Seeing different word meanings

There are many words where the meaning looks like it should mean one thing, but actually have meanings that don't seem to match that impression... if you catch my drift. Words that appear to be apples, when they are in fact oranges.

I have a little list of works that often make me smile. For example:

• Benchmark: crushed carpet, or floor marks caused by benches
• Chancery: the act of taking a chance
• Bemuse: to become someone's muse
• Wizen: to become wise, or wizardish
• Nonplussed: cannot be totalled
• Cacophony: a chocolate telephone
• Inkling: a small biro cartoon
• Swordfish: catching fish with a sword 
• Halitosis: having a toxic, sentient computer on your spaceship (Clarke, 1968). Actually, this last one is interesting. It sounds Latin-derived, and we assume it means bad breath... possibly arising from dental caries. However, apparently "there’s no such thing as halitosis. It was a made up medical condition coined by the owner of Listerine in the 1920s [...] , company owner Jordan Wheat Lambert decided to [...] market his product as a cure for bad breath. To convince the public that they needed Listerine, Lambert scoured the dictionary and happened upon an old Latin word meaning breath, halitus, which he decided to stylize as halitosis to make it sound like a legitimate medical condition" (Smallwood, 2018) running Listerine ads for hundred years.

There are many more where these came from. There is nothing like having a bit of fun, in seeing the ridiculous in our own language.

Sam

References:

Clarke, A. C. (1968). 2001: A space odyssey. Hutchinson.

Smallwood, K. (2018, April 18). 10 Words That Don’t Really Mean Anything. Top 10s. https://www.toptenz.net/10-words-that-dont-really-mean-anything.php

read more "Seeing different word meanings"

Fish go rotten from the head

To help to ensure good governance, boards need "both competence and sufficient diversity around the boardroom table" (Garratt, 2010, p. xv), carefully working through "the necessary balances, competences, evaluations and learning needed to ensure more healthy organizations in future - to stop the fish rotting from the head" (pp. xv-xvi). The governance board is considered to be the 'head' of the organisation; the setter of externally-focused strategy, big picture thinking, direction, vision and values (Garratt, 2010). The body of the organisation is the staff and management, who look to internally-focused tactics and management, operational thinking, mission, tasks and actions. If the head is good, the fish will be sweet: that sound, measured leadership should lead to sound strategy. However, if the head is bad, the 'fish' will be rotten; that poor leadership leads to poor strategy... and thus the fish has gone rotten from its head. 

This saying is a metaphor for allocating responsibility to where the power actually lies, I feel. The body is not powerful: the head is. 

It is thought the "fish rots from the head" saying, so commonly used in governance circles (Garratt, 2010), comes from the Turkish:

"The Turks have a homely proverb applied on such occasions: they say 'the fish stinks first at the head,' meaning that if the servant is disorderly, it is because the master is so" (Porter, 1768, p. 27).

It is interesting that in 250 years there has been little drift: that the current, commonly-held meaning remains close to that of Porter (1768). Further, it is suggested that the Turkish poet, Rumi, published this adage in 1273 as a "Fish begins to stink at the head, not the tail" (Martin, 2023; Pearson, 2022), but I have not sighted the original, so cannot attest to the veracity!

But I do like the saying. Evocative :-)

Sam

References:

Garratt, B. (2010). The Fish Rots from the Head: Developing effective board directors (3rd ed.). CPI Bookmarque Ltd.

Martin, G. (2023, December 11). A fish rots from the head down. Phrase Finder. https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/fish-rot-from-the-head-down.html

Pearson. (2022, May 18). The Fish Rots from the Head – Meaning, Origin and Usage. https://english-grammar-lessons.com/the-fish-rots-from-the-head-meaning/

Porter, J. (1768). Observations on the Religion, Law, Government, and Manners, of the Turks (Vol 1.). J. Norse Bookseller.

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Where does strapped for cash come from?

Has the phrase "strapped for cash" ever struck you as being an odd phrase? It has me, and so I finally got off my backside to try to find out where it comes from.

A look at the shorter OED (Simpson & Weiner, 1989) says that, while "strapped" may have started in the UK to explain belting (a strapped box), then moved to 'binding' (a coat with strapped seams), the term 'strapped for cash'  appears to be a US slang adjective from the mid-19th century: 

"slang (orig. U.S.). Short of money. Now freq[uently] const[ructed using] for. Also in extended use and cash-strapped adj. 1857 Nat. Intelligencer Oct., (Bartlett) No go. Lowndes is strapped. 1876 Daily News 5 Oct. 6/1 The tramp.. does not awaken sympathy like the ‘strapped’ journeyman in search of a job. 1913 Edith Wharton Custom of Country 1. iv. 44 ‘Fact is,..’ he said, ..‘I’m a little mite strapped just this month.’ 1935 Sun (Baltimore) 13 Mar. 2/6 PWA is not yet ‘strapped’ for funds. 1936 L. C. Douglas White Banners ix. 193 If he had been strapped, the chances were he would have bought a hat to-day. 1936 M. Franklin All that Swagger xlviii. 437 Also she was strapped for ready money" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 850)

What is interesting is that the term is first "strapped" and only later - in 1935 - do we get the first apparent usage of strapped "for funds" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 850) appearing. This is the use that I know here in Aotearoa: we don't tend to turn this around and hyphenate it (i.e. cash-strapped), except in headlines. 

I had always assumed that 'strapped for cash' was to do with strapping, the final stage of grooming a horse, where the horse is 'strapped' with a hay wisp as a massage technique. However, while I could not find this meaning in the dictionary, I did find the following entry for the UK dialect term, 'strapper':

"1777 Terrier in J. P. Briscoe Old Nottinghamsh[ire] (1881) 37 Item: For every Milch Cow a composition of twopence, and for every Strapper (a cow that yields but little milk [Ed.]) one penny halfpenny. 1854 Miss Baker Northampt. Gloss., Strappers, cows that are nearly dry, that yield little milk" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989, p. 850).

Perhaps 'strapper' got picked up in the US as a low-yield situation? It is a possibility.

But then, lo! Strapped for cash comes back into UK English with P. G. Wodehouse's character, the Honourable Galahad Threepwood (1952), or Gally, who finds himself:

"1952 WODEHOUSE Pigs Have Wings i. 23 A bit strapped for the ready, eh?" (p. 850)

Wodehouse, eh? He moved to the US after World War II, due to his German broadcasts being misconstrued as him being a collaborator (McCrum, 2001), and being persecuted in the UK. He may have picked the term up, then introduced it back into UK English, and so to the Commonwealth nations. A possibility. 

I hope someone is able to do some more digging on this.

Sam

References:

McCrum, R. (2004). Wodehouse: A life. W. W. Norton & Company.

Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (Eds.) (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., Vol XVI Soot-Styx). Clarendon Press.

Wodehouse, P. G. (1952). Pigs Have Wings. Herbert Jenkins Ltd.

read more "Where does strapped for cash come from? "

On the QT

I recently said to a colleague that I was asking them for an answer 'on the QT'; then stopped, and wondered where on earth that phrase had come from. I knew it was short for 'on the quiet', but why "QT"? Why not just "on the quiet"?

'When in danger, fear or doubt' on language, I turn to Michael Quinion, he of former World Wide Words fame, and a reader for OED. Sure enough, Michael had a solution for me: the earliest sighting in the wild is "from a British ballad of 1870, which contained the line 'Whatever I tell you is on the QT'" (1999), from a US etymologist, Robert Hendrickson (2008). However, Michael felt that, as this pointed to a song of the time, without providing the name of it, this origin was not concrete enough. Michael found an 1879 music hall song, "published in the Cambridge Jeffersonian of Ohio [, which ran] "My house-keeper, Mrs. Brown, Is the greatest saint in town, As tee-total as it’s possible to be, It’s only by her nose I know where my whiskey goes, She tipples on the strict Q. T." (1999).

This saying does have the sound of music hall about it. However, I was interested enough to go and dig into Hendrickson (2008), and found his original entry (see the accompanying image). This said:

"Q.T. A British broadside ballad (1870) contained the line 'Whatever I tell you is on the Q.T.' This is the first record of Q.T. for 'on the quiet, in confidence' recorded in English, but no one has established whether the broad-side's anonymous author was the first person to use the initials Q.T. to stand for quiet" (Hendrickson, 2000, p. 555; 2008, p. 686).

Hendrickson then goes on to say that the next evidence is in the 1891 "minstrel show" and song, "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay". It is clear that Hendrickson does not have evidence for the 1870 roadside ballad. The same story is recorded in the revised and expanded edition (Hendrickson, 2000). I was unable to obtain a copy of Hendrickson's original 1997 edition, the one which Michael Quinion must have used.

As an aside, while I was trawling, I found a similar sounding reference from 1786 in Hendrickson, as follows:

"on the qui vive. French sentries once shouted “Qui vive?” literally “who lives?” as a challenge to discover to which party the person challenged belonged—appropriate answers being [vive] “le roi [king],” “la France,” etc. Thus to be on the qui vive is to be watchful (like a sentry), to be on the alert for something. The expression is first recorded in English by Jonathan Swift in 1726" (Hendrickson, 2008, p. 617). [please note the Hendrickson does not tell us where, exactly that quote from Jonathan Swift lies, but that Bullard & McLaverty do, in their 2015 book: it arises in a letter from Swift to Pope and Gay, dated 15 October 1726]

I wonder if the qui vive elided, or was rhymed with quiet, expressed as QT, at some point? Hence "On the qui vive" became "on the Q.T."? An interesting idea.

Food for thought.

Sam

References:

• Bullard, P., & McLaverty, J. (Eds.) (2015). Jonathan Swift and the Eighteenth-Century Book. Cambridge University Press.
• Hendrickson, R. (2000). The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins: Definitions and origins of more than 15,000 words and expressions (revised and expanded ed.). Checkmark Books.
• Hendrickson, R. (2008). The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins: Definitions and origins of more than 15,000 words and expressions (4th ed.). Facts On File, Inc.
• Quinion, M. (30 January 1999). On the QT. https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ont2.htm

read more "On the QT"

Up the Boohai

I went to write a reply to someone on FB recently, saying that something was all up the boohai, then needed to stop and find out how to spell it. I was struck at how difficult it was to find the spelling in Google: I had assumed "booai", but found - at last - that it was actually written "boohai".

That made me consider where the phrase had come from. I had assumed that it was an international term, but it turns out that I was wrong. New Zealand etymologist, Max Cryer, notes that boohai means "A long way from cities and business districts, out of the mainstream. During the 19th century immigrants arrived in Auckland from the region of Czechoslovakia then known as Bohemia and almost all settled to the north at the then distant rural district of Puhoi. The name came to mean faraway, the back of beyond, and the pronunciation altered to Booai. The up came a little later, in such silly phrases as 'up the booai for the rhubarb season'" (2006, p. 176). So why is this odd? Rhubarb does not really have a ‘season’ in the north of New Zealand.

Further, it appears that the passengers of the Auckland coastal ferry, which sailed Puhoi estuary, renamed Puhoi, "The Bohoi", because of the Bohemian community (happylovejoy, 21 January 2009). This may also have been referencing perceived cultural difference; perhaps strangeness. Linguistic shift may then have moved Bohoi to boohai.

However, the meaning noted by Cryer (2006) is not the meaning that I would attach to the phrase "up the boohai". I understood it to mean something dysfunctional, odd or wasteful with a hint of unpredictability about it. zbeckabee said that "out of the way, remote or non existent place, often in 'up the boohai' to mean lost [...] possibly in the head." BlueDruid related "I recall that my Dad sometimes used the expression 'Up the Boohai' to describe poor reasoning or irrational behaviour. He was a WW I vet and he told me that the term was used by the troops to describe some of the officers' decisions, as in 'These are the orders but they're all up the boohai'" (21 January 2019).

So there we have it: up the boohai: irrational behaviour; lost in the head.


Sam

References:

• Cryer, M. (2006). The Godzone Dictionary of favourite New Zealand words and phrases. Auckland, New Zealand: Exisle Publishing Limited.
• BlueDruid, happylovejoy & zbeckabee (21 January 2009). What does "up the boohai" mean in New Zealand? Retrieved from https://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question69737.html

read more "Up the Boohai"

Truth ungarnished... or unvarnished?

I went to write "the plain, ungarnished truth" recently; then thought: should that be "the plain, unvarnished truth"?

I was in a quandary. I didn't know whether the truth was unadorned, or whether the truth was unpolished. Either, in my opinion, could work. A check online seemed to favour ungarnished, however all the examples were American. The more I read, the more doubtful I became.

While a minor point, what made me doubt 'ungarnished' even more was that it shows up as a spelling error, while unvarnished does not. This made me think that ungarnished was a mondegreen (more on these here).

How I wished our friend, Michael Quinion, from world wide words, was still etymology-ing. Michael was an Oxford English Dictionary reader from 1992 to 2016, who managed to polish off over 175,000 English additions for the OED. Plenty of chops there to provide excellent, RELIABLE usage advice.

Then I realised that nothing on the web ever really dies, and that his site (here) was still up. I went and checked. And while Michael Quinion did not explicitly explore the difference between an garnished or unvarnished, he did have a reference to "the plain or unvarnished truth" (Quinion, 2 July 2016).

So unvarnished truth it is :-)


Sam

• Reference: Quinion, M. (2 July 2016). Newsletter 925: 5. Fard. Retrieved from http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/tfzu.htm or http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-far3.htm

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'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. 

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Michael Quinion on Lame Ducks

I am sure that you will have heard the term "lame duck" before, referring to incompetence or uselessness on the part of people ...or organisations.

The renowned etymologist, Michael Quinion, has shed light on where the term originated, if not exactly how it came into being.

Michael has explored the British stock market of the 1860s, and found that ducks, bulls and bears were already common members in the menagerie of market practices performed by "London stockbrokers and jobbers [who] operated from coffee houses such as Jonathan’s and Garraway’s in a little street called Exchange Alley, close to the main commodity trading centre, the Royal Exchange" (see cartoon illustrating this piece from the US Library of Congress, showing bulls, bears and lame ducks in Change Alley).

Michael adds some fantastic flavour by relating that "Change Alley or just the Alley [...] still exists, now officially called Change Alley, as a network of five back streets of no particular distinction in the City of London. The coffee houses are long gone; the jobbers and brokers left even earlier, decamping to a specially constructed building in Sweeting’s Alley in 1773, which later became the Stock Exchange".

The lame duck term arose around a century before this, around the 1760s, likely created by a social commentator to describe traders "who failed to pay up when bills became due, effectively bankrupting themselves and leading to their being barred from trading", with "the currently earliest known example appeared in the Newcastle Courant on 5 September [1761], in a brief report of moneys being paid by subscription into the Bank of England, with a note that there were 'No lame ducks this time'."

Michael notes that, while the 'lame' aspect is clear because of the trader's inability to sustain their finances, the origin of the 'duck' part of the phrase is lost in the mists of time.

He notes that:

"almost every one of the many later references to these failed traders refers to them as waddling away, an early example being in the Leeds Intelligencer on 29 June 1762 (emphases in the original): 'Yesterday a lame duck or two made shift to waddle out of ’Change Alley'.

"Perhaps they were low-slung portly gentlemen, the eighteenth-century equivalent of today’s fat cats, and the way they walked suggested a duck with a bad foot? More probably, having established that failures were to be called lame ducks, the derisive image of them struggling away limping was too good not to use."

I wonder if the cricketing term, out for a duck, is related to this?

Sam

References:

• Quinion, Michael (2016). Newsletter: Saturday 7 May 2016. Retrieved 9 May 2016 from http://www.worldwidewords.org/nl/stbi.htm
• Quinion, Michael (2004). Bulls and bears. Retrieved 9 May 2016 from http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bul1.htm
• US Library of Congress (1750-1800). Pandemonium college, or The battle of the bulls, bears, and lame ducks, as fought in 'C--ge- Alley. Retrieved 9 May 2016 from https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b44195/

read more "Michael Quinion on Lame Ducks"

Quality doesn't cost, it pays

(Oxford Dictionaries, 2015; ReciteThis, 2015)

Last week I heard a saying about quality that I had never heard before - which surprised me, as I have a background in quality management. The phrase was "quality doesn't cost; it pays".

I was immediately intrigued. OK, it was one of those one-line, glib responses that we humans love, but because I hadn't heard it before, I wanted to know who had said it originally. So I went digging.

Man, I love Google and Google Scholar!

While not the originator for the phrase, Thomas Eagar said "Quality doesn't cost, it pays" in an article for Materials Evaluation in 1993. Gaskill, a Property Management and Realty company, investigated registering a similar quote as a strap-line in 1987 and got a trademark in 1998 as "Effective property management doesn't cost - it pays", but let this expire in 1995.

Before Gaskill, and shifting back to quality, the Editor for Production Engineering said "Quality doesn't cost. It pays for itself" in an article about inspection methods in 1981.

But it is older than that too. Charles wrote an pamphlet for the US University Cooperative Extension Service in 1975 entitled "The Quality control in the feed mill it doesn't cost - it pays". But this too was not the source.

The phrase is older than the 1970s. Thus far I have tracked it back to Martin Donenfield in in an April 1956 article about management. Martin said "Atop one of New York's tall buildings a sign proclaims that 'management doesn't cost - it pays'." (p. 357).

Martin was apparently the first to amend the phrase, changing it in his article to read "scientific management doesn't cost - it pays". Not about quality... aside from the implied quality of taking a rational, scientific approach to management as a profession.

Because of Martin's mention, we know that the quote is older too his article in 1956: but Martin is silent on what the building was, and on what the purpose of the sign was. In fact, there is nothing showing online before 1956.

It would be nice to know what building this quote graced, who wrote it, and why.


Sam

References: 

• Charles, O.W. (1975). The Quality control in the feed mill it doesn't cost--it pays. February 1975, 215. USA: University Cooperative Extension Service. 
• Donenfeld, Martin J.(1956). Sociology as a Management Science. Journal of Educational Sociology, April, 1956, Volume 29, issue 8 (pp. 357-360).
• Eagar, Thomas W. (1993). Evolving Manufacturing Practices: Lessons for the Quality Control Engineer. Materials Evaluation, October 1993, Volume 51, issue 10 (pp. 1184-1187)
• Gaskill Realty Services Corporation (1987). Trademark EFFECTIVE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT DOESN'T COST, IT PAYS! Retrieved 2 July 2015 from http://www.tmfile.com/mark/?q=737202632 
• Oxford Dictionaries (2015). Definition of Etymology. Retrieved 2 July 2015 from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/etymology
• ReciteThis (2015). Recite: Enter your Quote. Retrieved 2 July 2015 from http://www.recitethis.com/#/ 
• The Editor (1981). Heating up productivity with innovative inspection methods. Production Engineering, September 1981 (pp. 74-77).

read more "Quality doesn't cost, it pays"

Newsletter Issue 63, June 2003

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 63, June 2003

Hi guys,

Well, here we are with the hydro lakes now OK suddenly, and we can go back to normal. But perhaps there are some lessons to be learned from the power crisis. One of the main ones for me was that I could save money by very simple measures. If you are keen on staying focussed on power saving,  apply some of the tips in Saving Power below.

Want to apply formatting that you have set up to other areas of your document or to new documents? Then Check out Copying Formats in Word.

Adding to the Language   TLAs for SMEs        Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

Saving Power

With all that has been said about power saving in the media, there are lots of actions that you can take to save power that haven't been mentioned. 

There is also a lot of mis-information out there. Fallacies that I can clear up for you;

• Switches will wear out. Yes, switches will wear out faster if you are turning things on & off all the time. However, they are usually relatively cheap to replace and won't wear out THAT much faster (usually good for a million operations). So you are hardly likely to notice a difference
• Turning the lights off will mean you will use more power (or will have to "fill up" the lines again). Power is just like water; voltage is present up to the light switch. When you turn the light on, the power is "on tap" and ready to go. Just think about the logic of this - where else would the electricity go to?
• You don't use much power in the lights. Stand-by hardly uses any power. Not much is still some. Why pay for it - and destine us all for power cuts - when you don't have to
• It is cheaper to leave your hot water tank on when you go away on holiday. Every time there is a temperature differential between the hot water tank and the outside air you will use energy to heat your tank up. If you are going away for the weekend, turn your hot water mains off. The power required to reheat a cylinder from cold is less than that required to keep it hot (NB - power companies often use ripple control. This means that you can only access hot water heating at night only)

So I thought I would share a few ideas with you;

Lights

• Turn all lights off when you leave a room, even if you are only intending to go out for a minute
• If you have natural light in the office, use it
• Turn off store display lights at night and unplug sales displays
• Incandescent bulbs - replace higher wattage bulbs with lower wattage

Machinery

• Unplug everything you can from the wall & leave as little as possible on stand-by. This includes your cellphone charger, your palm cradle and your printer
• Turn off your monitor every time you leave your desk (this will extend the life of your screen too)
• Shut down your PC AND turn off the monitor if you are going to a meeting
• If you have a two freezers, empty one and turn the other off
• Only run the dishwasher when its completely full
• Don't use the dryer - put the clothes on a clothes airer in the lounge with you at night if they don't dry during the day!

Water Savings

• Shower every second day or have a cold shower every second day. Put a timer in the bathroom and set it to three minutes for everyone
• Rinse dishes in cold water
• Set the washing machine for cold wash only and disconnect the hot water altogether
• Lag your hot water pipes and tank
• Turn the hot water temperature down a degree or two
• If you have solar power or a wet-back, turn the power to your hot water tank off 

And, if we all start being less wasteful of energy, perhaps then next winter we won't be in the same squeeze as we were this year. 

Here's hoping, anyway.

Copying Formats in Word

When Word intro-users discover all those formatting options, they tend to go overboard with the toys, creating their "perfect look". 

Then, of course, they want to have the rest of their document looking the same, and perhaps have new documents looking the same as well.

To save the formatting, you are best to create a "Style". To do that:

• Highlight the paragraph. Click in the Style field on the Formatting toolbar (it usually has "Normal" showing in it), type your new Style's name, and press [Enter] to save the style
• To modify the format, highlight the paragraph, go to Format | Style, click modify, click the "Add to Template" box on the Modify Style box, then select the category you want to change or amend from the Format drop down list and amend the item. Click OK all the way back out.

Then there are three ways that you can apply your new style to document text;

• Highlight the text you want to change, then select your style name from the Formatting toolbar's Style list
• Highlight the text containing the formatting you want to copy, key Ctrl, Shift & C (to copy the formatting only, not the text itself). Highlight the text you want to format and key Ctrl, Shift & V (to paste formatting).
• Highlight the text containing the formatting you want to copy, click on the Format Painter tool, then click and drag to select the text you want to format. 

Et Voilà. Formatting changed.

Adding to the Language

How much influence does advertising have on our lives?

Lots. The really funny part is when the phrasing of an ad is adopted into our speech and looses its association with the original brand or product that it was designed to promote.

Some examples that spring to mind are;

• The TV ad for Claytons from the late 70s that ran "The Drink you have when you are not having a drink". This is now spoken of in two ways: "He's got a Claytons one" or "the [X] you are having when you are not having an [X]"
• The TV ad for Jif liquid cleanser, also in the late 70s, with a big greasy plumber who cleaned up, after doing a domestic plumbing job, with Jif; and finished up with the by-line "No-mess Charlie, that's me!" I still hear people saying "I'm no-mess Charlie"
• The name "Woolworths" being synonymous with cheap and tiny; such as "having a Woolworths bladder" etc
• Hoovering & luxing as terms for vacuuming in the 50s & 60s. This resulted in the products themselves loosing their brand identity as they became generic terms
• Toyota's "Bugger" TV Ad of the 90s, making the use of "Bugger!" acceptable in daily usage
• The Duracell bunny who just keeps "going and going and going and going"
• Walkman was originally a Sony brand. Now a "Walkman" refers to any kind of mobile radio, cassette, CD or mini-disc. And it can be found in the dictionary.

I find it fascinating that language - and particularly English - is in such a state of constant flux and growth. New words and phrases are being created daily that will influence us long into the future.

And we need this constant injection of change. Without it, we cannot hope to keep pace with the our changing attitudes, workplace and technology.

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you;

• EOM, End of Month! Often used to confuse, along with "End of Year" 

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Short+Hot Keys... and now tips

All the Function keys for you again, but this time we are shifting as well - all you can do with Ctrl in Internet Explorer;

• Select all items on the current Web page - CTRL & A 
• Open the Organize Favorites dialog box - CTRL & B 
• Copy the selected items to the Clipboard - CTRL & C 
• Open multiple folders (in History or Favourites bars)" CTRL & click 
• Add a link to your Favourites list - CTRL & D
• Open Search in Explorer bar - CTRL & E 
• Find on this page - CTRL & F 
• Open History in Explorer bar - CTRL & H 
• Open Favourites in Explorer bar - CTRL & I 
• Go to a new location - CTRL & L 
• Open a new window - CTRL & N 
• Go to a new location - CTRL & O 
• Print the current page or active frame - CTRL & P 
• Refresh the current Web page only if the time stamp for the Web version and your locally stored version are different - CTRL & R 
• Save the current page - CTRL & S 
• Move forward between frames - CTRL & TAB 
• Insert the contents of the Clipboard at the selected location - CTRL & V 
• Close the current window - CTRL & W 
• Remove the selected items and copy them to the Clipboard - CTRL & X 
• Add "www." to the beginning and ".com" to the end of the text typed in the Address bar - CTRL & ENTER 
• When in the Address bar, move the cursor left to the next logical break (. or /) - CTRL & LEFT ARROW 
• When in the Address bar, move the cursor right to the next logical break (. or /) - CTRL & RIGHT ARROW 
• Refresh the current Web page, even if the time stamp for the Web version and your locally stored version are the same - CTRL & F5 
• Move back between frames - SHIFT, CTRL & TAB

Hot Linx

Remember to keep working towards saving that 10% of power usage. For some extra information on what savings we have made, go to http://www.winterpower.org.nz/ and for information on how you can save, go to http://www.energywise.org.nz/  

Want to get a blast of the past? Then check out this site http://www.nostalgiacentral.com/

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                                Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here

read more "Newsletter Issue 63, June 2003"