What's in a hyphen?
16000 words have been de-hyphenated in the latest short edition of the Oxford English dictionary. The cock-a-hoop linguists responsible are praising themselves for a job well done.

The bumble-bee, for instance, has now been condensed into one word, as have icecream and 15998 other compound nouns. However, this clear-out is only short-lived because linguistically value-adding compound nouns will soon appear auto-magically in the place of those that have just been removed.

You see, language is fluid, and all that happens is that a new hyphen will appear to add clarity to a noun. For instance, the humble bee will be better defined and become the brown-and-yellow bumblebee. Simple, see.

Personally, I think it is bad news to mess with the hyphen. This is not because I am against compressing compoundnouns, (the more succinct and clean a language the better) but the galling thing is, the spelling changes have been driven by print designers' dislike of ugly punctuation. How lame.

Can we get our own back and ban any designers who insist on jazzing up text with different colored letters, or can we shoot head-line writers who mis-use capital letters? Just an off-the-wall idea to redress the balance.

What I never worked out, by the way, was why the perennial honey bee has never been separated by a hyphen ever in its existence. How unfair and inconsistent is that?

According to Reuters, the Togo art of decapitation is alive and well. 12 people dead.

It appears that the protagonists of recent ritual murders think that by removing other people's body parts, they will improve their own social standing and feel better about themselves! Each to their own.

Unlike the selective Western approach to improved self-esteem - nip and chin tucks, ear trims and nose jobs on your own body - the Togoans prefer the one cut suits me approach. The slash and run murders have left a dozen people headless, and left millions of us civilised folks shaking our heads in disbelief. If decapitation of another human being really were the answer to feling better about yourself better, don't you think it would have caught on here a long time ago?

Perhaps we did try it out, but our ancestors wimped out and drew the line at the saying Two heads are better than one.

Perhaps in voodoo land they have it right. Afterall, why let a 12 year old child live a full life when a deluded murderer could have a better time of it with the innocent kid's head hanging on his bedroom wall.

All very disturbing, and to ease the pain for the millions who don't know where Togo is, it is next to Nigeria.

The advert on TV from Gibbs, the career people, has a horrifying message, I think.

Health care professional

"Don't want to go to college for 2 years to retrain for a new career? Try a Gibbs training course to become a health care professional in 6 weeks.

Look at the lady at the desk in the background. Yes, that poor little bored thing has just finished our indepth 6-week training course, and now look at her. She thought she was training to become an anal temperature checker and wet bed changer. We would have none of that here. Thanks to our specialist training program, she is completely revitalised and professionally inputting data 6 days week plus Sundays at time and a half of one percent. Life is good for her, thanks to Gibbs."

Security

Another advert promises rich rewards in the field of security.

"Hey, got a baseball bat and a size 12 fist? We have some great job prospects for you, right now.

Forget going to college to learn psychology, man management and security issues, try Gibbs 3-day training course. By going the Gibbs route, you can be a high-flying security guard at your local mall before the weekend.

Free uniform, $500 boots repayable at 43% monthly compound interest, and check small print for details on fast food allowances, back-handers to shoplifters and free membership to a fitness clinic that is never open when you finish your 15 hour 7 days a week shift."

The hard sell

Act on the Gibbs ads and retrain with them at your peril.

"Hey, impressionable disenchanted viewer, that lucky employee smiling to the camera could be you. Break the cycle of no job and no education and no prospects. Forget college. Forget proper training. Indepth knowledge is for pussies. Here at Gibbs, we can fast track you to the bottom rung of a very long ladder. We don't want you too qualified, else how could we use and abuse you and threaten you with loss of job security.

You know it makes sense to cut corners and just get a job, any job. The Government also love us for all we have done to clear the streets of wasters. We relocate desperate folks off the streets and into open plan soulless work environments regulated by piped muzak and thinly veiled contempt."

Conconclusion

After completing a 4 year degree, I too say, forget college. Ignore the rule of the thumb, that more you put in the more you get out. Go the 21st century route. Invest nothing and get almost nothing back, except a new job title and a short cut to a credit card and the hell that follows. Gibbs know best.

I am all for renovating classic boats, homes, palaces and things of architectural importance, but have the wooden boat rescue brigade gone too far down memory lane with this speed boat? It looks like it was built in the days before engines and proper paint. In fact, it looks like it fossilised back in the day of pterodactyls and impending Ice Ages. Or was it a prototype from Noah's yard?



Boat or bonfire, what do you think?

The stock market looks set to plunge on the day they got the worst job figures since 2003. This announcement followed the figures from yesterday showing much higher consumer spending than expected.

The thing that makes me smile is that according to the timing of the stats, this higher spending spree came from this dwindling number of employees. Ergo, to increase the retail sector outlook, be a good American boss and get rid of as many employees as possible.

I have logged this post about Postapoo under Lifestyle, just to keep things tidy around here.

Bottom line, back in March I regurgitated a story by Fox News about the plea from Postapoo, urging the Scots to send a poo to their least favorite Englishman on St George's Day. This Scottish victimisation of the English was untrue. In fact, every inhabitant of the British isles was invited to celebrate in similar fashion on their saint's day too.

Here is the confirmation story sent to me straight from the horse's mouth at Poo HQ.

To clarify, we (PostaPoo.com) did not urge anyone to send a poo to an Englishman they hate but to their "favourite, or least favourite Englishman" - an ironic celebration of the national day and just like the promotion for St. Patrick's Day and St. Andrew's and St. David's Day. Poor reporting gone bad indeed.

So there we have it. In the true tradition of satirical reporting, Fox made sure that the facts did not get in the way of a better headline-grabbing story.

If you feel the urge to gift a favorite person with one of these non-aromatic turds, you know where to go. Don't worry, they shit world-wide and customs have been advised to pass them through unopened.

For a classier gift, perhaps they could offer Poo in a Prada Shoe for a favorite ex. And perhaps newspaper editors could Give a Shit to the most vociferous of their complaining readers. Any more ideas? I would ask you to Stumble Upon this article but that may be a step too far.

This is a prime example of a Fiat back in the days when they were famous as high-speed rust buckets.


0-60 months before the side panels perforated, and total rot-riddled unroadworthiness within 10 years.

To their credit, as this picture shows, Fiat were one of the first to popularize the convertible model. This was a pragmatic approach to motoring. Firstly, it played straight into the flashy Italian desire to pose, and second, for Fiat it meant there were less body parts to rust.

Bentley, emphasis on the "bent"?

Started to become special, is a new term I coined after failing to sell it these past 11 years using the more correct term, "a pile of rusty old scrap". I could re-assemble it from the spares I have lying around the yard, but it will be more like a Mini with an oversize chassis than a classic Bentley.

Ed's bad spray day

Once I repainted a works van prior to starting a new job on a very select country home. I never appreciated how much work it took to prepare the bodywork, and had no idea that I would run out of paint midway through Sunday afternoon, back in the day when shops actually closed on Sundays.

I was so embarrassed when I pulled into the drive on Monday morning and the owner was looking out his bedroom window down at the van. All the bodywork was brand spanky new Arctic White, apart from the roof which resembled Mold Green.

Had any disastrous do-it-yourself car repair stories? Let us know and I will publish them.