When Lost & Tangled in Your Own Sentence...

...check your punctuation.

From Shadowplay, by Tad Williams:

He felt he would carry her memory even into the darkest house, [...] but all, the other things that he had been taught were so important had been were revealed to be only beads on a fraying string.

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Typo irony

If you're going to make fun of someone else's typo, read and re-read your own post:



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Connotation is Important

In a recent news story about a schlub who was blackmailing women online, the following:



"implored"?


No. "persuaded"? "convinced"?

Definitely not "implored".

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We Take This Job Very Seriously

Only the Truly Committed Need Apply...


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Tautology

Issue: In a news article: "Shortly before 3 a.m. that morning".

Explanation of terminology: "a.m." (or "am" or "AM" or "A.M.") in relation to time, stands for "ante meridian", or "before noon", or "in the morning". Conversely, "a.m." (or "am" or "AM" or "A.M.") stands for "post-meridian", or "after noon".

Example: "the altercation took place at 9am in the morning" -- "9am in the morning" = "9 in the morning, in the morning".

This must stop. It's quite grating.

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Dear 3 Mobile: I Hate Your Sucky "Customer Service".

I'm picking on 3 because I spent "2 minutes" (*8.5) enduring that godawful theme song about all the things in the world that come in threes (guess what? There's lots. And apparently my telco is claiming for itself all the juicy goodness of triangles, trinities, a couple with a child, tripods, tricycles... you get the idea. Its saccharine sweet presentation is also enough to make me bleed from the eyes after about 2 minutes, 6.5 minutes less than I was on hold), but really it's all of those big companies that have outsourced their "Customer Service".



Why?

Why doesn't the person I'm talking to understand Australian idioms?

Why do I have to speak slowly and clearly even when I'm really REALLY cranky, just so the person "helping" me can follow along?

Why doesn't the person I'm talking to know that in Australia it's not polite to JUST KEEP TALKING when one's Customer, whom one is Serving, is attempting to speak?

Why do I have to translate the odd speech inflections in order to understand the person on the other end of the phone?




I have travelled extensively and have lived and worked my entire life in multicultural contexts. I have no issues with other human beings based on skin colour, country of origin, ethnicity or appearance. I don't give a rat's arse whether the person on the other end of the phone is purple and their call centre is on Neptune. AND YET... I still struggle sometimes. How much worse is it for people who've never travelled?


You know what I do care about? That in my own country, I should not have to be aware of another country's cultural and linguistic nuances in order to GET SOME CUSTOMER SERVICE for an Australian-based product.


That's all I want.

Without caring whether it's been outsourced to India, Pakistan, Malawi, Guatemala, Canada or Antarctica:

bring Australian Customer Service back to Australia

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