The House of Kitty Ussher

As regular readers of this blog will know, one of our preoccupations is names - company names, product names, project names and especially personal names.

On that theme, this morning I was tickled to learn that the Labour MP for Burnley and Padiham is called Kitty Ussher. What a brilliant and unlikely name for a politician - to me it seems very 1920s. And I love that double 'S'. Anyway, here's a picture of Kitty (taken from her website), in which she sadly isn't dressed as a flapper:



Any other politicians with good names that you know of?

(Oh, and isn't Wikipedia great? Apparently a previous Burnley MP and indeed relative of Kitty Ussher was the equally impressively named Gerald Archibald Arbuthnot...)

Invacuation photos, beverisation and so on

Just a little update to say: finally got those photos of the 'invacuation' sign up. Thanks again, Gareth.

While I'm here, I'd like to share the following Times Online letters on new words. Andrew Rogers sent me the links ages ago and said at the time: "I'm torn between 'beverisation' and 'underelevatorisation' for me words of the month."

Thanks, Andrew - I personally like 'groundfeed'.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article3398959.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article3412136.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article3418950.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article3433726.ece

Corporate speak extraordinaire

My colleague - in fact, Apus' successor, whom I have been trying to talk into contributing to this blog almost since the day he joined - came across this piece of corporate-speak within a quote in some copy submitted to our magazine:

It represents the coming together of two dynamic organisations with a shared vision of creating an imaginative and vibrant remarketing group with the skills base that will challenge the status quo on the global stage

I could name the speaker, but I'm not sure he deserves the recognition...

(By the way, I now have Internet access at home, so the timings of my posts may become somewhat less predictable as I no longer have to write from work. Good news for my boss.)

Word of the day: Tudorbethan

I've just finished a short evening course on architecture, which I've found to be a wonderful way to discover new words. One that came up in our final session is 'Tudorbethan', obviously a portmanteau of 'Tudor' and 'Elizabethan'. At the time I thought it was just a slip of the tongue by our tutor or perhaps just part of his idiolect - but then I checked Wikipedia and it turns out that 'Tudorbethan' is a recognised synonym for what I would call 'Mock Tudor'.

Indeed, it's interesting that Wikipedia's page on the architectural style is titled Tudorbethan rather than Mock Tudor, suggesting the former label is the more well known or widely used.

Anyway, I won't go into two much detail because I would just be ripping off Wikipedia - but I thought I would share the word with you all. And here's a picture of something suitably Tudorbethan:

Lower developed countries

I came across this phrase in copy recently:

lower developed countries

Typing it into Google gives around 1,200 results so it is in occasional use (less common is 'lower developed economies'). But the phrase seems ugly to me. After all, you wouldn't refer to 'low developed countries' (unless you meant the Netherlands, perhaps, which is both low and developed). Even with a hyphen, I don't like it.

But then, I've never really been keen on the phrase 'developing countries' either, which is what the OED gives. It seems arrogant to assume that countries such as the US and the UK aren't still developing. Unless, of course, they're moving backwards...

So what's the alternative – less-developed countries? At least that shares its acronym – LDCs – with 'lower developed countries'. Any other ideas?

Neighbourhood Swim Centre

Spotted this on the Argos website (click the image for a larger version):



It's not a paddling pool, it's a "Neighbourhood Swim Centre". But bearing in mind that it's only 60cm deep, I have to wonder how much swimming a neighbourhood could actually do in it.

Project Platypus and Project Prometheus

Last week I wrote about Platypus, a new web platform that we've been promised at work. Now it turns out that Platypus isn't the name of the web platform itself, but the project that is putting the platform into place. That's right: Project Platypus. Well, I think it's cute.

One of the other projects we have going on here is Project Prometheus. I don't know anything about this project other than the name, but I have my concerns. After all, as our web editor pointed out to me, the mythical figure of Prometheus ended up being chained to a rock and having his liver eaten daily by an eagle (or a vulture, in some versions).

Good omen? I think not.

I couldn't find a nice copyright-free
representation of Prometheus, so here
is a vulture instead

Friday roundup: roadmap, bottom out, architect

This week's Friday roundup is all about office jargon, inspired by an excellent BBC News Magazine article on '50 office-speak phrases you love to hate' (thanks for spotting this one, Sarah).

In addition to the 50 in the list, our web editor at work has reported overhearing the following recently:

• "We're roadmapping it"

• "I'll bottom that out with the guys"

I'm not even sure what the second of those means. Perhaps something akin to 'I'll get to the bottom of it' – or perhaps it's related to the bottom line?

Not this type of roadmap

And a new one on me, although it's listed in the Concise OED, is the use of 'architect' as a verb. In a meeting today I heard:

• "It's important to architect your systems from the bottom up"

According to the OED, 'architect' in this context means (perhaps obviously): "design and make (a program or system)."

Incidentally, in that same meeting I also heard 'granularity' (number 41 on the Beeb's list)...

Traffic warden, parking attendant, CEO

I'm amused to learn that parking attendants (formerly known as 'traffic wardens'*) now go by the official name of 'civil enforcement officers'. There are two reasons that this amuses me:

• The acronym for civil enforcement officer is CEO, which obviously is already used for 'chief executive officer'. Are parking attendants trying to sneak themselves some kudos?

• Parking attendants are, in my limited experience, sometimes less than civil. But then they are often given a less than civil reception by members of the public...
  

More on CEOs in Westminster



* Apparently the difference between a traffic warden (pictured) and a parking attendant is that the former is employed by the police whereas the latter is employed by a local authority. I did not know that!