Not taking it lying down

I went and saw that George Clooney movie the other day - Up in the Air. It's not a bad film, I enjoyed it and Mr Clooney is always nice to watch. BUT there was a moment that got me riled.

It's about half-way through. George, the corporate, shallowish jet-setter, is in his airport hotel room and receives a text from the chick who is the love interest. Some dirty texting seems imminent when she asks him what he's doing.

And his reply?

His reply?

'I'm just laying in bed.'

Laying? What is this? I think.

Picture me then leaping from my seat, fists clenched by my side, yelling at the screen:
'Laying? What? George! I don't see any eggs in that bed. No bricks, no table or even (ahem) another lady. You are not laying, you are LYING in bed! We can never be married now.'* [sits down]

I don't know, maybe the film's writers were trying to lend an air of veracity by having a character make what is a fairly common mistake. I'll give them (and George) the benefit of the doubt.

And anyway, I suppose I can see how the mistake is made. Lay is the past tense of lie - easy to get them mixed up.


OK, George, even this pedant can't resist that twinkle in your eye. But please, just try to remember:
if you are making yourself horizontal, you are lying down. If you're making something else horizontal (or producing eggs) you are laying them.

*I might not have actually said this aloud. I'm usually very considerate of other theater-goers.

Word of the Week: Quizzical

I was asked this week to read over a short story by a fellow writer. It was a very affecting story of love and loss - all the good bits - in which he had used 'quizzical' not once, but twice. And I didn't hesitate a second before running my pen through both of them. Didn't even explain why - just left a comment in the margin after the second one: 'Aaaaargh! Here it is again!'

Don't worry, we're good enough friends that he didn't take offence at such unhelpful censoring. But he did defend his use of the word. 'What's wrong with it? It perfectly describes the look she (his main character) had.' I have to concede he's right. According to the old ACOD (Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary):

'quizzical adj. 1 expressing or done with mild or amused perplexity. 2 strange; comical.'

The situation in his story definitely demanded a mildly perplexed look from his MC. So I was forced to confront my prejudice against the word. It wasn't because it was inappropriate or misused. It was a little bit because it reminds me of Enid Blyton books,* but mostly it's because it's such an ugly word!

Yes, as far as quizzical is concerned, it's a question of form over function. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Those two 'z's combined with the 'q'. Awful. Outside of a game of Scrabble, I never want to see them in any word in front of me.

But is that reason enough to scribble it out? Surely it's hard enough choosing the best word to use without worrying about whether its physical form is going to be off-putting to sensitive readers like me.

I'm inclined to think with words like 'quizzical', using it once is ok (Oh, if you must) but any more than that is distracting. And I mean once in a whole novel. Ok, maybe twice.



*I love Enid Blyton's books, but her prose isn't quite suited to contemporary Australian short stories!

Word of the Week: Grouse

I wanted to do a little tribute to my favourite piece of childhood Australian slang, the adjective grouse. So I turned to my ACOD, wondering if it rated a mention. And yes - there it was, albeit not til the third entry for the word:

grouse (3) n. (frequently with the intensifier extra) Aust. very good of its kind. [20th c.: origin unknown]

Two things stuck out from this entry. First, the intensifier extra: I have to say I don't remember it being used 'frequently' to intensify an already intense word, but boy, what a compliment. To call something or someone extra grouse - is there any higher praise possible? ('Knock off work early? That, my friend, is an extra grouse notion.')

The second thing that struck me was the little n. right at the start there. It's not a typo - at least not on my part (I might be wrong, but I'm sticking by my definition at the start of grouse as an adjective). But it got me thinking about how one could use grouse as a noun. I thought it could be used in the same way 'star' is used to talk about people who are, well, grouse.

'Thanks for editing my story, mate - you're a grouse.'

But in this example, either you're left waiting for more - a grouse what? - or it sounds too much like 'louse' to be complimentary.

So I may have to beg to differ with the ACOD on this one. Grouse is grousest as an adjective.

(For those wondering what the other two entries were:

grouse (1) n. (pl. same) any of various game birds of the family Tetraonidae, with a plump body and feathered legs.

grouse (2) v. & n. colloq. * v.intr. grumble or complain pettily. * n. a complaint.)

Word of the Week: mordant

I was flicking through the Hamilton Wool and Craft Guild's 1974 spinners' guide, Wool Gathering, hoping for inspiration, when I noticed a chapter titled 'Mordants'.

'Mordants?' I thought. 'I know that word. But as a noun? What the hell are they?' I turned to page 59 to find out, and discovered that as far as spinners are concerned, mordants are chemicals (such as alum, chrome, iron, copper) used to fix dyes in fabrics. I was pretty sure however that I'd seen the word used as an adjective.

So, out came the ACOD (Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary - because it's used so frequently nowadays it has been permanently removed from under my desk lamp and has its own corner of the desk to balance on):

'Mordant * adj. 1 (of sarcasm etc.) caustic, biting. 2 pungent, smarting. 3 corrosive or cleansing. 4 (of a substance) serving to fix colouring matter or gold leaf on another substance. * n. a mordant substance (in senses 3, 4 of adj.).'

I love it when words have both a physical and abstract meaning and you can see the link between them. So someone may have a mordant wit (caustic and biting) or they may just need to set their dyed wool with something mordant (caustic and pungent).

I read on about mordants in the guide book and learnt that they are indeed quite caustic. I found out alum is the best, but the hardest to work with, and chrome is poisonous. Then I came across this little bit of poetry from the Hamilton Wool and Craft Guild:

'Iron darkens or saddens colours.'

What a lovely idea.

Word of the Week: Ruin

As in, 'Are you in?' -- my mother's latest favourite text 'word'.

Honestly, where does she get them?

It wasn't so long ago she and Dad were bamboozled by programming the VCR, and while this is still the case, somehow they've both overtaken me in the uptake of txt lingo. And it's not just them. Some of my most highly educated and literate friends will regularly send me text messages with more numbers in than letters.

'Gr8 2 cu lst nt. Will u a10d 2moros 4rum on Clim8 chnge?'

Wtf? (yes, I know that one).

Is this a language I should learn? Sure, it's concise and efficient, but is it effective? Affecting? Or does it just annoy the hell out of me because I'm a bit uptight about grammar?

I once responded to one of Mum's ubiquitous 'Wru's (I believe it means Where are You?) with a message I thought would highlight the laziness and paucity of information this type of language usually conveys: 'aaht'

She didn't reply.

'So did you understand my message?' I challenged her later.

'Oh, yes. You were at Annabelle's having tea,' she said. 'I didn't ring because I didn't want to interrupt.'

That's me in my box.

Word of the Week: Desert

WOW this week is desert: not the dry sandy place, or the verb meaning to abandon, but the noun meaning (according once more to the ACOD) 'in plural a acts or qualities deserving reward or punishment, or b such reward or punishment.'

As in, 'He got his just deserts.'

Note the spelling, because until recently I was one among many who thought it might perhaps be spelt 'dessert'. This is not the case. Apparently we are all victims of the punning business name industry, responsible for hairdressers named Curl up and Dye, and, yes, about a million sweets cookbooks called Just Desserts.

Desserts is pronounced the same way, and I suppose it makes some kind of intuitive sense because desserts are often used as a reward (though not so often as punishment).

I've said it before and I'll say it again: a pun is a very dangerous thing.

Introducing Word of the Week

I got all keen at the start of the year and bought a beautiful hardback Australian Oxford Dictionary. And rather than just use it to support my desk lamp, I've decided to give it a work out.

The inaugural Word of the Week is shoo-in.

I've seen it spelled 'shoe-in' before, and vaguely thought it might have something to do with shoe horns (which make it easier to get your foot in the shoe, hence the sense of ease signified by the term. This is how my mind works). So when I saw it printed in this morning's paper as 'shoo-in' I decided to do some investigating.

I didn't have to look far. According to my lovely hardback, shoo-in means 'something easy or certain to succeed,' and comes from an earlier use of the term for the winner of a fixed horse race.

As you can see, nothing to do with shoes at all, but I suspect the reason some people spell it as 'shoe' is that shoe is actually a word, while 'shoo' doesn't look like one (though it is in my dictionary: 'an exclamation used to frighten away birds, children, etc.').

Sometimes we just have to accept that the English language can look silly at times.