply be that “reflection “ on my social work course was something very specific, putting yourself in the centre of a situation.
I get annoyed when people use “reflecting on/upon” when what they mean is “thinking about “.
This may simply be that “reflection “ on my social work course was something very specific, putting yourself in the centre of a situation.
"Reflecting on" certainly means "thinking about" to me. Sorry.
These are my particular bugbears: we must all learn lessons from (whatever) and hearing about the "lived lessons" of people and their own journey will be invaluable. 😡
I get annoyed when people use “reflecting on/upon” when what they mean is “thinking about “.
This may simply be that “reflection “ on my social work course was something very specific, putting yourself in the centre of a situation.
I plead guilty to using the phrase in the Classical Music thread, but certainly was trying to imply that the process was a serious and critical attempt to compare performances, which in my view takes matters a little further than just thinking about it,
Sorry Barnabus_Aus, I wasn’t getting at you 🤭 - it’s just something I hear regularly and inwardly scream at. As I said in my post, it’s probably because I learned to use “reflecting” in a particular context .
To change the theme ... my wife and I get so angry when, after some bureaucratic or other cock-up, official bodies issue statements saying, "We take [the welfare of our employees ... or whatever] very seriously". It's probably true ... but it no longer rings true.
These are my particular bugbears: we must all learn lessons from (whatever) and hearing about the "lived lessons" of people and their own journey will be invaluable. 😡
I hate, hate, hate everything being a "journey," from your spiritual life to your illness. I know it's a metaphor that works well for a lot of people and they don't mean any harm by using it, but it just annoys the frig out of me. I like the get-well greeting card that says, "I promise never to refer to your cancer 'journey' unless you're actually going on a cruise."
I once say a film poster with a tagline like, Sometimes the most important thing about a journey is the place you are going to, or some such. The writer was so familiar with cliches about it being the journey not the destination, that they'd not thought that what they'd written was just the way things usually are.
I once say a film poster with a tagline like, Sometimes the most important thing about a journey is the place you are going to, or some such. The writer was so familiar with cliches about it being the journey not the destination, that they'd not thought that what they'd written was just the way things usually are.
Was that intentional? "Sometimes it is the Destination", a little like how sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?
I hate the journey thing too. I've basically banished it from my writing, which is really interesting when you're describing a person (Jesus!) who travels all the time.
Son number 1 was asked at interview "Tell us about your journey to this point?" Having decided he didn't fancy the job he told them "First, my car wouldn't start so I begged a lift ... ". Cue strained smile from panel chair, puzzled look on the person from HR and a shout of laughter from the third 🤣
I remembered that the poster had Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver on it, so I searched it up. Apparently it was called Snow Cake and Weaver plays an autistic woman of the kind found only in movies that are meant to be life-affirming.
These are my particular bugbears: we must all learn lessons from (whatever) and hearing about the "lived lessons" of people and their own journey will be invaluable. 😡
I hate, hate, hate everything being a "journey," from your spiritual life to your illness. I know it's a metaphor that works well for a lot of people and they don't mean any harm by using it, but it just annoys the frig out of me. I like the get-well greeting card that says, "I promise never to refer to your cancer 'journey' unless you're actually going on a cruise."
Amen to that. I tell anyone who will listen (that's not many...) that I didn't ask for it, I didn't plan it, I don't know where it's heading, I don't know how it will end and I sure as hell didn't buy the ticket. I'm OK with calling it an adventure, though.
When we were first married, forty years ago, we had a recipe book, the name of which I cannot remember but I do know we used to call it ‘A million ways with mince’.
It’s probably still on the kitchen shelf somewhere.
It may be on a shelf near a book called "What Every Bride Should Know" that was said to have sold out as fast as they could print it. I read about it in a novel, donkey's years ago and thought it was made up until I saw a copy on a kitchen shelf in a minister's house in Montana. It is a cookery book.
Or if it has I've just been otherwise occupied. So if the pulp novel says "He took her to his flat and had his way with her" that means he cooked her vegetables?
If that brides' book is the one I think it is, I had a copy. It had advertisements for various kitchen equipment of the range variety, and patent food products some of which, now unknown, were used in some recipes. It also had a method for rendering liver which had started to go off edible, which I have roughly remembered. It involved a patent solution, in which one washed the liver successively until the liquid was no longer stained brown, but remained pink. I assumed potassium permanganate. And there was a recipe for a sheep's head. (No, it didn't suggest leaving the eyes in.)
There was an older work called "What a young wife ought to know" in the same series as the celebrated classic "What a young boy ought to know" by Silvanus Stall. Gutenberg doesn't seem to have got that one. The one for wives is not as bad. It was written by a lady doctor in an era when women here could not even become doctors. The one for boys is macabre on the wickedness and dangers of la vice solitaire. Fortunately, it is so worthily squeamish that it would be quite difficult for an innocent young boy to guess what he's being warned against.
🤣 Reminds me of a talk we were given by an elderly school chaplain which kept referring to beastliness and unmanly practices. Even better was a film (I think made for ATS recruits) about the dangers of contracting anti-social diseases which didn't mention intercourse or sex.
I love those old books with titles that sound more interesting than they are. When I was a teenager, a bunch of us girls found and delighted in a musty old book in the church library called "How To Win Young Men." It was of course a guide for pastors about preaching to young men and winning their souls for Christ, but we had fun passing it to people and pretending it was a dating manual.
Is it a growing habit or just sloppy sub-editing that little words like "of" or "to" are disappearing from our media reports? A couple of examples from a report by one of our most respected newspaper's Washington correspondent which I've just read: Democrats are continuing to seek the removal Greene from her position many the party’s corporate donors
These are just the most recent examples.
Is it a growing habit or just sloppy sub-editing that little words like "of" or "to" are disappearing from our media reports? A couple of examples from a report by one of our most respected newspaper's Washington correspondent which I've just read: Democrats are continuing to seek the removal Greene from her position many the party’s corporate donors
These are just the most recent examples.
It's more likely to be because those are all legitimate words. So, a spell-checker won't pick them up.
Is it a growing habit or just sloppy sub-editing that little words like "of" or "to" are disappearing from our media reports? A couple of examples from a report by one of our most respected newspaper's Washington correspondent which I've just read: Democrats are continuing to seek the removal Greene from her position many the party’s corporate donors
These are just the most recent examples.
The example that irritates me, usually on TV or radio adverts, is the absence of "on" as in "this offer ends Wednesday". I sometimes scream at the radio "ends ON Wednesday!" Wednesday will end on its own without your help!
Comments
Surely comparing apples with oranges is a perfectly rational exercise, in fact a very good idea? They are both fruit, with many similarities (e.g. size) but with distinctive differences (e.g. texture), so they are ideal candidates for... comparison!
Let me assure you that Mrs RR is wrong. Smart-arses are amusing and much appreciated.
You can itemize the differences, but it's hard to rank an apple vs an orange, because they are such different fruits, whereas it's much easier for people to rank a Gala vs a Golden Delicious.
Yes, but I think the expression is supposed to put us in mind of an everyday situation where someome might make an inappropriate comparison. For example...
A: Don't eat the really big orange. Too much citric acid is bad for your stomach.
B: But I ate a really big apple yesterday, and you didn't say anything.
A: Yes, but apples don't contain nearly as much citric acid as oranges.
Whereas it's kind of hard to imagine a situation where someone would compare a brontosaurus to a transistor. Though it could work as a hyperbolization of the original saying.
A: The government should hold more referenda. That's how they decided things in ancient Athens.
B: Holy cow, you're comparing a modern post-industrialized society to an ancient city-state?!
A: You think that's apples and oranges?
B: No. More like brontosauruses and transistors.
This may simply be that “reflection “ on my social work course was something very specific, putting yourself in the centre of a situation.
"Reflecting on" certainly means "thinking about" to me. Sorry.
I might reflect on how well I performed some function or other. I wouldn't reflect on what we should eat for dinner this week.
I plead guilty to using the phrase in the Classical Music thread, but certainly was trying to imply that the process was a serious and critical attempt to compare performances, which in my view takes matters a little further than just thinking about it,
I hate, hate, hate everything being a "journey," from your spiritual life to your illness. I know it's a metaphor that works well for a lot of people and they don't mean any harm by using it, but it just annoys the frig out of me. I like the get-well greeting card that says, "I promise never to refer to your cancer 'journey' unless you're actually going on a cruise."
Was that intentional? "Sometimes it is the Destination", a little like how sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?
Then it's still the destination innit?
Yes. And the destination is home, and the journey doesn't matter. I wonder if we aren't saying the same thing.
Amen to that. I tell anyone who will listen (that's not many...) that I didn't ask for it, I didn't plan it, I don't know where it's heading, I don't know how it will end and I sure as hell didn't buy the ticket. I'm OK with calling it an adventure, though.
Can you give an example sentence? I'm not placing this.
I take it it hasn't made its way to your part of the world yet.
It’s probably still on the kitchen shelf somewhere.
MMM
Or if it has I've just been otherwise occupied. So if the pulp novel says "He took her to his flat and had his way with her" that means he cooked her vegetables?
You naughty thing.
Democrats are continuing to seek the removal Greene from her position
many the party’s corporate donors
These are just the most recent examples.
The example that irritates me, usually on TV or radio adverts, is the absence of "on" as in "this offer ends Wednesday". I sometimes scream at the radio "ends ON Wednesday!" Wednesday will end on its own without your help!