In more than 40 years of column writing (not continuously, but in every decade back to the 1960s), I’ve learned a couple of things.
One is that you can never be sure what’s going to provoke a reaction, so it’s pointless writing something with the sole intention of stirring people up. Columns that you think will bring the sky down on your head go unremarked, while some that you think innocuous unleash a barrage of condemnation. (There was a time when I would have said that religion was the exception to this general rule; that anything touching on religion was bound to rattle people’s cages, believers and non-believers alike. But we are now such a secular society I don’t think even that’s true.)
Another thing that I’ve learned is that no matter how carefully you try to express yourself clearly and unambiguously, you cannot control the meaning that people will take from what you write. People will see what they think they see, or in some cases, whatever their prejudices lead them to see.
This was confirmed again last Friday when I happened to hear comedian Pinky Agnew on The Week That Was, the weekly slot on Kathryn Ryan’s radio programme in which guests comment in a supposedly humorous way on the events of the week. Pinky lined me up for a bit of stick over something I’d written in my Curmudgeon column in the Dominion Post a few days before (see below on this blog).
Fair enough – but perhaps she should have taken a deep breath and read my column a second time before launching forth.
According to Pinky, I’d been “yammering on” about New Zealanders’ propensity for wearing black. Yammering on? My dictionary defines “yammer” as to complain loudly and at length, but my reference to New Zealanders’ fashion sense consisted of just one paragraph in an 820-word column.
Well, okay – we all indulge in hyperbole. But then Pinky accused me of specifically targeting women - "he's criticising women of course" - and Wellington women at that. In fact my column didn’t single out women. I used the all-inclusive pronoun “we” (as in, “how drab and sombre we all look”), which I thought made it pretty clear that I wasn’t making any distinction between men and women. (As it happens, I’ve written several times in the past about the dull conformity of the clothing worn by the corporate male.)
And where on earth did she get the Wellington angle? My column was prompted by my observations in Auckland Airport. How could someone read the word Auckland and see Wellington? Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps Pinky can explain.
An Auckland friend of mine who heard her was as nonplussed as I was. She emailed me later in the day: “I have just read your blog and for the life of me can’t understand what that woman was going on about. I gathered from her comments that you had been talking about women in Wgtn. The only mention you made was of people – not women – at Auckland Airport.” She had wondered whether Pinky was talking about another column not yet posted on my blog.
You could perhaps excuse Pinky if my comments had been made on radio or television. Something said on the airwaves is gone a moment later and there’s often no way to confirm you heard what you thought you heard. But a newspaper column? It’s not hard to check. It’s there in black and white, and these days on the Net for good measure.
I can only conclude that Pinky took the meaning she did from my column because she had me typecast as a sexist male. The human mind indeed works in peculiar ways. As a columnist, there's no way to counter this.
Incidentally, that Curmudgeon column also confirmed anew the other lesson referred to in the opening paragraph of this blog post. I would have thought that if any subject covered in the column would provoke a response, it would be the reference to tragic tech geeks and their hunger for new devices to play with. But no; it was my mention of our fondness for sombre clothing that wound people up, generating two stories with pictures in the following day’s paper – one on page 1 and another on page 3 – and 75 comments on the Stuff website, ranging from incoherent and sub-literate to sharp and insightful (all the latter, of course, being from those who agreed with me).
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
A Rugby World Cup of two halves
(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, October 12.)
I am in two minds, almost literally, about the Rugby World Cup, and I suspect I’m not the only one.
On the one hand, you can look at the event as purely a sporting contest in which teams from around the world compete, in theory, to find out who’s best. (I say “in theory” because the RWC really only determines which team performs best “on the day”. There are probably half a dozen teams capable of winning if the ball bounces their way.)
On this level – as a showcase of skill, athleticism, tactics, brute force and dogged determination – the Cup so far has been a great success. Rugby fans have been treated to some sensational contests and, in the very best sporting tradition, a couple of monumental upsets.
Who would have thought, for example, that Ireland would beat Australia? Certainly not the Australians. Or that Tonga, having gone down to Canada in the early stages of the tournament, would turn around two weeks later and humiliate France, one of rugby’s great powers?
Then there was the breathtakingly close result in the Scotland-England game, when England clinched a narrow victory in the dying minutes. How the New Zealand fans – no friends of the English – would have savoured an upset win by the underdogs in that fixture.
On such occasions, sport becomes a compelling drama that can stir even sceptical non-fans. A friend told me that he heard broadcaster Brian Edwards – not exactly your stereotypical rugby follower – admitting on the radio that, to his surprise, he found himself not only watching but getting emotionally involved.
It’s been rewarding, too, to see the so-called “minnows” of the game – teams such as Georgia, Romania, Russia and Namibia – enjoying their moment of glory, or at least international exposure, on the world stage.
A sports writer in the illustrious New York Times made the mistake of writing an article in which he rubbished the RWC format and suggested it was absurd that such weak rugby countries were pitted against mighty teams like South Africa and Australia.
He was howled down by readers, including many knowledgeable American rugby enthusiasts, who pointed out that the “minnows” relished this opportunity to compete against their heroes, even if the scores were crazily lopsided, and that it was only by exposure to such international competition that such sides could hope to lift their game and promote rugby in their home countries.
That’s another respect in which the Cup seems to have been a success: it’s great PR for rugby, raising international awareness and appreciation of the game and boosting its profile in countries where it’s only a minor code.
There’s no doubt New Zealanders have helped achieve this by getting behind the event, turning it into a nationwide party and making sure that no team lacked vocal support.
The Wairarapa, where I live, officially adopted the Georgian XV and swung in behind the team with gusto. Masterton turned on a welcome parade in the main street and Georgian flags were still fluttering around town a week after the team bowed out of the contest.
Again, people who thought themselves well and truly inoculated against rugby fever have told me they were surprised at the way they were swept along by the contagious enthusiasm for the event.
For all that, however, the RWC has been tarnished. Because you can also look at the tournament as an example of sport being subverted – you could almost say corrupted – by money, greed and corporatism.
The International Rugby Board cynically took advantage of New Zealanders’ love of the game by charging them far more to see their own team play than any other – and this after taxpayers and ratepayers had forked out tens of millions of dollars (one estimate put it at $1 billion-plus) to subsidise the event and to ensure facilities conformed with the nitpicking requirements of the IRB, the broadcasters and the sponsors.
In fact admission prices for all but the minor games were set at a level most people couldn’t afford, and it was no surprise that that there were empty seats at the quarterfinal matches.
Providers of accommodation and other services got in on the act by hiking their prices, and why wouldn’t they? They were only taking their cue from the organisers.
Meanwhile Parliament, to its shame, demeaned itself by kowtowing to the IRB and passing draconian legislation – the Major Events Management Act – to protect the precious interests of sponsors.
The creation of advertising-free “clean zones”, patrolled by government enforcers, went far beyond what was reasonably justified to ward off so-called ambush marketers.
It was a distasteful display of bullying that also set a disturbing precedent for the regulation of free speech, since a government that can be persuaded to outlaw certain types of advertising at the behest of rugby sponsors might also be tempted to crack down on other forms of expression that it decides are inconvenient.
The extreme reach of the new laws, which will remain on the statute books after the RWC has finished, became apparent when it was revealed that even the St John’s ambulance service had to cover sponsors’ logos on ambulances and uniforms for fear of incurring a massive fine.
As the RWC progressed, the oppressive heavy-handedness of the IRB became progressively more absurd. A helicopter firm was warned not to fly over Eden Park because its company name was visible (it seems the IRB’s rights now extend to airspace) and two Samoan players were fined $10,000 each for wearing unapproved mouthguards – mouthguards, for heaven’s sake!
The ridicule and contempt heaped on the IRB over that episode was richly deserved, especially when the same pompous, arrogant, Northern Hemisphere rugby establishment had turned a blind eye to illegal ball-switching by the English team. Cheating you can get away with, apparently, but don’t dare upset the precious sponsors.
Did the IRB get the message? Clearly not, because only days later we learned it had issued rules about what players could write on the strapping around their wrists, where some players inscribe biblical references or allow family members to put messages.
This obsessive micro-control discredits rugby and has soured an otherwise wonderful event, but that’s what happens when sport is captured by men in suits.
For the fans and for most, if not all of, the players, rugby is still about sport. But for the game’s administrators and the broadcasters and sponsors who bankroll it, it’s all about money – and the two are not always compatible bedmates.
I am in two minds, almost literally, about the Rugby World Cup, and I suspect I’m not the only one.
On the one hand, you can look at the event as purely a sporting contest in which teams from around the world compete, in theory, to find out who’s best. (I say “in theory” because the RWC really only determines which team performs best “on the day”. There are probably half a dozen teams capable of winning if the ball bounces their way.)
On this level – as a showcase of skill, athleticism, tactics, brute force and dogged determination – the Cup so far has been a great success. Rugby fans have been treated to some sensational contests and, in the very best sporting tradition, a couple of monumental upsets.
Who would have thought, for example, that Ireland would beat Australia? Certainly not the Australians. Or that Tonga, having gone down to Canada in the early stages of the tournament, would turn around two weeks later and humiliate France, one of rugby’s great powers?
Then there was the breathtakingly close result in the Scotland-England game, when England clinched a narrow victory in the dying minutes. How the New Zealand fans – no friends of the English – would have savoured an upset win by the underdogs in that fixture.
On such occasions, sport becomes a compelling drama that can stir even sceptical non-fans. A friend told me that he heard broadcaster Brian Edwards – not exactly your stereotypical rugby follower – admitting on the radio that, to his surprise, he found himself not only watching but getting emotionally involved.
It’s been rewarding, too, to see the so-called “minnows” of the game – teams such as Georgia, Romania, Russia and Namibia – enjoying their moment of glory, or at least international exposure, on the world stage.
A sports writer in the illustrious New York Times made the mistake of writing an article in which he rubbished the RWC format and suggested it was absurd that such weak rugby countries were pitted against mighty teams like South Africa and Australia.
He was howled down by readers, including many knowledgeable American rugby enthusiasts, who pointed out that the “minnows” relished this opportunity to compete against their heroes, even if the scores were crazily lopsided, and that it was only by exposure to such international competition that such sides could hope to lift their game and promote rugby in their home countries.
That’s another respect in which the Cup seems to have been a success: it’s great PR for rugby, raising international awareness and appreciation of the game and boosting its profile in countries where it’s only a minor code.
There’s no doubt New Zealanders have helped achieve this by getting behind the event, turning it into a nationwide party and making sure that no team lacked vocal support.
The Wairarapa, where I live, officially adopted the Georgian XV and swung in behind the team with gusto. Masterton turned on a welcome parade in the main street and Georgian flags were still fluttering around town a week after the team bowed out of the contest.
Again, people who thought themselves well and truly inoculated against rugby fever have told me they were surprised at the way they were swept along by the contagious enthusiasm for the event.
For all that, however, the RWC has been tarnished. Because you can also look at the tournament as an example of sport being subverted – you could almost say corrupted – by money, greed and corporatism.
The International Rugby Board cynically took advantage of New Zealanders’ love of the game by charging them far more to see their own team play than any other – and this after taxpayers and ratepayers had forked out tens of millions of dollars (one estimate put it at $1 billion-plus) to subsidise the event and to ensure facilities conformed with the nitpicking requirements of the IRB, the broadcasters and the sponsors.
In fact admission prices for all but the minor games were set at a level most people couldn’t afford, and it was no surprise that that there were empty seats at the quarterfinal matches.
Providers of accommodation and other services got in on the act by hiking their prices, and why wouldn’t they? They were only taking their cue from the organisers.
Meanwhile Parliament, to its shame, demeaned itself by kowtowing to the IRB and passing draconian legislation – the Major Events Management Act – to protect the precious interests of sponsors.
The creation of advertising-free “clean zones”, patrolled by government enforcers, went far beyond what was reasonably justified to ward off so-called ambush marketers.
It was a distasteful display of bullying that also set a disturbing precedent for the regulation of free speech, since a government that can be persuaded to outlaw certain types of advertising at the behest of rugby sponsors might also be tempted to crack down on other forms of expression that it decides are inconvenient.
The extreme reach of the new laws, which will remain on the statute books after the RWC has finished, became apparent when it was revealed that even the St John’s ambulance service had to cover sponsors’ logos on ambulances and uniforms for fear of incurring a massive fine.
As the RWC progressed, the oppressive heavy-handedness of the IRB became progressively more absurd. A helicopter firm was warned not to fly over Eden Park because its company name was visible (it seems the IRB’s rights now extend to airspace) and two Samoan players were fined $10,000 each for wearing unapproved mouthguards – mouthguards, for heaven’s sake!
The ridicule and contempt heaped on the IRB over that episode was richly deserved, especially when the same pompous, arrogant, Northern Hemisphere rugby establishment had turned a blind eye to illegal ball-switching by the English team. Cheating you can get away with, apparently, but don’t dare upset the precious sponsors.
Did the IRB get the message? Clearly not, because only days later we learned it had issued rules about what players could write on the strapping around their wrists, where some players inscribe biblical references or allow family members to put messages.
This obsessive micro-control discredits rugby and has soured an otherwise wonderful event, but that’s what happens when sport is captured by men in suits.
For the fans and for most, if not all of, the players, rugby is still about sport. But for the game’s administrators and the broadcasters and sponsors who bankroll it, it’s all about money – and the two are not always compatible bedmates.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
A crushing letdown for the Apple faithful
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, October 11.)
A COUPLE of years ago I was taken aback at the sight of a lunchtime queue stretching along Lambton Quay. It turned out they were standing in line to buy the latest Apple product, which was being released that day.
It must have occurred to them that they could return the following day, by which time the rush would have subsided, and buy the item without having to wait.
They must also have known that if they waited a few months they’d get it 50 per cent cheaper, which is always the way with cutting-edge technology. But the compulsion to get their hands on it right there and then was obviously too powerful to resist.
Last week we saw another outburst of Applemania with the release of a new Apple phone called the iPhone 4S. The event was anticipated with much the same eagerness as a fervent Jehovah’s Witness might await the Second Coming. But oh, dear – the new model wasn’t quite what the Apple faithful were hoping for.
They were expecting an iPhone 5 and all they got was a “refresh” of the iPhone 4, said one. Another complained that it wasn’t as sleek and curvy as he’d hoped, and wouldn’t let people make credit card purchases by waving phones in front of sensors. (I ask you – how primitive is that?)
The sense of disappointment – betrayal, almost – was palpable.
The parallels with religion are striking. There has been much comment in recent weeks about rugby being elevated to the level of religion, but here’s a segment of the population for which technology is the new God.
On the other hand, it’s tempting to make comparisons with drug addiction. The tech-heads constantly crave a bigger fix. The iPhone 4 doesn’t do it for them anymore (though it was released only last year) and the 4S, which they were counting on to recreate that exhilarating rush, has let them down. They demand a more potent hit.
But what happens if and when the information technology industry can no longer satisfy the appetite for ever-faster, more powerful devices? The desolation of the Apple devotees in that event can only be imagined. Life will cease to hold any meaning.
* * *
RETURNING home after spending time overseas, you often see New Zealand in a new light.
Coming back from a trip to Japan years ago, I was struck by how big and ungainly we dairy-fed New Zealanders seemed. Compared with the grace and delicacy of the Japanese, even our women had the appearance of front-row forwards.
What struck me on my latest return, this time after six weeks in America, was how drab and sombre we all look. Killing time in Auckland Airport while waiting for my flight to Wellington, I watched a constant procession of people scurrying past clad in what appeared to be funereal garb – all blacks and dark greys.
And it wasn’t only the clothes; it was their demeanour too. They looked a thoroughly joyless and anxious lot – brows furrowed and no one talking, still less smiling or laughing. I’ve seen happier faces in waiting rooms at VD clinics (just fibbing, but you get my drift).
What is it about us? We seem perversely proud of our gloominess. How else to explain the dark, bleak tradition in much of our art (what other country could celebrate the despairing works of Colin McCahon?), our films and our literature?
Even the much-acclaimed movie Boy was deeply depressing, and it was touted as a comedy.
America’s economy is stagnant and its normally irrepressible self-confidence is wavering, yet Americans still seem to enjoy life. In the streets, shopping malls and restaurants, the mood is buoyant and people are smiling. But we New Zealanders seem to need a Rugby World Cup - a once-in-24-years-event - to induce any joie-de-vivre.
* * *
IMMIGRATION officials aren’t employed for their conviviality, so I wasn’t surprised by the stony-faced look from the officer checking my passport at Auckland Airport when I commented brightly on the speed with which the passengers on my flight from San Francisco had been processed.
I was, however, slightly taken aback when he wanted to know how long I had lived in my home town. Now why would he need to know that? It almost sounded like an attempt to catch me out on some irregularity.
His manner reminded me of the coldly officious American border security officer who had pulled our car over near the US-Mexico border, examined our passports and interrogated us about our recent movements. But at least the US border official had the excuse that we were foreign nationals in an area notorious for people smuggling.
Perhaps the Auckland immigration officer was trying to be sociable, but he didn’t seem the sociable type and the question wasn’t asked in a sociable way.
Then again, perhaps I’ve just seen too many films where Gestapo officers stop people in the street and demand to see their papers.
A COUPLE of years ago I was taken aback at the sight of a lunchtime queue stretching along Lambton Quay. It turned out they were standing in line to buy the latest Apple product, which was being released that day.
It must have occurred to them that they could return the following day, by which time the rush would have subsided, and buy the item without having to wait.
They must also have known that if they waited a few months they’d get it 50 per cent cheaper, which is always the way with cutting-edge technology. But the compulsion to get their hands on it right there and then was obviously too powerful to resist.
Last week we saw another outburst of Applemania with the release of a new Apple phone called the iPhone 4S. The event was anticipated with much the same eagerness as a fervent Jehovah’s Witness might await the Second Coming. But oh, dear – the new model wasn’t quite what the Apple faithful were hoping for.
They were expecting an iPhone 5 and all they got was a “refresh” of the iPhone 4, said one. Another complained that it wasn’t as sleek and curvy as he’d hoped, and wouldn’t let people make credit card purchases by waving phones in front of sensors. (I ask you – how primitive is that?)
The sense of disappointment – betrayal, almost – was palpable.
The parallels with religion are striking. There has been much comment in recent weeks about rugby being elevated to the level of religion, but here’s a segment of the population for which technology is the new God.
On the other hand, it’s tempting to make comparisons with drug addiction. The tech-heads constantly crave a bigger fix. The iPhone 4 doesn’t do it for them anymore (though it was released only last year) and the 4S, which they were counting on to recreate that exhilarating rush, has let them down. They demand a more potent hit.
But what happens if and when the information technology industry can no longer satisfy the appetite for ever-faster, more powerful devices? The desolation of the Apple devotees in that event can only be imagined. Life will cease to hold any meaning.
* * *
RETURNING home after spending time overseas, you often see New Zealand in a new light.
Coming back from a trip to Japan years ago, I was struck by how big and ungainly we dairy-fed New Zealanders seemed. Compared with the grace and delicacy of the Japanese, even our women had the appearance of front-row forwards.
What struck me on my latest return, this time after six weeks in America, was how drab and sombre we all look. Killing time in Auckland Airport while waiting for my flight to Wellington, I watched a constant procession of people scurrying past clad in what appeared to be funereal garb – all blacks and dark greys.
And it wasn’t only the clothes; it was their demeanour too. They looked a thoroughly joyless and anxious lot – brows furrowed and no one talking, still less smiling or laughing. I’ve seen happier faces in waiting rooms at VD clinics (just fibbing, but you get my drift).
What is it about us? We seem perversely proud of our gloominess. How else to explain the dark, bleak tradition in much of our art (what other country could celebrate the despairing works of Colin McCahon?), our films and our literature?
Even the much-acclaimed movie Boy was deeply depressing, and it was touted as a comedy.
America’s economy is stagnant and its normally irrepressible self-confidence is wavering, yet Americans still seem to enjoy life. In the streets, shopping malls and restaurants, the mood is buoyant and people are smiling. But we New Zealanders seem to need a Rugby World Cup - a once-in-24-years-event - to induce any joie-de-vivre.
* * *
IMMIGRATION officials aren’t employed for their conviviality, so I wasn’t surprised by the stony-faced look from the officer checking my passport at Auckland Airport when I commented brightly on the speed with which the passengers on my flight from San Francisco had been processed.
I was, however, slightly taken aback when he wanted to know how long I had lived in my home town. Now why would he need to know that? It almost sounded like an attempt to catch me out on some irregularity.
His manner reminded me of the coldly officious American border security officer who had pulled our car over near the US-Mexico border, examined our passports and interrogated us about our recent movements. But at least the US border official had the excuse that we were foreign nationals in an area notorious for people smuggling.
Perhaps the Auckland immigration officer was trying to be sociable, but he didn’t seem the sociable type and the question wasn’t asked in a sociable way.
Then again, perhaps I’ve just seen too many films where Gestapo officers stop people in the street and demand to see their papers.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
All that was missing was a gunrack
(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, September 28.)
I am writing this column on a train. This is something I have never done before and probably will never have occasion to do again.
To be precise, I am on a train called the California Zephyr. We pulled out of Union Station, Chicago, at 2pm on a Wednesday and arrived at Denver, Colorado, at 8.45 the following morning, having covered 1670 kilometres.
Now we’re underway again, climbing west through the foothills of the Rockies. Our train ride will end in another 33 hours - assuming we keep to schedule - at Emeryville Station, near San Francisco, from where my wife and I will fly home to New Zealand.
By then we will have travelled nearly 4000 km on the California Zephyr. We originally intended to undertake the entire train tip in one hit, but couldn’t get a sleeping compartment and didn’t fancy sitting for 52 hours. So we broke the journey for a day and night in Denver before reboarding.
It’s now 9am on Friday and we won’t reach Emeryville till 4pm tomorrow. I have travelled in America before, and flown across it, but this train trip has given me a new appreciation of the country’s vastness.
Before boarding the California Zephyr in Chicago, we spent several weeks travelling in rental cars, covering about 5500 km through Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Michigan.
Americans we spoke to were appalled when we told them of the cities we intended to visit - places like El Paso, Texas (unfairly reputed to be one the most dangerous cities in the US, due to its proximity to the ultra-violent Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez), and Detroit, which has become a byword for crime, unemployment, drugs and urban decay (again, not entirely fairly; we enjoyed downtown Detroit and never felt unsafe).
“You’ll be seeing the armpit of America,” exclaimed the woman sitting next to us on our flight to Houston, our first destination. Certainly some of the towns on our itinerary are no tourist meccas, but I had my own reasons for wanting to see them - reasons which will become apparent if and when I finally get around to writing the book that has been gestating in my head for several years.
Along the way we have had some great experiences. Before flying to Texas we attended a memorable performance of the long-running radio show A Prairie Home Companion, recorded before an enthusiastic audience at a spectacular venue high in the hills above San Jose, California.
Just getting there was a quintessentially American experience. The rental car agency in the small town where we were staying couldn’t supply us with a car, so gave us a V8-powered Ford F-150 - the classic good ol' boys pickup truck - instead. All that was missing was a gun rack in the cab.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, we spent a Saturday night at Cain’s Ballroom, founded in 1934. Cain’s Ballroom was the home of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, the originators of a musical genre known as western swing, and the tradition has been kept alive by the current band at Cain’s, the Tulsa Playboys.
In Detroit I made a musical pilgrimage of a different sort - to the two modest houses at 2648 West Grand Boulevard where the great Motown soul hits of the 1960s were recorded. I stood in the recording studio, which has been preserved much as it was then, and marvelled at the prodigious outpouring of music that flowed from this claustrophobic basement before Motown boss Berry Gordy Jr ended the magic by relocating to Los Angeles.
In El Paso, we drank Dos Equis beer and ate burritos at Rosa’s Cantina, an unprepossessing bar on the outskirts of town that supposedly inspired the Marty Robbins cowboy song familiar to any New Zealander who ever listened to a 1960s radio request show.
At the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, we watched a succession of confident young men heroically tackle a 72-ounce steak. If they managed to finish it, their meal was free. None did. Gross? Yep, but very Texan.
There was lots more, of course, but it will have to wait for the book.
Now, after six weeks away, my wife and I are ready to go home. Travelling is a great adventure but it can also be tiring and stressful. Driving and navigating in a foreign country - especially one whose freeway system is as unforgiving as America’s - is a challenge, even when you think you’ve become accustomed to it.
On this trip, the latest of several we have made to the US, we used a GPS system for the first time. It certainly made navigating easier at times, to the point where I found myself wondering how we ever managed to find our way around without one.
But even the GPS was overwhelmed when we struck manically busy freeway interchanges in some of the bigger cities, where dense traffic moves at 110 kmh and multiple exits peel off in all directions. In cities like Houston and Kansas, we encountered interchanges that made Auckland’s famed Spaghetti Junction look positively Lilliputian.
At such times Mandy, as we christened our GPS (I confess we got into the habit of talking about her as if she were a third person in the car), would go into meltdown and I would have to make a split-second decision about which exit was the correct one. Sometimes I got it right, sometimes I didn’t.
At times like these, when we're floundering around an alien city looking for the accommodation we booked online (always hoping we’ve made the right choice out of the bewildering plethora of hotels and motels offering), I can see the appeal of taking a guided group tour rather than travelling independently.
Having someone else take care of all your arrangements and make the decisions about where to stay, where to eat and what attractions to see must alleviate a great part of the stress and uncertainty of travelling. But I have a nagging suspicion that it takes away a lot of the fun and adventure too.
I am writing this column on a train. This is something I have never done before and probably will never have occasion to do again.
To be precise, I am on a train called the California Zephyr. We pulled out of Union Station, Chicago, at 2pm on a Wednesday and arrived at Denver, Colorado, at 8.45 the following morning, having covered 1670 kilometres.
Now we’re underway again, climbing west through the foothills of the Rockies. Our train ride will end in another 33 hours - assuming we keep to schedule - at Emeryville Station, near San Francisco, from where my wife and I will fly home to New Zealand.
By then we will have travelled nearly 4000 km on the California Zephyr. We originally intended to undertake the entire train tip in one hit, but couldn’t get a sleeping compartment and didn’t fancy sitting for 52 hours. So we broke the journey for a day and night in Denver before reboarding.
It’s now 9am on Friday and we won’t reach Emeryville till 4pm tomorrow. I have travelled in America before, and flown across it, but this train trip has given me a new appreciation of the country’s vastness.
Before boarding the California Zephyr in Chicago, we spent several weeks travelling in rental cars, covering about 5500 km through Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Michigan.
Americans we spoke to were appalled when we told them of the cities we intended to visit - places like El Paso, Texas (unfairly reputed to be one the most dangerous cities in the US, due to its proximity to the ultra-violent Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez), and Detroit, which has become a byword for crime, unemployment, drugs and urban decay (again, not entirely fairly; we enjoyed downtown Detroit and never felt unsafe).
“You’ll be seeing the armpit of America,” exclaimed the woman sitting next to us on our flight to Houston, our first destination. Certainly some of the towns on our itinerary are no tourist meccas, but I had my own reasons for wanting to see them - reasons which will become apparent if and when I finally get around to writing the book that has been gestating in my head for several years.
Along the way we have had some great experiences. Before flying to Texas we attended a memorable performance of the long-running radio show A Prairie Home Companion, recorded before an enthusiastic audience at a spectacular venue high in the hills above San Jose, California.
Just getting there was a quintessentially American experience. The rental car agency in the small town where we were staying couldn’t supply us with a car, so gave us a V8-powered Ford F-150 - the classic good ol' boys pickup truck - instead. All that was missing was a gun rack in the cab.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, we spent a Saturday night at Cain’s Ballroom, founded in 1934. Cain’s Ballroom was the home of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, the originators of a musical genre known as western swing, and the tradition has been kept alive by the current band at Cain’s, the Tulsa Playboys.
In Detroit I made a musical pilgrimage of a different sort - to the two modest houses at 2648 West Grand Boulevard where the great Motown soul hits of the 1960s were recorded. I stood in the recording studio, which has been preserved much as it was then, and marvelled at the prodigious outpouring of music that flowed from this claustrophobic basement before Motown boss Berry Gordy Jr ended the magic by relocating to Los Angeles.
In El Paso, we drank Dos Equis beer and ate burritos at Rosa’s Cantina, an unprepossessing bar on the outskirts of town that supposedly inspired the Marty Robbins cowboy song familiar to any New Zealander who ever listened to a 1960s radio request show.
At the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, we watched a succession of confident young men heroically tackle a 72-ounce steak. If they managed to finish it, their meal was free. None did. Gross? Yep, but very Texan.
There was lots more, of course, but it will have to wait for the book.
Now, after six weeks away, my wife and I are ready to go home. Travelling is a great adventure but it can also be tiring and stressful. Driving and navigating in a foreign country - especially one whose freeway system is as unforgiving as America’s - is a challenge, even when you think you’ve become accustomed to it.
On this trip, the latest of several we have made to the US, we used a GPS system for the first time. It certainly made navigating easier at times, to the point where I found myself wondering how we ever managed to find our way around without one.
But even the GPS was overwhelmed when we struck manically busy freeway interchanges in some of the bigger cities, where dense traffic moves at 110 kmh and multiple exits peel off in all directions. In cities like Houston and Kansas, we encountered interchanges that made Auckland’s famed Spaghetti Junction look positively Lilliputian.
At such times Mandy, as we christened our GPS (I confess we got into the habit of talking about her as if she were a third person in the car), would go into meltdown and I would have to make a split-second decision about which exit was the correct one. Sometimes I got it right, sometimes I didn’t.
At times like these, when we're floundering around an alien city looking for the accommodation we booked online (always hoping we’ve made the right choice out of the bewildering plethora of hotels and motels offering), I can see the appeal of taking a guided group tour rather than travelling independently.
Having someone else take care of all your arrangements and make the decisions about where to stay, where to eat and what attractions to see must alleviate a great part of the stress and uncertainty of travelling. But I have a nagging suspicion that it takes away a lot of the fun and adventure too.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
America versus NZ: a scorecard
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, September 27.)
I have been travelling with my wife for the past few weeks in the United States. And along the way, in idle moments, I have been compiling a list.
Well, two lists really. One consists of things the Americans do well; the other of things I think we do better in New Zealand. And as we approach the end of our journey, the scoresheet seems pretty evenly balanced.
No 1 on my list of things the Americans do well is service.
Even in no-frills places like McDonald's and the budget-priced Motel 6 chain, where we have stayed occasionally, there is a consistent commitment to good service. Customers are almost invariably greeted with a welcoming smile and treated with respect.
Waiters and waitresses seem to take genuine pride in doing their job well. You never get the feeling (alas, all too common in New Zealand) that serving other people is below their dignity or too much trouble, or that they're doing the job only because they need the money to pay their university fees or whatever.
Cynics might say this is because staff in American hotels, restaurants and bars depend on tips, but it goes beyond that. It's ingrained in the culture.
Allied to this is the American concern for good manners and civility. In their everyday behaviour Americans display an old-fashioned courtesy that puts most New Zealanders to shame. Even the panhandlers (beggars), who seem to occupy almost every street corner in the larger places, are polite; sometimes extravagantly so.
Americans are great initiators of conversation too. New Zealanders tend to be crippled by their British reserve but Americans don't hesitate to strike up a conversation with a total stranger, or to offer assistance if they sense that you need it. This holds true whether you're in a big, brash city like Chicago - where I'm writing this - or one of those small rural towns that look as if they've just materialised out of a Norman Rockwell illustration.
Public toilets are also high on my list of things America does much better than New Zealand. Whether they're in parks, bars, gas stations, public buildings or roadside rest areas, they are almost always impeccably clean and well-maintained - although I'm not sure I approve of the lack of privacy in some men's dunnies, where the almost non-existent partitions between cubicles are presumably intended to deter anti- social activity.
Speaking of bars reminds me of beer, which also warrants a mention here. American beer was once nigh undrinkable, but in the past decade there has been a proliferation of regional boutique or "craft" breweries that offer excellent alternatives to ghastly mainstream labels such as Budweiser and Miller.
Better than the craft beers made in New Zealand? Certainly as good as, and probably more varied.
Now, some of the things that, in my view, we do better in New Zealand. Top of my list are coffee and food. The Americans may have caught up where beer is concerned but it's almost impossible to get a half-decent cup of coffee anywhere in the US, which is odd when you consider coffee is in some respects the quintessential American beverage. As for tea, don't even think about it.
Food? Dear me. The Americans do a few things superbly (even a run-of-the-mill US steak house could teach our most illustrious chefs a few things about cooking a fillet of angus beef) but they are arguably the world's least adventurous eaters.
American restaurants and cafes offer endless variations of the same limited and tiresome culinary repertoire: burgers, chicken, fries, hot dogs, steak and pizza. It's stodgy, fatty, flavourless and served in such grossly excessive amounts that the "to-go box" (or doggy bag, as we would call it) is an almost mandatory requirement at the end of every meal.
There's only so much you can do with a bun and a ground beef patty, yet massive freeway billboards advertise this or that restaurant chain's burgers as if they were the last word in gastronomic accomplishment. In my notion of hell, this is what the damned would be forced to eat day after day.
And as it is for food, so it is with motor vehicles. The Americans still haven't ended their love affair with the noisy, primitive, thirsty Detroit V8 - the automotive equivalent of the double cheeseburger with fries. In the south and west in particular, V8 pickup trucks almost outnumber cars.
What else? American plumbing fixtures are downright perverse, the sales taxes are diabolical (oh, for the simplicity and transparency of GST) and the depressing number of social casualties on the streets is proof that the American dream has a nightmarish flipside.
And how I long to get back home and tune into a radio network that offers something other than 24/7 political rants, incomprehensible sports chatter, fundamentalist evangelism and all-night sessions on the paranormal - including an interview with a Kiwi who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Now how did the New Zealand media miss that story?
I have been travelling with my wife for the past few weeks in the United States. And along the way, in idle moments, I have been compiling a list.
Well, two lists really. One consists of things the Americans do well; the other of things I think we do better in New Zealand. And as we approach the end of our journey, the scoresheet seems pretty evenly balanced.
No 1 on my list of things the Americans do well is service.
Even in no-frills places like McDonald's and the budget-priced Motel 6 chain, where we have stayed occasionally, there is a consistent commitment to good service. Customers are almost invariably greeted with a welcoming smile and treated with respect.
Waiters and waitresses seem to take genuine pride in doing their job well. You never get the feeling (alas, all too common in New Zealand) that serving other people is below their dignity or too much trouble, or that they're doing the job only because they need the money to pay their university fees or whatever.
Cynics might say this is because staff in American hotels, restaurants and bars depend on tips, but it goes beyond that. It's ingrained in the culture.
Allied to this is the American concern for good manners and civility. In their everyday behaviour Americans display an old-fashioned courtesy that puts most New Zealanders to shame. Even the panhandlers (beggars), who seem to occupy almost every street corner in the larger places, are polite; sometimes extravagantly so.
Americans are great initiators of conversation too. New Zealanders tend to be crippled by their British reserve but Americans don't hesitate to strike up a conversation with a total stranger, or to offer assistance if they sense that you need it. This holds true whether you're in a big, brash city like Chicago - where I'm writing this - or one of those small rural towns that look as if they've just materialised out of a Norman Rockwell illustration.
Public toilets are also high on my list of things America does much better than New Zealand. Whether they're in parks, bars, gas stations, public buildings or roadside rest areas, they are almost always impeccably clean and well-maintained - although I'm not sure I approve of the lack of privacy in some men's dunnies, where the almost non-existent partitions between cubicles are presumably intended to deter anti- social activity.
Speaking of bars reminds me of beer, which also warrants a mention here. American beer was once nigh undrinkable, but in the past decade there has been a proliferation of regional boutique or "craft" breweries that offer excellent alternatives to ghastly mainstream labels such as Budweiser and Miller.
Better than the craft beers made in New Zealand? Certainly as good as, and probably more varied.
Now, some of the things that, in my view, we do better in New Zealand. Top of my list are coffee and food. The Americans may have caught up where beer is concerned but it's almost impossible to get a half-decent cup of coffee anywhere in the US, which is odd when you consider coffee is in some respects the quintessential American beverage. As for tea, don't even think about it.
Food? Dear me. The Americans do a few things superbly (even a run-of-the-mill US steak house could teach our most illustrious chefs a few things about cooking a fillet of angus beef) but they are arguably the world's least adventurous eaters.
American restaurants and cafes offer endless variations of the same limited and tiresome culinary repertoire: burgers, chicken, fries, hot dogs, steak and pizza. It's stodgy, fatty, flavourless and served in such grossly excessive amounts that the "to-go box" (or doggy bag, as we would call it) is an almost mandatory requirement at the end of every meal.
There's only so much you can do with a bun and a ground beef patty, yet massive freeway billboards advertise this or that restaurant chain's burgers as if they were the last word in gastronomic accomplishment. In my notion of hell, this is what the damned would be forced to eat day after day.
And as it is for food, so it is with motor vehicles. The Americans still haven't ended their love affair with the noisy, primitive, thirsty Detroit V8 - the automotive equivalent of the double cheeseburger with fries. In the south and west in particular, V8 pickup trucks almost outnumber cars.
What else? American plumbing fixtures are downright perverse, the sales taxes are diabolical (oh, for the simplicity and transparency of GST) and the depressing number of social casualties on the streets is proof that the American dream has a nightmarish flipside.
And how I long to get back home and tune into a radio network that offers something other than 24/7 political rants, incomprehensible sports chatter, fundamentalist evangelism and all-night sessions on the paranormal - including an interview with a Kiwi who claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Now how did the New Zealand media miss that story?
Saturday, September 17, 2011
The English language is under attack
(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, September 14).
The English language is one of the most precious gifts of our culture. Used properly, it is a precision instrument. There are virtually no ideas or situations for which apposite, accurate words or phrases cannot be found.
On the few occasions when such words are not available in English, we’re free to raid other languages for terms such as “schadenfreude” or “coup de grace”, for which no exact English equivalent exists.
But this fantastic gift, refined and enriched over hundreds of years as the English lexicon has expanded, is under constant attack by people who seek to debase and degrade it – people who use words to obscure rather than clarify; to disguise rather than reveal.
It goes without saying that politicians are among the worst offenders. Certain words and expressions are now so debased by misuse that they are bound to arouse suspicion.
Consider how the word “inappropriate” has been distorted out of all recognition. Once a term of mild rebuke for socially gauche behaviour, such as turning up at a formal dinner wearing jeans, it now serves as a euphemism for all manner of disgraceful and improper conduct, from sexual indiscretions through to fraud and bribery.
Words that describe such behaviour honestly and unambiguously – such as immoral, crooked, corrupt or just plain bad – have fallen into disuse. It’s only a matter of time before the perpetrators of war crimes stand accused of inappropriate behaviour.
Other words have been robbed of their force through overuse. Derogatory terms such as sexist, racist and fascist – words that might once have shamed or intimidated the people at whom they were directed – are now bandied about so promiscuously that they have become meaningless.
George Orwell was wise to all this. In his famous essay Politics and the English Language, written in 1946, he condemned the deliberate use of vague and misleading words.
He explained how euphemistic language could be used to make appalling things seem almost respectable (I wonder what he would have made of the phrase “collateral damage”, from the Vietnam War), and he pointed out the fondness of totalitarian regimes for language that disguised their inhuman oppressiveness.
Orwell also recognised that sloppy language and sloppy thinking go hand in hand. Dumb down the language and the intellect soon gets lazy too. After all, if you don’t have to express yourself clearly, why bother making the effort to think clearly? It’s easier to resort to a grab-bag of meaningless, empty slogans. Clear speech facilitates clear thinking and vice-versa.
If anything has changed since Orwell’s time, it’s that politicians no longer have a monopoly on the abuse of English. Several other occupational groups now compete to rob the language of its precision, nuance and beauty.
Some of the most egregious crimes against English are perpetrated by three of the most powerful forces in the modern corporate environment: human resources, marketing and IT people.
Human resources departments (the very phrase is Orwellian) are notorious serial abusers of the language. Pick up the executive recruitment section of any newspaper and you’ll sink in a morass of HR-speak. Study the ads and it soon becomes apparent that the phraseology is interchangeable, regardless of the job being offered. The same hollow jargon – key outcomes, customer-focused solutions and suchlike – is endlessly recycled and re-arranged in slightly different combinations. The common factor is a disregard for the integrity of the language.
HR departments may have to try harder, however, because their challengers in marketing are taking non-language to new extremes of flatulence. Consider the following, posted as a testimonial by a wine company marketing manager on the website of a research firm:
"[The research consultants] were a delight to work with,” it read. “Their commanding knowledge of the wine industry across geographies ensured we were able to quickly drill down to the key issues and deliver compelling consumer insights for our core target. They managed key stakeholders from different businesses effectively and collaboratively to deliver clear recommendations to move our business forward.”
This is not writing. It’s the equivalent of painting by numbers, whereby a limited stock of glib clichés is recycled in varying permutations, as in executive recruitment ads. It treats English as just another corporate tool, rather like a cellphone or calculator: simply a matter of pushing the right buttons in the correct sequence.
But blame for the most damaging and sustained assault on the language rests with the computer industry. Computer-speak has no relationship with any other form of English. In fact you could make a compelling case that it was created by aliens with no previous knowledge of the language.
On one level, it is either infantile (for example, “Twitter” and the internet term “cookies”) or plain ugly (as in “blog” – a word that no one with an ear for the euphony of the English language could have invented).
Computer-speak, or geek-speak, is also notable for the way it spurns logical terms in favour of silly neologisms. When I’m transferring CDs onto my MP3 player, for example, the software can’t bring itself to use plain-English words like “copy” or “transfer”. No, it uses nonsensical terms like “rip”, “burn” and “sync”.
The worst examples of cyber language are those that are incomprehensible to anyone other than geeks, and perhaps Daleks. Herewith, a few examples that have popped up on my computer screen:
“Your browser’s cookie functionality is disabled. Please enable Java Script and cookies in order to use Blogger.” This might mean something to a young man with greasy hair, body odour and bad skin, but not to me.
“Please do not power off or unplug your machine.” Understandable enough, perhaps, but "power off"? "Power" wasn’t a verb last time I looked. What’s wrong with “switch”?
“Changes have been made that affect the global template, normal.dot. Do you want to save those changes?” Well, I might, if I knew what it meant.
“A buffer overrun has been detected which has corrupted the program’s internal state. The program cannot safely continue execution and must now be terminated.” Gulp; sounds serious.
The geeks who perpetrated these atrocities are on a mission to re-invent the English language. If we value our heritage, we must ensure they don’t succeed.
The English language is one of the most precious gifts of our culture. Used properly, it is a precision instrument. There are virtually no ideas or situations for which apposite, accurate words or phrases cannot be found.
On the few occasions when such words are not available in English, we’re free to raid other languages for terms such as “schadenfreude” or “coup de grace”, for which no exact English equivalent exists.
But this fantastic gift, refined and enriched over hundreds of years as the English lexicon has expanded, is under constant attack by people who seek to debase and degrade it – people who use words to obscure rather than clarify; to disguise rather than reveal.
It goes without saying that politicians are among the worst offenders. Certain words and expressions are now so debased by misuse that they are bound to arouse suspicion.
Consider how the word “inappropriate” has been distorted out of all recognition. Once a term of mild rebuke for socially gauche behaviour, such as turning up at a formal dinner wearing jeans, it now serves as a euphemism for all manner of disgraceful and improper conduct, from sexual indiscretions through to fraud and bribery.
Words that describe such behaviour honestly and unambiguously – such as immoral, crooked, corrupt or just plain bad – have fallen into disuse. It’s only a matter of time before the perpetrators of war crimes stand accused of inappropriate behaviour.
Other words have been robbed of their force through overuse. Derogatory terms such as sexist, racist and fascist – words that might once have shamed or intimidated the people at whom they were directed – are now bandied about so promiscuously that they have become meaningless.
George Orwell was wise to all this. In his famous essay Politics and the English Language, written in 1946, he condemned the deliberate use of vague and misleading words.
He explained how euphemistic language could be used to make appalling things seem almost respectable (I wonder what he would have made of the phrase “collateral damage”, from the Vietnam War), and he pointed out the fondness of totalitarian regimes for language that disguised their inhuman oppressiveness.
Orwell also recognised that sloppy language and sloppy thinking go hand in hand. Dumb down the language and the intellect soon gets lazy too. After all, if you don’t have to express yourself clearly, why bother making the effort to think clearly? It’s easier to resort to a grab-bag of meaningless, empty slogans. Clear speech facilitates clear thinking and vice-versa.
If anything has changed since Orwell’s time, it’s that politicians no longer have a monopoly on the abuse of English. Several other occupational groups now compete to rob the language of its precision, nuance and beauty.
Some of the most egregious crimes against English are perpetrated by three of the most powerful forces in the modern corporate environment: human resources, marketing and IT people.
Human resources departments (the very phrase is Orwellian) are notorious serial abusers of the language. Pick up the executive recruitment section of any newspaper and you’ll sink in a morass of HR-speak. Study the ads and it soon becomes apparent that the phraseology is interchangeable, regardless of the job being offered. The same hollow jargon – key outcomes, customer-focused solutions and suchlike – is endlessly recycled and re-arranged in slightly different combinations. The common factor is a disregard for the integrity of the language.
HR departments may have to try harder, however, because their challengers in marketing are taking non-language to new extremes of flatulence. Consider the following, posted as a testimonial by a wine company marketing manager on the website of a research firm:
"[The research consultants] were a delight to work with,” it read. “Their commanding knowledge of the wine industry across geographies ensured we were able to quickly drill down to the key issues and deliver compelling consumer insights for our core target. They managed key stakeholders from different businesses effectively and collaboratively to deliver clear recommendations to move our business forward.”
This is not writing. It’s the equivalent of painting by numbers, whereby a limited stock of glib clichés is recycled in varying permutations, as in executive recruitment ads. It treats English as just another corporate tool, rather like a cellphone or calculator: simply a matter of pushing the right buttons in the correct sequence.
But blame for the most damaging and sustained assault on the language rests with the computer industry. Computer-speak has no relationship with any other form of English. In fact you could make a compelling case that it was created by aliens with no previous knowledge of the language.
On one level, it is either infantile (for example, “Twitter” and the internet term “cookies”) or plain ugly (as in “blog” – a word that no one with an ear for the euphony of the English language could have invented).
Computer-speak, or geek-speak, is also notable for the way it spurns logical terms in favour of silly neologisms. When I’m transferring CDs onto my MP3 player, for example, the software can’t bring itself to use plain-English words like “copy” or “transfer”. No, it uses nonsensical terms like “rip”, “burn” and “sync”.
The worst examples of cyber language are those that are incomprehensible to anyone other than geeks, and perhaps Daleks. Herewith, a few examples that have popped up on my computer screen:
“Your browser’s cookie functionality is disabled. Please enable Java Script and cookies in order to use Blogger.” This might mean something to a young man with greasy hair, body odour and bad skin, but not to me.
“Please do not power off or unplug your machine.” Understandable enough, perhaps, but "power off"? "Power" wasn’t a verb last time I looked. What’s wrong with “switch”?
“Changes have been made that affect the global template, normal.dot. Do you want to save those changes?” Well, I might, if I knew what it meant.
“A buffer overrun has been detected which has corrupted the program’s internal state. The program cannot safely continue execution and must now be terminated.” Gulp; sounds serious.
The geeks who perpetrated these atrocities are on a mission to re-invent the English language. If we value our heritage, we must ensure they don’t succeed.
Cafes aren't for kids
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, September 13.)
THERE ARE some things that just don’t belong together: Coke with single malt whisky; tomato sauce with paté (though that didn’t stop my father); the Mongrel Mob and Black Power. I could go on, but you get my drift.
To that list I would add children and cafés. I like children – I’m told I was once one myself – and I usually enjoy cafés, but the two are generally not compatible.
First, being dragged to a café is cruel to kids. They'd rather be in a playground or at McDonald's. No token collection of toys in the corner can alter the fact that cafés are places for grown-ups, and I feel sorry for small children who are expected to amuse themselves for hours while their parents chatter and slurp their double-shot soy lattes.
Second, taking kids to cafés can be inconsiderate to adult patrons who go there to enjoy conversation or read quietly – experiences that are not enhanced by children noisily racing around, especially given the fashion for minimalist décor that amplifies sound.
A recent lunch with a friend in an eastern suburbs café – one we had chosen because of its reputation as a place that takes food seriously – was marred by small kids running amok. Their mothers appeared oblivious to the racket they were making.
Parents who insist on taking their children to cafes are being selfish, both to the kids and to fellow patrons. The children are either going to be bored or make nuisances of themselves.
Café-addicted parents should accept that having children requires a modification of one’s former lifestyle – and if that means having to cut out Sunday brunch or long lunches with the mothers’ group, so be it.
* * *
IT’S DISPIRITING when journalists are complicit in the debasement of their own language.
Take the word “offshore”. Until recently it was a useful term that could be applied to anything not too distant from land, as the word implies.
An offshore island was one you could sail to for the weekend. Ships anchored offshore while they waited for a berth. Offshore drilling rigs were often within sight of land.
My dictionaries are in accord on this. The first definition they give is “situated in or on the sea, not far from the coast”, or “some distance from the shore”. The coast or shore is the reference point.
If you wanted to refer to something that was much further away – beyond the horizon and perhaps taking several hours to reach by plane, you used the word “abroad” or, more commonly, “overseas”, since to get to any other country from New Zealand requires a trip across water.
Put another way, Kapiti Island is offshore but Britain is overseas. Perfectly simple and eminently logical.
But in one of those quirks of English usage that creep up on us by stealth, “offshore” is now treated as a synonym for “overseas”. In fact it’s well on its way to monstering “overseas” out of the language altogether.
So where we previously had two perfectly good words with specific meanings, we now have one that has become ambiguous and misleading, and another that is falling out of use.
As with so many linguistic abominations, we can thank the business sector. “Offshore” was originally embraced by accountants and tax lawyers – no respecters of language – as a term meaning any country beyond the reach of tax gatherers and legislators, as in “offshore tax haven”
Had its usage been confined to the business world, there would be no cause for complaint. “Offshore” could have harmlessly taken its place amid all the other flatulent jargon favoured by the suits.
But no, the word has spread into general usage. And the worst thing is that this viral contamination has largely been facilitated by journalists, who should regard it as their professional obligation to protect the integrity and accuracy of the language.
* * *
DONOR fatigue is what happens when people get so many requests for charitable donations that they switch off and put their chequebooks away.
Charities have themselves to blame for this, at least in part, and here’s why.
You make a donation and provide your name and address so that you can be sent a receipt for tax purposes. But most charities seem to take this as a commitment on your part to support them in perpetuity and, thereafter, regularly bombard you with appeals for more money.
There are only so many worthy causes people can support. Most have a few favoured charities that they give to year after year. This doesn’t stop them from making occasional donations to other causes but once they do, they can expect to be on the mailing list for years. I wonder how many soon get donation-shy as a result.
As I write this I have a pile of requests on my desk from organisations that I have given a one-off donation to but don’t wish to go on supporting year after year. Quite apart from anything else, it’s a huge waste of paper.
FOOTNOTE: When I last checked, my comments about children in cafes had attracted 187 responses on the Stuff website. Initially they were unremittingly hostile but more recently the tide seems to have turned slightly in my favour.
THERE ARE some things that just don’t belong together: Coke with single malt whisky; tomato sauce with paté (though that didn’t stop my father); the Mongrel Mob and Black Power. I could go on, but you get my drift.
To that list I would add children and cafés. I like children – I’m told I was once one myself – and I usually enjoy cafés, but the two are generally not compatible.
First, being dragged to a café is cruel to kids. They'd rather be in a playground or at McDonald's. No token collection of toys in the corner can alter the fact that cafés are places for grown-ups, and I feel sorry for small children who are expected to amuse themselves for hours while their parents chatter and slurp their double-shot soy lattes.
Second, taking kids to cafés can be inconsiderate to adult patrons who go there to enjoy conversation or read quietly – experiences that are not enhanced by children noisily racing around, especially given the fashion for minimalist décor that amplifies sound.
A recent lunch with a friend in an eastern suburbs café – one we had chosen because of its reputation as a place that takes food seriously – was marred by small kids running amok. Their mothers appeared oblivious to the racket they were making.
Parents who insist on taking their children to cafes are being selfish, both to the kids and to fellow patrons. The children are either going to be bored or make nuisances of themselves.
Café-addicted parents should accept that having children requires a modification of one’s former lifestyle – and if that means having to cut out Sunday brunch or long lunches with the mothers’ group, so be it.
* * *
IT’S DISPIRITING when journalists are complicit in the debasement of their own language.
Take the word “offshore”. Until recently it was a useful term that could be applied to anything not too distant from land, as the word implies.
An offshore island was one you could sail to for the weekend. Ships anchored offshore while they waited for a berth. Offshore drilling rigs were often within sight of land.
My dictionaries are in accord on this. The first definition they give is “situated in or on the sea, not far from the coast”, or “some distance from the shore”. The coast or shore is the reference point.
If you wanted to refer to something that was much further away – beyond the horizon and perhaps taking several hours to reach by plane, you used the word “abroad” or, more commonly, “overseas”, since to get to any other country from New Zealand requires a trip across water.
Put another way, Kapiti Island is offshore but Britain is overseas. Perfectly simple and eminently logical.
But in one of those quirks of English usage that creep up on us by stealth, “offshore” is now treated as a synonym for “overseas”. In fact it’s well on its way to monstering “overseas” out of the language altogether.
So where we previously had two perfectly good words with specific meanings, we now have one that has become ambiguous and misleading, and another that is falling out of use.
As with so many linguistic abominations, we can thank the business sector. “Offshore” was originally embraced by accountants and tax lawyers – no respecters of language – as a term meaning any country beyond the reach of tax gatherers and legislators, as in “offshore tax haven”
Had its usage been confined to the business world, there would be no cause for complaint. “Offshore” could have harmlessly taken its place amid all the other flatulent jargon favoured by the suits.
But no, the word has spread into general usage. And the worst thing is that this viral contamination has largely been facilitated by journalists, who should regard it as their professional obligation to protect the integrity and accuracy of the language.
* * *
DONOR fatigue is what happens when people get so many requests for charitable donations that they switch off and put their chequebooks away.
Charities have themselves to blame for this, at least in part, and here’s why.
You make a donation and provide your name and address so that you can be sent a receipt for tax purposes. But most charities seem to take this as a commitment on your part to support them in perpetuity and, thereafter, regularly bombard you with appeals for more money.
There are only so many worthy causes people can support. Most have a few favoured charities that they give to year after year. This doesn’t stop them from making occasional donations to other causes but once they do, they can expect to be on the mailing list for years. I wonder how many soon get donation-shy as a result.
As I write this I have a pile of requests on my desk from organisations that I have given a one-off donation to but don’t wish to go on supporting year after year. Quite apart from anything else, it’s a huge waste of paper.
FOOTNOTE: When I last checked, my comments about children in cafes had attracted 187 responses on the Stuff website. Initially they were unremittingly hostile but more recently the tide seems to have turned slightly in my favour.
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