Schumacher to 'quickly surpass' Mansell's age

Gingerous has written in with some interesting comments on a recent BBC Sport article called 'Michael Schumacher targets F1 title with Mercedes team'. Here's the particular par he refers to:

Schumacher is the oldest driver to compete in F1 since Nigel Mansell made a brief comeback in 1994, also at the age of 41 - and the German will quickly surpass the Englishman's age as the year progresses.

And here's what Gingerous has to say:

Two things popped into my head when I read this - firstly, can you quickly surpass an age? Surely we all age at the same rate.

Secondly, technically he won't surpass Nigel Mansell's age since at the time of writing this Nigel Mansell is still alive and with us and currently 56.

Obviously this is just me being pedantic and the article does make sense.

As everyone ages at the same rate, I agree that the word 'quickly' is a bit of a strange choice. Perhaps the writer means 'soon'? And 'as the year progresses' also sounds odd to me. Perhaps it would be better to tell us exactly when Schumacher will become the oldest driver ever to compete in F1.

Queue here for tickets for future travel

Gingerous has emailed us with the following:

At London Euston station this weekend I noticed a sign at the ticket booths that read "Queue here for tickets for future travel". Which made me ask the question: why would you buy tickets for past travel? Surely all travel is in the future, even if only five minutes in the future.

Well, er, yes – but can you think of better wording? I assume that 'future travel' means travel on any day apart from the current one, only I don't know how to express that concisely and unambiguously on a sign...

Text messaging: Gingerous makes 60 sounds while martial arts drinking

We've had an email from Gingerous regarding a couple of unintentionally amusing mobile phone text messages (SMSs) that he wrote recently. Fortunately he remembered to check them before sending them.

Gingerous says:

The first was a simple grammatical error. When describing my plan for a particular evening I wrote “martial arts drinking”. As exciting as this sounds, it should have read “martial arts, drinking”. Still, it amused me.

The second one was a predictive text error. Instead of “Today was a good day, I made 60 pounds whilst off work”, I ended up saying “Today was a good day, I made 60 sounds whilst off work”.

I think both of these highlight the importance of checking your texts.

When I was at university I used to frequent a club called 'The Rig'; more than once I texted people to tell them that I was 'going to the pig', or more worryingly, 'already in the pig'. Predictive texting, eh?

Can you really have an all-day breakfast?

Gingerous has emailed in with an interesting question:

Can you really have an 'all-day breakfast'? After all, as far as I'm aware, the word 'breakfast' means the first meal of the day or a meal eaten in the morning. So is an 'all-day breakfast' not just a fry-up or scrambled eggs on toast etc?

This is probably just me being pedantic, but it's something that bothered me the other day. I'm guessing that the reason they use 'all-day breakfast' is that it groups certain types of food together – although I still think if they advertised an 'all-day fry-up' it may be a little clearer.

Thanks, Gingerous – I've never really thought about this one before. The Oxford English Dictionary does indeed define 'breakfast' as "a meal eaten in the morning, the first of the day", so in that sense an 'all-day breakfast' is contradictory. I also agree with you that the word 'breakfast' in the term 'all-day breakfast' refers to the types of food included rather than the timing of the meal.

However, in my experience, an 'all-day breakfast' tends to contain slightly different items to a regular fry-up so it remains a useful term. For example, I wouldn't expect chips with an all-day breakfast (although the photo below, taken from the website of the Royal Cafe Restaurant, Stranraer, clearly shows chips as part of the 'Traditional' all-day breakfast. Note as well the 'Breakfast Brunch' – it's three meals in one, two of which are breakfast. And then there's the 'Early Starter' – if you were such an early starter, why not just have breakfast, as opposed to an all-day breakfast?).


I'd also take issue with your suggestion 'all-day fry-up': why not just use 'fry-up'? After all, it's not as if fry-ups are traditionally only eaten in the morning.

Anyone else have anything to add to this discussion? And do other countries apart from the UK have all-day breakfasts?

How heavy is the Apple MacBook Air?

Gingerous has emailed in an amusing quote from a review of the MacBook Air laptop (pictured above) which he came across in the April edition of IT Manager magazine:

The MacBook Air is Apple's take on the ultraportable notebook. At a mere 1.4kg and 4mm at its thinnest point and 19mm at its thickest (the hinge at the back), and weighing in at just 1.36kg, it's definitely ultraportable.

Gingerous rightly comments: "Now I'm not sure on the grammar side of things (although it didn't read too well to me), but why does the weight of the laptop get mentioned twice and why are they different?"

Um, maybe it depends on how full the hard drive is. Or does anyone have any better suggestions?

The online version of the story sadly doesn't contain the offending copy...

Shampoo is not a food product

It seems I'm not the only one who reads packaging. Gingerous Humerous Maximus has e-mailed in to tell us that the back of his shampoo bottle contains the statement, "this is not a food product".

Worryingly, this suggests two things. Firstly, that people have mistaken the shampoo for food in the past (or that the manufacturer believes they are likely to do so in the future); and secondly, that the manufacturer feels a warning is likely to dissuade people from eating the shampoo.

I wonder what sort of person thinks, 'I'll eat this shampoo, but before I do so, I'll read the small print on the back of the bottle just in case it isn't edible'.

Gingerous, your attention to detail has saved you once again...