Wednesday woundup: Apgar, backronyms, U2

This morning, the weather presenter on BBC1's Breakfast said a particular weather front would be moving towards London "during the course of the overnight period".

Um, shouldn't that be "during the night" – or possibly just "overnight"?

***

Neil has pointed me in the direction of an interesting article on the backronym 'Apgar'.

A backronym is a pre-existing word that has been "turned into an acronym by the choice of appropriate words to fit each of its letters"; you'll have to read the article to find out what 'Apgar' means.

***

I know I've tweeted this already, but it's too good to miss: a letter from the Daily Mail concerning U2. "Genuine, or a spoof that snuck in? Don't know, don't care," says @mattkirschen, who uploaded a scan of the letter.

Due to the bad weather

A letter in today's thelondonpaper begins:

I am very discouraged to see signs up everywhere, both official and unofficial, starting with "Due to the bad weather..." This is as ungrammatical as "Ten items or less", as seen in supermarkets. It doesn't take much to get it right. We seem to be dumbing-down to a woeful degree in this country so as not to make things too difficult for people who can't cope.

I understand the '10 items or less' argument, but what is this letter-writer's problem with 'due to the bad weather'? He doesn't say, and for the life of me I can't work it out.

Can anyone enlighten me?

The Times: coldest temperature on record

I was a little confused when I first saw this advert for The Times – especially by the fourth paragraph, "The coldest temperature on record is -27.1C, in Braemer, in February 1895 and January 1982."

I lived in Russia for a little while and certainly experienced temperatures lower than -27.1.

It was only when I read the fifth paragraph ("The hottest UK temperature recorded...") that I realised that the previous par was referring to the coldest UK temperature on record.

Even then, isn't the name of the Scottish village in question Braemar, not Braemer? (I may be wrong about this – possibly both spellings are acceptable, although my gazetteer only lists the former.)

I also want to know exactly where in February 1963 "enough snow fell to bury a double decker bus in an hour" – again, presumably this par is referring to somewhere in the UK, rather than somewhere in Antarctica...


(Click the image for a larger version.)