Word of the day: staycation (and stoliday)

I'm finding that sticking BBC1 Breakfast on in the mornings is a good way to discover new words (new to me, at least). Last week's new word was 'gastrosexual'; today I heard 'staycation' for the first time.

Unfortunately I had to leave for work before the staycation piece came on, but Googling the word this morning I found out that a staycation is (somewhat unsurprisingly, being a portmanteau of 'stay' and 'vacation') a vacation where you stay at home.

However, as the word 'vacation' is "chiefly North American" (Concise OED), I suppose that 'staycation' is also chiefly North American. The British English equivalent would be stay + holiday = stoliday. Or would that be a holiday taken by a calm, dependable person?

"Going anywhere exciting this year?"
"No, I'm getting too old for all that. I'm taking a stoliday in Stalybridge."

The Sun: "dream wedding of ecstatic doctor"

The front page lead of The Sun today features a large photo of the wedding of Catherine and Ben Mullany, the Britons who were recently shot in Antigua, and the following opening sentence:

This is the dream wedding of ecstatic doctor Catherine Mullany – shot dead days later on her honeymoon

Here's a scan of the front cover (click to see a larger version).



Now I don't want to make light of a horrible story, but isn't that phrase "ecstatic doctor" rather odd? It suggests that, for Catherine, being ecstatic was a permanent trait rather than a temporary state. Or perhaps she was indeed "subject to mystical experiences" (Concise OED).

Also, given that the photo clearly shows a very happy Catherine at what we are told was her "dream wedding", is it necessary to point out that she was "ecstatic"? Sometimes it is better to let such powerful stories speak for themselves. Mind you, subtlety has never been The Sun's strong point.

Grasping the female market with both hands

A while back, my former colleague Dylan brought to my attention a particular press release by "female-friendly insurer Sheilas' Wheels" (natty pink logo pictured on the right).

In the press release, spokesperson Jacky Brown (sex not specified) is quoted as saying:

Our research shows that Britain's car industry is not meeting the needs of the modern-day female driver. It's stuck in the dark ages and is missing out by not grasping the female market with both hands.

Dylan comments:

This press release is referring to sexist car salesmen - but the way it is written, most men will only think of one thing. The woman who wrote this has probably been at the end of quite a few sexist remarks for a reason.

So is Jacky Brown's use of language deliberate or accidental? Appropriate or unfortunate? What do you think?


Original press release

Friday roundup: Talula, Giles, Mexico and China

I'm using this week's Friday Roundup to share some of the things that you lot have been emailing in to me.

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First is a BBC News article on a story that has received a lot of media coverage here in the UK: the nine-year old New Zealand girl who wanted to change her name from 'Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii'. The article also includes some other great names that New Zealand parents have chosen for their children. 'Benson' and 'Hedges' for twins made me chuckle.

Thanks for that, Harry.

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Second is something that has been doing the rounds for a while but is worth sharing: a furious letter by journalist Giles Coren to subs on The Times criticising them for a change they had made to one of his restaurant reviews. It reads like a spoof, but isn't, and illustrates what a thankless task it is to be a sub.

Cheers, Andrew.

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Andrew also sent in the following photo for those of you who like spotting stray apostrophes:




And it's up on Andrew's Flickr account.

(Don't forget that this blog also has its own Flickr account...)

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And one more photo, this time from Clutchslip:



Apparently using translation software to translate the name of your restaurant into English is not without its hazards. (NB I'm not sure of the provenance of this snap and it too may have been doing the rounds for a while.)

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Thanks, everyone, for all your contributions. You can find the blog's email address up on the top right, under the section called 'Stay in touch'.

Bookshelf of books: "a thing of beauty"

Towards the end of last year I wrote about the Amazon Kindle "wireless reading device"; picking up the theme again, one of the regular readers of this blog has drawn my attention to an interesting article in The Independent on whether electronic books threaten the future of traditional publishing.

the iLiad e-book from iRex

Towards the end of the article, one of the arguments made for electronic books being "the end of books as we know it" is that:

Few people like the fact that books take up an inordinate amount of space in their houses and travel bags

It's news to me if people dislike having a large number of (physical) books in their houses. One of my colleagues commented that a bookshelf of books is "a thing of beauty", and I am inclined to agree with him - although another colleague admitted to having to periodically prune his book collection due to space restrictions.

Anyway, I've put up a poll on this blog (over on the top right) to find out whether people really don't like books cluttering up their homes.

And as for books taking up too much room in travel bags – an electronic book takes up just as much room as, and is almost certainly heavier than, one or two paperbacks. I suppose it depends on how long you are going away for and how quickly you read.

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000

I'm sorry if this is slightly off-topic, but civil liberties are a particular concern of mine - as I hope they are for most journalists.

I catch the train to work each day, and this morning when I reached my local, suburban train station (railway station, if you prefer), I was surprised to see a number of police officers present, searching the bags of some of the people waiting for a train. All of the people they had stopped were either schoolgirls or young female commuters.

I didn't speak to any of the police officers - and none of them stopped me - but I did notice that at least one of them was carrying a bundle of leaflets entitled 'Terrorism Act' and subtitled 'Section 44'. I meant to Google this when I got to work but promptly forgot about it until I received an email from my girfriend saying that she had been stopped and searched at the same train station earlier that morning (we catch different trains).

I then did Google 'Terrorism Act' and 'Section 44', which took me to a page on the Liberty website explaining that:

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the police to stop and search anyone in a specific area.

Before Section 44, the police could only stop and search individuals if they had 'reasonable grounds' and certain criteria were met. That is no longer necessary, and we have seen Section 44 powers used against anti-war, anti-weapons and anti-capitalist protestors.

The power to stop and search under anti-terrorism powers should only be used when there is evidence of a specific terrorist threat.

I cannot be certain that there wasn't a "specific terrorist threat" in my London suburb this morning, but I find the notion surprising. And if there was a specific terrorist threat, the actions of the police would suggest that it was posed by female commuters and schoolgirls as young as (I guess) 13 and 14.

I find it much more likely that the police were searching perhaps for knives and other weapons - teenagers carrying knives being the media scare story of the moment here in the UK. If so (and I have no real evidence either way), it would be an abuse of the Terrorism Act. What do you think?


Update 02/04/2009: Gez from Grammar Blog was stopped and searched at Clapham Junction under Section 44 recently. I recommend his blog post regarding A response from Wandsworth Police.


Update 11/04/2009: And here's a photo of a policeman stopping someone at my local station under Section 44 on another occasion:

Word of the day: gastrosexual

Caught a brief mention of the word 'gastrosexual' on BBC One this morning, and had to find out more. I guessed that it was a neologism along the lines of metrosexual, and had something to do with food (or stomachs). Perhaps gastrosexuals were people who loved their stomachs?

Googling it led me to a Mail Online article explaining that gastrosexuals are in fact men who:

consider cooking more a hobby than a household chore and use their kitchen prowess to impress friends and prospective partners

The article indicates that the term comes from a study commissioned by food company PurAsia and entitled 'Emergence of the Gastrosexual'. This is downloadable from PurAsia's website, which is – ridiculously – under construction (see below). The site's URL (www.gastrosexual.com) indicates that the company is making a big deal of its neologism.



I'm not sure what PurAsia is trying to sell – Asian food aimed at men in some way? But whatever it is, it is "currently exclusively available at Tesco Extra, Tesco Superstores and tesco.com" so maybe I should go and check. Or perhaps PurAsia should have got its website up and running before releasing the report and attracting interest from the mainstream media (and me).

So what does this all prove? That if you want people to read your study, coin a word – even a lame one. I mean, it doesn't even rhyme with 'metrosexual' or any other '-sexual' word.


Another thought: PurAsia is an unfortunate name for a food company. It reminds me of Purina.

Mince beef (curse if they have it)

When I was at work the other day (before I went off on my hols), my girlfriend sent me an email listing some items she wanted me to pick up from the supermarket. These included:

• Mince beef (curse if they have it)
• Spaghetti
• Milk
• Juice

The first of these left me rather baffled. "Curse if they have it"? I had visions of going into the supermarket, picking up the mince and shouting, "Hooray! They've got f**ing mince!" Of course, I didn't do anything so vulgar, and I did manage to work out what my girlfriend had meant.

Any guesses?

On a similar note - 'minced beef', 'mince beef' or 'beef mince'? Google prefers the first of these, but how about you? Perhaps you call it something else entirely...

Photo special: Paine Funerals

OK, a bonus photo seeing as it's a Saturday and I'm assuming that I'll be in a good mood after my holiday:



Well, it made me laugh. Kind of suggests that the people they're disposing of aren't quite dead yet.

Back to the (slightly more) serious stuff next week.


Update 21/07: I meant to say that I took this photo in North London - Crouch End or Hornsey, I think.