Crikey etches Victorian election promises in stone

Dr Oyvind 28 Nov 14

I hope they used Talc as the stone.

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JG 29 Nov 14

More like Teflon.

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Leigh Oats 29 Nov 14

I apologise if the moderators think this is a bit too far from the topic, but . . .

During reporting on the state general election that’s been held in Victoria today the television channel ABC News 24 has been entertaining its audience with umpteen mentions of “booths” when it’s trying to refer to the buildings that contain the booths.

That’s SOP for a soppy “national broadcaster” that bends over backwards _not_ to reserve the useful noun “booth” for mention of any of the demountable cardboard carrels in which the electors cogitate about which bunch of cr—um—politicians to vote for or whether they should even cast a valid vote.

The Australian Electoral Commission, tick VG, gets it right. It uses the phrase “polling place” for the _building_ (school, gymnasium, town hall or wherever), and the word “booth” for the _carrel_.

Around the world the standard phrase for the building is either “polling place” or “polling station”.

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LW 30 Nov 14

You had me at “Harvard Wang”.

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JG 30 Nov 14

No Leigh. It’s not off topic. But it wins Gold, Gold, Gold in the Pedantry Stakes!

However language is a fluid beast, and common parlance is to “look at it booth to booth”.

It would be like saying “I telephoned for a taxicab but none were available so I had to drive my automobile to my workplace but had to catch the autobus home as I had consumed a surfeit of alcoholic beverages”. That is technically correct for saying I phoned for a cab, there were none so I drove the car to work and caught as bus home as I was a bit tiddly”.

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Leigh Oats 1 Dec 14

Unwarily playing the ho-hum “pedantry” card in post Nº5 of Sunday in reaction to my Nº3 of Saturday JG says in a paragraph that the world assumes is presented as being pedantically correct for the sake of argument:

“[. . .] It would be like saying “I telephoned for a taxicab [. . .]”

But no ambiguity lurks in “phoned” or “cab”, whereas in the context of elections ambiguity or the likelihood of misleading does lurk in “booth”—especially in Australia. JG is confusing “pedantry” with prolixity.

“[. . .] but none were [. . .]”

In a paragraph that JG earnestly pretends to be pedantically correct then a majority of cosmopolitan (that’s lowercase “c”) readers would prefer “none was”, because “none” means “not one”.

“[. . .] available so I had to drive my automobile [. . .]”

But no ambiguity lurks in “car”. JG is still confusing “pedantry” with prolixity.

In the context of voting, many readers must be wondering which word JG has in mind for the thing that the people in the AEC (no, not the Atomic Energy Commission) and most of the rest of the world call a “booth”.

That implied question is a serious one, and it obviously invites an answer from someone who’s up to the task.

“[. . .].”

JG’s post offers plenty of bait for my red pen to go on in the same vein, but I’m too lazy to do so.

If the universally standard meanings of words that seek to differentiate between parts and wholes (“door” and “house”, for instance) count for nothing then I look forward to an edition of the UK Channel 5’s excellent series _Cowboy Builders_ in which Melinda and Dominic jump up and down about someone who claims that his quote for doing the “house” means doing just the front door because “front door” is what his private Ozarks-standard lexicon interprets people to mean when they talk about their whole house.

Over and out.

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JG 1 Dec 14

Leigh, point taken with “none were”. I’m fucking slack when it comes to grammar.

But I’m still taking the “if it’s good enough for Antony it’s good enough for me” defence.

It also appears as though my prolixity is trumped by your rodomontade response. Well done! I dips me lid to you. I declare Leigh the winner.

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LW 1 Dec 14

But JG, your brevity and common sense have won our hearts. You’re the People’s Champion, because, as my dear mother always says, nobody likes a smartarse,

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LW 1 Dec 14

(Apologies for the rogue comma at the end there. Sometimes normal people do things like that, but you still knew what I meant, right?)

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