Posts by Robyn Gallagher
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Everything before but is bullshit.
So true! And it reminds me of this one, courtesy of Amy Sedaris:
Everything after "because" is bullshit.
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I don't even know anything about league or league commentators, so I can't really contribute to a discussion on top, but that post was hilarious (as to be expected).
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Tze Ming, every time I read your blog, I learn something that makes the exciting-knowledge part of my brain tingle. Thank you for sharing your smarts and helping me broaden my horizons.
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Can anyone point me in the direction of an English translation??
NZ Folk Song has a very informative page with not just the lyrics and a translation, but a bit of history about the song.
"__The twirling poi is often used as a symbol of a young woman's affections. They are volatile, but with some energetic training, they protect her from danger.__"
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When I control all the keyboards in the world, people who put two spaces after full stops will be hit on the head with the automatedrubber mallet attached to their monitor.
I learned to do that when I was taught to type. It's another thing that specifically relates to typewriters and their fixed-width fonts. It helped visually differentiate between a space between words and a space between sentences.
I had to force myself to get out of the habit, and it took a lot of effort, so have some pity on those who have been doing it all their typing lives.
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has anyone noticed that you can't underline words in documents these days because people complain about broken hyperlinks? everything has to be bold or italic
Apparently the convention of underlining for emphasis came with the invention of the typewriter. It couldn't do italic or bold, but it was easy to backspace and under words.
Besides, italics are sexier than underlining.
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Stephen Walker said that, "a direct quotation doesn't have a "that" before it."
Oh noez!
But I get what you're saying.
The trouble is, written English isn't quite capable of expressing all the nuances of spoken English.
However, now that I've had a think about it, I probably wouldn't use quotes in the Key speech, but I also don't think he was necessarily talking about himself in the third person. It was more that he was paraphrasing what other people had said about him - a sort of fictional quote.
or am i confusing basic grammatical rules here?
Honey, there ain't no such thing.
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It definitely reminds me of Brasseye, and also a little of Nathan Barley (which, for anyone who hasn't seen it, is definitely worth tracking down).
Word up. I got the DVD off Amazon.co.uk (it works with region 4), and it's brilliant. If you like the Mighty Boosh, it stars Julian Barratt, and all is well.
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See, if Robyn were going to transcribe that quote (something she can claim to have professional experience in doing), she'd be inclined to punctuate it like this:
On many occasions I have read in the media that, "John Key did a good job against Michael Cullen at the last election," that, "John Key knows his stuff on finance," but that, "No one knows what John Key really stands for."
But Robyn hasn't heard him speak it aloud, so she don't know how it was read out and where emphasis was placed. It could go either way, but Robyn thinks this wasn't necessarily a case of John Key talking in the third person.
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...did I mention I'm still having nightmares about that "Should 'anal retentive' have a hyphen?" thing? :(
OED says anal-retentive gets a hyphen when used as an adjective ("The anal-retentive blogger", "The blogger is anal retentive"
But anal retention and anal retentiveness (both nouns) don't.
Hmm... I suspect there may be some comedic aptness lurking in this post.