pedantry

Pedant’s Corner: Dear BBC Knowledge Channel,

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Your earlier show “A Victorian Farm” could have been arguably marketed as “the dawn of the Industrial Age”, but it was well past noon by Edward’s time. Why does your marketing department have to embarrass all those poor historians like this?

Boffins wa-hey!

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So what is the difference between a Boffin and a Wonk? Is it merely that “wonk” is a USAnism and “boffin” is a Britishism? Or is it to do with scholarly rigor – wonks are fascinated but waffle (or at… Read More ›

Note to SBS

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A couple of old bones which cause a revision of an evolutionary timeline model (about which species coexisted with which others when) do not “cast doubt on the theory of human evolution”. All this discovery may mean is that instead… Read More ›

David and Margaret are back

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And David Stratton suavely used “meretricious”* in the most appositely contemptuous fashion. How delightful when one’s favourite film review show appeals not only to one’s inner geek but also to one’s inner vocab nazi. * A long, long time ago,… Read More ›

oh, and by the way

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“The suspect has only one hand“. This was tagged on at the end of a standard description (medium height, short brown hair etc etc) of a con-artist the police are looking for, as read out on the radio while I… Read More ›