Bill Bryson on declining standards of punctuation and grammar

Ed. here. Bill Bryson, best known for his travel books, has also written two fine books on the development and use of the English language. Mother Tongue and Made in America occupy positions of honour in Walt's working library. Mr. Bryson is also a stickler for proper usage of our language, as witness the following excerpt from his latest book, The Road to Little Dribbling (Penguin Random House/Doubleday 2015). Walt's working on a review, but showed me this passage (pages 220-222), which I couldn't wait to share with you.

On the platform at Cambridge station was a poster for a Jeremy Clarkson book. It had a photo of Clarkson looking adorably doleful and a caption that read: 'Dads. Everything they say. Everything they do. Everything they wear. Its all completely wrong.' Oh, the wit. But note the absence of the apostrophe in 'its'. I know it is way too much to ask that Jeremy Clarkson should take an interest in the literacy of his posters, but surely someone at Penguin ought to care.

We have now reached a level in which many people are not merely unacquainted with the fundamentals of punctuation, but evidently don't realize that there are fundamentals. Many people...seem to think that capitalization and marks of punctuation are condiments that you sprinkle indiscriminately through any collection of words. Here is a headline, exactly as presented, from a magazine ad for a private school in York: 'Ranked by the daily Telegraph the top Northern Co-Educational day and Boarding School for Academic results'. All those capital letters are just random. Does anyone really think that the correct rendering of the newspaper is 'the daily Telegraph'? Is it really possible to be that unobservant?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact. Not long ago, I received an email from someone at the Department for Children, Schools and Families asking me to take part in a campaign to help raise appreciation for the quality of teaching in the UK. Here is the opening line of the message exactly as it was sent to me: 'Hi Bill. Hope alls well. Here at the Department of Children Schools and Families...'

In the space of one line, fourteen words, the author has made three elemental punctuation errors (two missing commas, one missing apostrophe; I am not telling you more than that) and got the name of her own department wrong - this from a person whose job it is to promote education. In a similar spirit, I received a letter not long ago from a paediatric surgeon inviting me to speak at a conference. The writer used the word children's twice in her invitation, spelling it two different ways and getting it wrong both times. This was a children's specialist working in a children's hospital. How long do you have to be exposed to a word, how central must it be to your working life, to notice how it is spelled?

People everywhere have abandoned whole elements of grammatical English, and I don't understand it.I was watching a Brian Cox television documentary in which he was standing in a field in Mexico talking about bombardier beetles when he said: 'The bombardier beetle and me, and in fact every living thing you can see, are exposed to the same threat... Me and my friend the beetle have both reached the same solution.' Now don't get me wrong. I have great respect for Brian Cox. He has a brain so big that it crosses whole time zones, and he is normally impeccable with the language, so why on earth would he say 'the bombardier beetle and me' when it is surely more natural, and clearly more respectable, to say 'the bombardier beetle and I'?

Soon after this, I watched a documentary by another eminent young scientist, Adam Rutherford, and he said: 'Now I've got just 33 vertebrae in my spinal column, but Belle here [a boa constrictor] has got 304, and the amazing thing is it's the same handful of genes that determine how many vertebrae both me and her have.'

Then I was watching a repeat of Outnumbered, which had this snatch of dialogue in it:
          Outnumbered kid: 'Why do I have to look after Karen?'
          Hugh Dennis: 'Because me and Mum and Ben are going to be at Ben's parents' evening.'
Hugh Dennis was educated at Cambridge in real life, and he plays a teacher who should really know better.

Then I heard Samantha Cameron, wife of the Prime Minister, say to a television interviewer, 'Me and the kids help to keep him grounded.'

So here is all I am saying about this. Stop it.

VIDEO: Swazi king goes to India with 15 wives, 30 kids, 100 servants

News from the Third World takes longer to get to Walt's cabin in the woods than news from, say, Springfield. Just in is a report from India's Zee Media claiming that His Royal Highness Mswati III, king of Swaziland, took 15 of his wives, 30 children, and 100 servants to India for last week's India-Africa Forum.

The report goes on to say that at least 200 hotel rooms in a five-star, $230/night, New Delhi hotel were booked a week in advance, with all expenses paid by the Indian government. Struggling to carve out a high profile in Africa, the Indians treated African delegates to lavish spectacles and even richer gifts, before the two sides shook hands on a US$10.6 billion deal for cheap loans and grants.

The Swazi Observer, a mouthpiece for the Swazi royal house, termed the Zee reports "blatant lies" and "totally fabricated". The journal did not, however, deny that Mswati III has 15 wives. Nor did it make any mention of the famous Swazi Reed Dance, featured here on WWW before, in which hundreds of virgins dance before the king, hoping to be chosen to fill any vacant wifely positions.

As a public service, we present a short educational video explaining the Reed Dance, taken by Shari Rogers in 2015. Ed. asks me to make clear that this is not a barbaric cultural practice.



Footnote: Wondering what happened to the video of the Swazi girls doing the reed dance that we posted on 1 July 2012? It's still there! You're [not "your"] welcome.

Barbaric cultural (= religious = Muslim) practices

In the last session of Canada's 41st Parliament, the Conservative government of Steve "Call me Stephen" Harper passed the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, a law which proscribes, inter alia [That's enough Latin. Ed.] things like honour killings, forced marriage, and polygamy. Genital mutilation (aka female -- only -- circumcision) and sex-selective abortion were omitted because the neocon Tories were afraid to go there.

The barbaric cultural practices enumerated are more common in the Great Not-so-white North than you might think, largely because of the massive influx of immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers etc from the Middle East and South Asia, parts of the world where non-Christian religions, particular Islam hold sway.

Since culture and religion are inextricably conjoined, we're really talking about barbaric religious customs that Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs cling to even after they find refuge in the nominally Christian West. The old saw "When in Rome, do as the Romans do," has no meaning for those who bring their religious and cultural baggage with them. That's why laws like the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act are sadly necessary.

But you can't tell that to the bleeding-heart liberals, "progressive thinkers" and the hordes of lawyers and social workers getting rich forcing us to celebrate diversity. The ink was barely dry on the ZTBCPA [Got tired of writing it in full, eh? Ed.] before the chattering classes started denouncing it as Eurocentric, discriminatory, racist, yada yada yada.

The ZTBCPA is Islamophobic too, they tell us. Muslims aren't really barbaric, they tell us. As evidence to the contrary, Walt passes on a horror story from today's Guardian. Here's a photo of Sonia Bibi, a young Pakistani woman who died yesterday after a rejected suitor set her ablaze for refusing his marriage proposal.

Ms Bibi is ethnically Punjabi, a resident of the village of Multan, in the central Punjab district of Pakistan. She is, or was, a Muslim. So is Latif Ahmed, the former lover now accused of murdering her. She was admitted to hospital, where this picture was taken, last month.

Ms Bibi told police that she had fallen out of love with Mr. Ahmed, and preliminary investigations suggested he had set her on fire after she refused to marry him. Medical staff originally thought she would recover, but doctors told AFP yesterday that she had died after her injuries became infected.

What's disturbing about this case is that it's not unusual, at least not in Pakistan where hundreds of women are murdered every year in cases of domestic violence or on the grounds of defending family "honour". The Aurat Foundation, a campaign group that works to improve the lives of women in Pakistan's conservative and patriarchal society, says more than 3000 women have been killed in such attacks since 2008.

Such killings will doubtless continue, until Pakistan gets a Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act of its own. Chances of that happening? Slim and none! (Lifetime pct .989.)

Your wet dreams come true - Heidi Klum as Jessica Rabbit

Ed. here. We at WWW are under no illusions about why certain posts get 1000s of hits, and others, errr, about 14. A lot of our traffic, particularly from Russia, comes from boyz typing with one hand, looking for pix/videos of naked or nearly naked women. Well... yeah... human nature.

We don't like to pander but every now and then Walt sees a photo that warms the cockles of his heart. Sometimes his cockles get so warm he has to rub them with ice! Such a pic spread all over the Web like a rash this weekend, so we're going to share it with any of you who missed it.

Jessica Rabbit is an exquisitely drawn character -- a bawd with a bod -- from the fine Walt Disney film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Yes, it really is a Disney film, although far from being one of their syrupy, G-rated, "family entertainment" productions. It's fine for kids at one level, but really meant to be viewed and appreciated by adults of a certain age (like Walt) who look back with nostalgia to the golden days of full animation and cartoons that were zany and genuinely funny.

Jessica Rabbit, wife of the movie's central character, Roger Rabbit, looks like a gigantic sex toy. "I'm not a bad girl," she tells ace detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins), "I'm just drawn that way." She certainly is an eyeful. What man could watch the movie without dreaming of meeting [just "meeting"? Walt] a girl built like that. But hey, she's only a toon.

Or so it was until this weekend, when 42-year-old model Heidi Klum decided to dress up like Jessica Rabbit for her annual Hallowe'en bash. MailOnline reports (with pix) that doing so took a lot more than slipping into a red satin dress slit up to heaven. Ms Klum had to don rubber eyelids and a fake bum. [If it had been made in London, we could call it a London derriere. You're welcome. Walt.]

It took a team of specialist make-up artists nine hours to painstakingly add layer upon layer of prosthetic face and body enhancements to create Jessica Rabbit's stunning sultry physique. The result is certainly something to behold, and we know 1000s of you will do just that, for weeks, months and years to come. Enjoy.

Metrojet crash in Sinai caused by IS militants?

First the facts. On Saturday morning, Metrojet flight 7K9268 crashed into the Sinai Peninsula. The flight’s planned route was from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, Russia. Click here to see the flight path, altitude and speed changes acquired by Flightradar24. All three of their receivers stopped receiving data at exactly the same time, 0413 GMT.

So what happened? The jetliner -- a leased Airbus A-321 operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia -- apparently disintegrated while at cruising altitude. It either exploded or was blown apart or just... broke up. Within hours, a militant group affiliated to Islamic State in Egypt claimed responsibility for bringing down the jet, but Egypt and Russia disputed the claim, suggesting militants in northern Sinai, where Egypt has been fighting an Islamic insurgency, did not have the weaponry to hit a flight at 31,000 feet. Pictures of the debris show no signs of burn or scorch marks.

The airliner's black boxes have been recovered, but have not yet been analyzed. Yesterday, however, an official of Kogalymavia put the disaster down to "external activity". Alexander Smirnov, the deputy director of the airline, ruled out a technical fault and pilot error. "The only [explanation] for the plane to have been destroyed in mid-air can be specific impact, purely mechanical, physical influence on the aircraft," he said. "There is no such combination of failures of systems which could have led to the plane disintegrating in the air."

A regional expert on Sinai security said on Sunday that the militant group’s statement "said they were responsible for downing the plane, not shooting it down." Zack Gold told the Guardian, "A legitimate ISIS-supporting account in Sinai said, 'Why is everyone talking about shooting it down, why is no one talking about a bomb or suicide bomber on board.'"

He explained that if a bomb had been planted on the plane, it would suggest security systems at Sharm el-Sheikh airport had been infiltrated or compromised, which would raise a whole range of other questions. But, he added, there has been nothing to support the claim so far, such as a pre-mission video of a suicide attacker. "The group does not have a history of major fabrications, but at the same time it's curious that they would make this claim without providing any kind of evidence. They have military capabilities, but to carry out this kind of terrorism [on a plane] they would have to display organization they haven’t shown [before]."

If it turns out that the IS affiliate in Egypt is indeed responsible, what does that portend for the American-led "war on terror" in the Middle East? Will the Russians, now bombing the jihadis in Syria, take the fight to the jihadis in Egypt? And which side will the USA take? Stay tuned.

Less "Willkommenskutur", please, say Germans

This is the third, but probably not last, report on how ordinary Germans are reacting to Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy of welcoming hundreds of thousands of Muslim "refugees" from the Middle East. In a word, they are fed up to the teeth with "Willkommenskultur". But since their leaders don't listen, they are finding their own ways to vent their displeasure.

Deutsche Welle reports today that around 20 attackers ganged up on two refugees who were standing outside a shelter in Wismar. Three more refugees were injured in Magdeburg, about 120 miles south of Wismar, when a group of 30 assailants attacked them using baseball bats.

In Freital, Saxony, a Syrian man was hurt by broken glass when an explosive device detonated in front of his window in a refugee home. Toeing the PC line, Saxony's Interior Minister Markus Ulbrig decried the "cowardly and cold-blooded" attack. Those responsible for the blast must know "that there is no place for them in our society," he said. That turn of phrase would probably be echoed by those responsible for the explosion, if anyone asked them.

But wait, there's more. In Jen, another refugee was attacked at a tram stop. And near Hannover, a 43-year old German man was arrested for allegedly committing an arson attack on a home of an asylum seeker family from Montenegro.

This weekend also saw arson attacks against several buildings designated as future refugee shelters, as Germany's ruling parties struggled to find a joint strategy to manage the unprecedented influx of refugees. The ministry responsible for welcoming the migrants announced last week that there had been 576 crimes against refugee centers so far this year, compared to 198 in all of the last year.

For refugees and asylum-seekers -- real and bogus -- the welcome is wearing thin. And yet they come. Germany is expected to receive at least 800,000 refugees by the end of the year.

Further reading on WWW:
"'Culture of welcome' for refugees turns sour for Krauts" (28/9/15)
"German 'Willkommenskultur' worn thin by ill-fitting 'refugees'" (13/10/15)

US invasion of Syria begins; Walt predicts the outcome

So it begins. The White House -- more accurately, Secretary of State John Kerry -- has announced that a "small contingent" of US special forces will be sent to Syria to "advise and assist" the Syrian rebels fighting against Islamic State militants and/or the régime of Syrian President Basher Assad.

The troops will be sent to Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria, where there's less chance of being blown to bits by Russian missiles or, errr, "friendly fire" from the USAF. (There's no risk of being hit by a Canadian rocket, since the new Canuck PM has promised to withdraw his country's six (6) CF-18s from the mission.)

Although US troops are not "expected" -- note this weasel word carefully -- to be on the front lines with rebel forces, they will have the right to fight back if attacked. They can also join rebel raids if authorized by Washington. Hands up, those who think that such authorization would ever be denied.

So it begins -- the US invasion of Syria. Until now, the Prez and the Pentagon could say with straight faces that the mission against ISIL [or ISIS or IS -- whichever is the approved acronym of the day. Ed.] wasn't an invasion, because, errr, there were no boots on the ground. On 10 September 2014, Mr. O told a credulous nation: "I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil."

Earlier in the same speech, the Prez warned against Islamophobia. "ISIL is not 'Islamic'", he said. Oh, hahahahahaha... What a kidder POTUS is!

Dear citizens (and voters) of the Paranoid States of America, it's not a laughing matter. The US has a pretty sorry record when it comes to invasions, beginning with the failed expedition into Canada into 1812. Former President Thomas Jefferson wrote to a friend that "the acquisition of Canada this year will be a mere matter of marching." Oh, hahahahahahahaha...

Fast forward to the 1960s, and the Bay of Pigs, which didn't really count as a "US invasion" because those guys weren't really US troops, right? In the same decade, really American special forces were sent to Vietnam to "advise and assist" the democratic government fighting against Communist insurgents. Note the similarity between that sentence and the opening sentence of this post. We know how Vietnam turned out, right?

Was any lesson learned from the Vietnam debacle? Errr, apparently not. Since Y2K America has invaded Iraq, and Afghanistan, then Iraq again, and now Syria. A classic definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting a different result. By that definition, the invasion of Syria is insane.

Walt will now explain why it's crazy to expect a different outcome. In reality, the civil war being fought in Syria is not three-cornered, as The Jaw That Walks Like A Man would have you believe. The Syrian rebels are not fighting the ISIS militants so much as they are fighting the Assad government. You can't tell the difference between the rebels and ISIS without a programme! Their aims are the same -- the establishment of an Islamic theocracy in Syria and throughout the Middle East.

It follows, then, that if you -- meaning the USA -- want to take sides in the Muslim civil war, you can choose between (a) the Assad régime and (b) the jihadis -- between (a) bad and (b) worse. There is no (c). Once again, America's rulers, ignorant of the realities of the Middle East and the world of Islam, are making the wrong choice. Walt predicts disaster. (Lifetime pct .975.)