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“I just know it is coming into the house,” she said.
“You know it will fly into the house and you won’t get it out,” she told me.
But I didn’t listen.
We’ve got a little bird, probably a swallow, that has decided to nest in the little potted palm tree just outside our front door. My wife tried warning me several times that I needed to move it. Did I listen? What do you think…? Continue Reading
Million Dollar Language
“Why use a 50-cent word when a 5-cent word will do?” That advice needs to be adjusted for inflation, because we live in the age of Million Dollar Language.
I saw a billboard on the way in to work, highlighting a contest being run by a local bank. Being the stickler for language that I am, something caught in my frontal lobe and wouldn’t rattle out:
“Someone could win one million dollars.”
The contest is called the “Make Life Interesting Sweepstakes,” by AmSouth/Regions (the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of bank mergers; two great banks that couldn’t bear the thought of being someone else’s minor appendage, so they joined forces like the last two good looking people from the shipwreck.)
TiVO’s big 2009 Announcement
I previously spilled the beans about the 2008 rollout of the Apple iWife. Now, I’ve unearthed the top-secret details of a coming breakthrough in Digital Video Recorder technology.
Consolidation
One of the downsides of media consolidation is the propensity of a small error to be magnified. Like this one, for example, from the Nashville Tennessean:
Plan for emergenies
Spring tornado season a good time to make sure you and your family know what to do
Don’t blame staff writer Vivi Hoang. Editors slap the headlines on the stories, and several sets of eyeballs passed over that typo. Unfortunately, because of media consolidation, no one at the Dickson Herald, Ashland City Times, nor Fairview Observer caught it either. Not that they could change it if they wanted to.
I blame Tennessee for being landlocked. They’re not used to have a C around.
[tags]Ike Pigott, Occam’s RazR, journalism, Tennessean[/tags]
Parts is Parts of Parts
I have an annoying habit of noticing things that seem to bother me, and no one else. I have an even more annoying habit of sharing those things with people who don’t seem to mind. And I have an intensely annoying compulsion to continue until others see just what was bothering me to begin with.
I could go over a litany of verbal abuses, but Tim Warner over at Mother Tongue Annoyances already has an online encyclopedia of etymological effluvia. So I’ll try to stay orientated to the advertising and pop culture linguistic lashings. And this time around, I’ll be taking a bite out of Nature Valley’s new 100% Natural Cereal. Continue Reading
About the Author
Ike Pigott is a veteran communicator who got out of television news and back into life. Now working for Alabama Power, he specializes in corporate communications, but has interests that are all over the place. This site is as much for him as anyone -- to explain things that ought to be explained, explore ideas that keep him up at night, and connect concepts that are just begging to be joined.
A personal site, opinions here are his and those of his commenters.
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