Love teaching: loathe marking

I was wondering recently why lecturers largely appear to the teaching, but loathe the marking.

After some consideration, I came down to the issue being that teaching is a positive and building process, where we are adding to people, and helping them become more than they are. Whereas marking can be a negative and destructive process, where it feels like we are taking away from people, telling them all they aren't (yet).

While I try to make marking a positive feedback process, where I am focused on letting students know what they can improve, it still feels judgemental to me.

I think I might needs to do some additional thinking, or some research about this idea, because I suspect that this judgement is the nub of why we can procrastinate about getting started on - and completing - marking. It is a negative task, a judgemental and critical job. It can also be frustrating, annoying, and disheartening.

As Katherine Pickering Antonova (2012) says, "I think it’s the disappointment. Grading involves layers and layers of disappointed expectations."

We see clearly when students have done the work, and when they 'get' what we are teaching them. The opposite is also crystalline.

In thinking about this, I wonder if there is another way to approach marking which is less negative, judgemental, and fraught with emotion. I wonder what that way might be. Is there a way to pull students in to evaluating their own work before I get it, or as I get it?

Is there a way that we can collaborate on this? Though in thinking about this, it may not be possible. The students who are not making the grade will not be able to collaborate, largely because - for whatever reason - they aren't understanding the material or instruction. Ergo, they will not understand how to collaborate as equals either.

The issue is really one of understanding. It is one of the understanding the language, understanding the material, understanding the structure of the course, understanding the principles of the course, understanding the learning outcomes, understanding how all the assessments on the course fit together and build towards final course success.

The issue of understanding is also an influence on previous feedback: when that feedback is not taken in. There is nothing more frustrating than telling the student the same thing two or three times, and they still don't 'hear'. Or act.

Still. There must be a better way to mark, without the judgement. Without feeling like the failure is yours. That it is your inability to connect with the student, to inspire the student, to create the environment for the student to become motivated, to encourage the student to do the readings, to help the student understand the importance of the material, to engage, that is why they have not 'got it'.

Surely...?


Sam

References:

• Antonova, Katherine Pickering (4 August 2012). Why I Hate Grading. Retrieved 22 August 2016 from http://kpantonova.com/why-i-hate-grading/
• Feinberg, Jonathan (2014). Wordle: Create. Retrieved 22 August 2016 from http://www.wordle.net/create

Yes! Quotes need to be in speech marks!

I got asked by a student "Do all quotes need to be inside speech marks?".

To which I answered: Yes!!

Speech marks - double quotes - have to be used to clearly indicate that what we have included are 'others' words. The quote marks indicate that we are borrowing these words because we could not say this any better than the original author said it.

This then implies that anything not in quote marks is our own writing. If there is a citation, then the reader will know that we have simply reworded the author’s original ideas, and our reference clearly flags that we are drawing on that other person’s ideas. This is paraphrasing, which is really normal – it happens about 90% of the time.

Quoting only happens about 10% of the time.

Also, when we quote from a numbered document, we include a page number. This enables our reader to go back to the exact spot and check our source for themselves. We can then share the learning.

So, by not using quote marks when using the actual words of others, we are unintentionally claiming that phrasing as our own.

If we use a programme like TurnItIn to check our writing, if there is also a reference, TurnItIn will ignore everything after an open quote "...." to the close quote. All quotes are usually excluded from our similarity scores.

There is a great video by Dr Stephen Fox - an awesome 18 minutes of referencing clarity! - here, which is very enlightening. We can also view the Dr Seuss book that he talks about (if we need to) here.


Sam

References:

• Fox, Dr Stephen (2014). What Plagiarism is via Dr Seuss. Retrieved 10 November 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xsm5ZlS5R8&feature=youtu.be
• Seuss, Dr (1960). Green Eggs & Ham excerpt to p. 12. Retrieved 10 November 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa2D7oXGABE&feature=youtu.be

Struggling with Search?

While I have written about this before (here), I used to love Windows tiered search. I could put in a partial title, some words on what the file contained, a date range, the file type, and the folders to search.

And bingo! My file would pop up. Easy.

Until Windows 7, that is. This was when Microsoft decided that users didn't need to search that way, and ...er ...'simplified' search.

They took away the tiered search and left us with a word search only. This drove me mental until I found FileSearchEX which restored my tiered search.

The only other way to search is to using coding language - aka Advanced Query Syntax (AQS). However, there is probably one key set of codes that will help you find your files without getting add-on software, using one simple search term.

Ed Bott from TechRepublic suggests:

"using the search box in the upper-right portion of File[/Windows Explorer, entering] datemodified:2013 tax allows you to filter search results to show only files that contain the word tax and were last saved in 2013.

"The search parameter you enter after the colon can be any date, even a partial one. So datemodified: June 2016 works even with the space included. To find only files before or after a given date, use the > and < operators, as in datemodified: >1/1/2016

"If you prefer a point-and-click interface, just type datemodified: by itself and use the calendar or predefined options below it."

Once you get the hang of that, there are other codes available which you can access here.

Hope that helps


Sam

References:

• Bott, Ed (9 November 2016). Search for files and folders by date. Retrieved 10 November 2016 from http://enews.techrepublic.com/hostedemail/email.htm?CID=39825800875&ch=54B688ADEC0E8BE48F871864D3206221&h=6f2e2a0d598de79d676baacdeacc3372&ei=WE0M4iuNx&schema=echo3
• Microsoft (n.d.). Advanced Query Syntax. Retrieved 10 November 2016 from https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa965711%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Driving: going the way of swords and spats

I read a great post on Medium recently about self-drive cars. It was a great post by Tony Aubé, pulling together a range of ideas in a very cogent way. He talked through the increase in electric cars; decrease in accident rates, traffic jams and traffic flows; obsolescence of traffic lights, traffic officers and fines; the environmental benefits of reduction in gas emissions; and the productivity increases of not being stuck in traffic each day.

I particularly liked Tony's ideas (1 November 2016) about work:

"work has always been about solving problems, but somewhere along the way we confused it for a way to keep ourselves busy. I believe this is fundamentally wrong. I believe in human potential, and I believe it is first by freeing ourselves from the menial, automatable jobs that we can ultimately break free and reach a higher level of self-actualization as a society."

Tony also included a map which showed the number of states in the US where driving is considered to be a 'middle class' profession. I don't think this is quite the same in New Zealand, but this new technology will disrupt people who currently drive for a living. Calling all drivers: the time to retrain is now, to be ready for your next career.

If drivers wait for the reversal of technology, they might find rocking horse excrement turns up before a reversal happens.

For me, this means we can free ourselves from the meaningless, and focus on creating meaning. And - perhaps - at last we can get what we were promised last century: more time for recreation.

As I have written elsewhere, the removal from the road of human driven vehicles is likely to be led by the insurance industry. Underwriters are already saying that AI premiums are around USD$300/year, whereas the human driver equivalent premium is above USD$1700. We just need to remember that underwriters don’t give a toss about the emotional argument: they focus on actual, statistical risk… and humans are considered to be more risky than the even the current level of AIs.

Local government will be relieved to take back car parks for green spaces, and to knock off funding endless roading projects. That will decrease our taxes and should leave us more able to fund extra leisure.

Germany is in the process of passing legislation to cease internal combustion engine production by 2030. Our future vehicles will likely be electric. As a result, we will have less noise, less pollution and improved - hopefully cheaper - public transport. Fewer traffic jams, and more efficient traffic flows are likely. We will eventually be able to convert our garages and driveways into something for recreation.

We will have to get used to the idea of not being defined by our cars. I certainly don't feel a need to be defined as a driver, or by my car (but perhaps that is a girl thing). I would much rather grab a pod to get to work, and to do some work in the taxi as I travel. While I suspect that New Zealanders in are less car-centric than Americans, we will still need to learn to let go.

But. Just as there were people who initially refused to give up their horses and carts for the internal combustion engine, trust will take time to build. I am sure self-drive will gain acceptance as the technology matures, and we iron out the bugs. There will no doubt be accidents and set-backs, but it seems to me that there are more positives than negatives.

I suspect that within a decade or two, human drivers will no longer be allowed on the roads. We will then need a new form of ID because young people will not have driver’s licences: there will no longer be a need to learn to drive.

Like learning to use a sword or to fasten spats, driving will be an obsolete skill set.

And I don't think it is a bad thing.

Sam

• Reference: Aubé, Tony (1 November 2016). The Unintended Ways Self-Driving Cars Will Change Our World. Retrieved 3 November 2016 from https://medium.com/swlh/the-unintended-ways-self-driving-cars-will-change-our-world-3b15d1db9026#.gy3hqeqxg

Removing security in pdfs

If you have ever wanted to cut and paste a bibliographical entry in a pdf, only to find that the document is secured, so you are unable to select anything within it, then this post is for you.

You need Adobe Acrobat Pro though, for this tip to work.

Open the (SECURED) file in Adobe Acrobat Pro, and go to (a) the Advanced menu; (b) Select 'Security'; then (c) select "Remove Security" and (d) click OK on the dialogue box that pops up. (Some versions will have a Security menu, so you can miss the first step).

That's it! If there is no password on the document, then this will work perfectly.

However, if the file requires a password, then this won't work.


Sam

Getting a word count from a pdf

Have you ever needed to get a word count from a pdf?

There are several options, depending on how locked down your pdf is:

1. You can save the .pdf file as a Word document, then open the Word version.
   Word will generate a count for you.
   
2. If you find yourself unable to save to Word, try saving your pdf in rich text format (rtf) instead. Then open that in Word, and get your count.
   
3. If neither of those work, you can open Word with a blank document, then open the pdf. Ctrl & A in the pdf, then Crtl & C to copy the whole document, then go to Word, and Ctrl & P to paste everything across. Give Word a few seconds, and it will generate a count for you.
   
4. Alternatively, you can download a zip file of OCRFeeder, install the software, and it will allow you to import any normally un-importable pdfs as Word documents (to use, File | Import PDF | Automatically detect and recognize all pages | Export to ODT).

But we don't always want to do step four. Sometimes we simply want a total count, and don't want to faff about with importing a whole document.

I recently struck a document which I couldn't 'save as', and would also only copy a page of text at a time: but all I wanted was the total words. This was a 50 page document, so copying it to Word page by page was not an attractive option!

I went online in search of a free and simple to use tool, and found https://wordy.com/word-count-tool/. All you need to do is to upload your file, and it will generate you a total word count.

So easy!


Sam

The Adoption of Self-Drive Vehicles

(Harrow, 1 March 2016)

There was a great post by TechRepublic on the state of play with self-drive cars recently.

Reece (29 October 2016) reported that the US Department of Transportation "considers the AI powering Google's driverless cars (which have already logged hundreds of thousands of self-driven miles) officially a 'driver' — marking a ground-breaking moment in the history of transportation".

I suspect that insurers may be one of the forces which pushes self-drive cars on the road and human drivers off it. At present it appears that there is significantly lower accident rate with driverless cars. Insurance is all about paying for statistically supported risk... which is why young women drivers pay a lower premium than young men.

ASIRT (n.d.) provides global statistics of "1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, [being] on average 3,287 deaths a day. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled" annually.

There have been very few accidents with self-drive cars, and - I think - only one serious injury (death?) for over 10m collective miles of driving between Google, Tesla and nuTonomy.

Because of this, I suspect that insurance companies will start to increase human driver premiums until the cost makes insuring a human driver a luxury.

With a great deal of new car purchases being corporate sales, Companies too will want to lower their risk. As they replace fleets, they will go with a lesser cumulative cost of replacement. It may well be that self-drive will be that replacement - lower insurance premium, less possibility of time off and lower maintenance and fuel costs for vehicles, lower health insurance premiums for employees.

Last Christmas, the Tokoyo local body said in the Economist that this coming Christmas Eve, people would be able to dial up a driverless taxi to get them home. I am not sure how far down the road they have gone. However, in Singapore, they are currently trialling 12 self-drive taxis, with - as I understand it - a plan to expand to 24 units by Christmas as they see how they work out. With only one accident thus far (a minor bump at 4km/hr).

Many cities already have driverless trains; with many more exploring the idea of driverless busses. Human error and systems failures from human involvement are increasing AI accuracy and decision-making.

Public transport and taxis being self-drive, I suspect, may become the new 'normal' on-road option quite quickly, as the technology matures.

I hope that there are enough taxis for the demand, because - providing the price was reasonable - I would much rather be driven to work than to drive myself. I don't think I am that unusual in that.

Wishing I could do something productive, instead of having to commute, is going to push self-drive along. Who wouldn't want to save the hassle of owning a car, garaging it, insuring it, cleaning it, maintaining it and parking it; versus whistling up a pod and being delivered to our door at a reasonable cost?

Providing we can trust the AI.

And so far the stats look very good for self-drive.


Sam

References

• Anjum, Zafar (25 October 2016). Self-driving taxi roll-out in Singapore gathers intelligence. Retrieved 30 October 2016 from http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450401579/Worlds-first-self-driving-taxis-roll-out-in-Singapore
• ASIRT (n.d.). Annual Global Road Crash Statistics. Retrieved 30 October 2016 from https://asirt.org/initiatives/informing-road-users/road-safety-facts/road-crash-statistics
• Harrow, Robert (1 March 2016). How Self-Driving Cars Will Impact Your Auto Insurance. Retrieved 30 October 2016 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertharrow/2016/03/01/how-self-driving-cars-will-impact-your-auto-insurance/#61b69d096e1c
• Reese, Hope (29 October 2016). Our autonomous future: How driverless cars will be the first robots we learn to trust. USA: TechRepublic. Retrieved 30 October 2016 from http://www.techrepublic.com/article/our-autonomous-future-how-driverless-cars-will-be-the-first-robots-we-learn-to-trust/?ftag=TREe01923b&bhid=40778246

A list of management theories

My students, when doing their capstone research projects, need a management theory to relate their findings to. Sometimes it is hard for them to find an appropriate theory.

So I went looking for a list of management theories. I thought that this would be a relatively easy thing to find.

However, it proved to be a bit like rocking horse ...er... excrement. A mythical beast.

So I created one myself.

I have decided to relate all theories relating to the business environment that I encountered to a business sub-category. While many of them are grounded in career practice or psychology, they have been assigned a business category.

The categories are:

• Buyer Behaviour
• Change Management
• Economics
• Ethics
• Financial Management
• Governance
• HR
• Innovation
• International Business
• Leadership
• Learning Management
• Management
• OB (Org. Behaviour)
• Organisational Design
• Research
• Strategic Management

I included in my list - as best as I can determine - the theory's title, the creator's names, the creation date, all with an assigned category.

The list of over three hundred theories can be accessed and downloaded from here.

I would welcome feedback on additions, corrections and comments!

Sam

'Berk' has Cockney rhyming slang roots

A Commonwealth insult is to call someone a 'berk'. This is an abbreviation of the rhyming slang euphemism, "Berkshire Hunt" or - sometimes - "Berkeley Hunt".

If you don't know how Cockney rhyming slang works, it is finding a pair of linked words, with one that rhymes with the base word. You then use the non-rhyming word as a synonym for your original word. For example, the base word "stairs", has the linked pair of "apples and pears"; then you go up the 'apples' (not the stairs).

Michael Quinion, the etymological mage of http://www.worldwidewords.org/, confirms this here, while noting that, despite it looking as if it should be pronounced as "burk", Berkshire is actually pronounced as "Barkshih".

The Shorter Oxford Dictionary (Simpson & Weiner, 1989) defines Berkeley Hunt as:

"[The name of a celebrated hunt in Gloucestershire.] Rhyming slang for C*NT (usu. in sense 2, ‘a fool’)- Also ellipt. as Berkeley. Cf. the abbrev. BERK. 1937 Partridge Dict. Slang 48/1 Berkeley, the pudendum muliebre: C. 20. Abbr. Berkeley Hunt. 1937 Sir Berkeley [see sir sb. 1 b]. 1940 A. Bracey Flower on Loyalty 1. iii. 49 Lane’s face cleared. ‘Tell us, chum.’ ‘And spoil the nice surprise! Not bloody likely!’ ‘You always was a berkeley,’ said Lane cheerfully. ‘Well, I can wait.’ 1960 J. Franklyn Dict. Rhyming Slang 38/2 Berkeley hunt" (p. 125)

Most people use the term 'berk' without realising the underlying rhyming slang base word that they are actually referring to. Regardless, 'berk' is now simply considered to be a fairly mild - and vaguely sympathetic - way of telling someone they have been a plank...

Ha, ha: which I assume comes from "thick as a --".

Ah, the versatility of the English language :-)


Sam

References: 

• Quinion, M. (2011). 3. Q and A: Burke. http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/worldwidewords/2011-April.txt 
• Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (Eds.) (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., Vol II BBC-Chalypsography). Clarendon Press. 

Getting clearer website analytics

Did you know that you can get website analytics on most websites? Free?

This is handy, particularly when you are being told that you should advertise in a particular place, and what the traffic is like... and you aren't sure how much of a gloss the marketers are putting on the stats they are presenting to you.

All you need to do to check is to head off to Hype Stat at http://www.hypestat.com/. Enter the site you want to double-check in the field in the header bar, click the green check button, et voilà!

You can get your world ranking (via Alexa), the number of unique visitors per day, the ftp address, a link to the Way Back Machine (so you can see the past incarnations of the website), and a calculation of reach.

Interestingly, the top ranking page is Google.com, but that splits off all the individual country Google pages - so the Indian site, the Chinese site, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Germany, etc... so Google cumulatively completely canes all other sites for traffic.

However, if your site is hosted by a blogging site (such as Blogspot, as mine is) then you can't see your individual data. Instead, you will have to rely on the internal reporting within your host.

Sam

Download Facebook video without software

Recently, there was a webinar that I was supposed to attend. However because it was 9pm Melbourne time, it ended up being too late for me to stay up and watch it with any degree of concentration.

So I wanted to download the video to watch it later on. The webinar organiser had posted a copy of the webinar to the Facebook page, which was fantastic.

Unfortunately our Internet at home is not that great, and Facebook video in particular often freezes.

So I wanted to download the video in order to watch it, and was unable to find anything on Facebook to help me do that.

It took me a bit of hunting, but I managed to find a YouTube video with "how to" instructions.The instructions are:

• Go to your Facebook wall where the video is located
• Double-click the video to play it, so it opens in the Facebook pop-up, with your timeline blacked out in the background
• The URL in the address bar above will now have changed
• Change the "www" to "m" in that address bar
• Hit enter
• The format of the page will change to a very simple layout
• Play the video once more
• Right click the video and choose "save video as"
• Navigate to wherever you want to save it on your hard drive as normal, and click save

Done!


Sam

• Reference: HelloWorld! (2013). How to download video from facebook without any software. Retrieved 23 October 2016 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FIhkFldTFc

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

Lawrence Kohlberg formalised ideas about personal moral development, clustering ethical decisions into three meta areas: pre-conventional thinking, conventional thinking, and post-conventional, or principled, thinking (1976).

• Pre-conventional thinking is where we follow rules to avoid being punished. We act in our own self-interest, and are blindly obedient to authority because authority exists. This first level of ethical thinking is ego-centric, and is where most children's thinking lies. Some adults never evolve past this stage.
• Conventional thinking - level two - is where we conform to what others around us expect us to be. We fulfil the duties and the obligations that our social systems put upon us. We uphold laws because we can see that maintaining our social order has value. Most adults are at this stage.
• Post-Conventional or principled thinking - level three - is where we impartially apply universal standards of behaviour to resolve moral conflicts. We seek to balance self-interest with a concern for others and for the common good. An internal locus of control is needed for this type of thinking, as people may break laws that are unjust, whistleblow, be philanthropic when they have nothing to give. Fewer than 20% of adults are in this space. These are people who encourage followers to think for themselves and to expand their understanding of moral issues, such as Emily Pankhurst, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi, Mother Theresa, and Martin Luther King.

Kohlberg also divided each level into several sub-groups, which you can read more about here (1976).


Sam

References:

• Kenyon, R. (16 November 2009). Stages of Moral Development. Retrieved 7 June 2016 from http://www.xenodochy.org/ex/lists/moraldev.html
• Kohlberg, L. (1976). Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach. In T. Lickona (Ed.), Moral development and behavior: Theory, research, and social issues (pp.31-53). USA: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Daft, R. L. (2007). The Leadership Experience (4th ed). USA: Thomson South-Western.

Sky-blue pink with a Finny Haddy Border

My Mother's family - through my grandfather - has strong connections to Gateshead, bringing with it a rich heritage of Geordie language and aphorisms.

One aphorism is that of - when, as a child, asking a question - having an adult trip off the tongue "Sky blue pink with a finny haddy border" instead a more realistic answer. Hilarious to the adult, bewildering to the child, who then had to try to work it out with insufficient information.

As I have recalled this phrase, I have tried to find the origins of it, but the interweb doesn't provide many solutions.

It appears that the "sky-blue pink" part may be American in origin (see my post on this here), but the "finny haddy border" is, I think, all Geordie. Michael Quinion suggests this is because "finny addy [sic] is a corruption of finnan haddock, a type of cold-cured smoked fish" (Quinion, n.d.). Michael suggests that "finnan" is a softening of Findon, over the Scottish border, where the haddock referred to came from.

(I also wonder if Michael Quinion has recorded this as "finny addy" because of the Geordie habit of dropping aitches). I think I have also heard this as "finny hanny", not "finny addy". Of course, this change may well have come from elision, corruption, eggcorns, my mishearing or simply the Geordie habit of rhyme and rhythm.

"Quote, Unquote" radio show host Neil Rees in his book "Oops, Pardon, Mrs Arden!" also records the saying as 'haddy', and seems to imply that the phrase is has been common in UK English for some time (2001):

Sky blue pink with a finny haddy border. Fobbing-off phrase. 'This was my mother's invariable answer to any question when we were children' - Julie Hickson (2000). Compare 'sky-blue tail', 'bottom pink' and 'little thin flowery border' under NEAT BUT NOT GAUDY. Marjorie Wild, Devon recalled. (2000) sky-blue-pink' and 'sandy-grey-russet' as nonsense descriptions. As a small child, when I asked an aunt what was the colour of something, she would teasingly reply, 'sky-blue scarlet, the colour of a mouse's fart' - to the annoyance of other adults - I have never heard this from anyone else" and have no idea whether or not it was my aunt's original' - Mrs J. Jones, Shropshire (1993). Well, Partridge/Slang has sky-blue pink' for 'colour unknown or indeterminate', since about 1885. Casson/Grenfell has, in answer to the question, 'What shall I wear?' - Sky blue pink.' (p. 174).

Partridge, the UK slang tome, does indeed have sky-blue pink defined as "Jocular c.p. for colour unknown or indeterminate: since ca 1885" (1972, p. 852) which does not imply US origin, while Dalzell and Victor have "noun an unknown, indeterminate or fantasy colour. Jocular UK, 1942" (2007, p. 589). That earliest evidence date that Dalzell and Victor record (1942), seems very late to me when Partridge has 1885.

Michael Quinion thought that the origins of phrase had come into UK English from American English, where it can be found in the US literature from 1881 onwards (n.d.). Quinion (n.d.), Dalzell and Victor (2007) all seem to think that this phrase crossed the Atlantic during or after WW2. However, in my Mother's family, the use seems much more embedded than that, particularly since they moved to London in the mid-1930s, and this is a phrase most commonly used by her older brother who would have heard it from our Geordie relatives before the family came south.

I have ordered a copy of Casson and Grenfell's "Nanny Says" (though I think this only illustrates the "sky-blue pink" portion of the saying [correct: only "sky blue pink", 1972, p. 22]). However, it may shed more light on the issue. [it didn't].

And whether is is "Sky blue pink with a finny haddy border" or "Sky blue pink with a finny hanny border".

Fascinating, trying to work out where things come from.

Sam

References

• Casson, H., Grenfell, J., with Avebury, D. (Ed.). (1972). Nanny Says. Dennis Dobson. 
• Dalzell, Tom & Victor, Terry (2007). The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. UK: Routledge.
• Quinion, Michael (2005). SKY-BLUE PINK. Retrieved 9 June 2016 from http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/worldwidewords/2005-April/000324.html
• Quinion, Michael (n.d.). Sky-blue pink. Retrieved 9 June 2016 from http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sky1.htm
• Partridge, Eric (1972). The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang (combined 2 volume abridged version by Jaqueline Simpson). Penguin Books.
• Rees, Nigel (2001). Oops, Pardon, Mrs Arden!: An Embarrassment of Domestic Catch Phrases. UK: Robson Books.