Snag-Faced English in the Latest Economist
The latest edition of the Economist has the usual selection of small delights and large annoyances - if the “Lexington” columnist’s article on summer vacations had any more padding, it would have to carry a byline from the American Kapok Manufacturers - but there’s an interesting piece on the China-India relationship (fraught with obstacles, but with hopeful signs) and Asian beer consumption. (Chinese people drink 70% more beer than Americans.) The more you know, the more you can bore your dinner party companions!
But I was snag-faced by a few British terms I’d not heard before. ThePakistan government’s reaction to the flood crisis was reviled for its “cack-handedness,” for example. It means clumsy, awkward. In a piece about Russian 4G networks and some customers’ appetites for bandwidth, my new favorite: “One square-eyed user downloaded nearly two terabytes in a month - the equivalent of 2,000 feature-length films.”
Square-eyed? Yes: it means someone who watches too much television. It’ll have to be rectangle-eyed soon.
Work 'em into your conversation this week, if you can. Note: I made up “snag-faced.”
--
PS: the Lexington column concerns the American inability to take a vacation, and how he can’t really take one either because of the demands of work:
For reasons only the flinty-hearted editor of this newspaper can explain, there will be no summer break this year for your columnist. True, Lexington has been allowed to saddle up his ultimate driving machine and motor north to join friends in a cabin in the Adirondacks. But get away from it all? No sir, this is a space that must be filled week in and week out the summer, come what may.
From his blog, August 4:
I MAY do little or no posting in the next two weeks. Tomorrrow I head to a secluded cabin in the Adirondacks for a family holiday. By a miracle of pre-planning, my print column will continue to appear, but my ability to fill this space will depend on access to the internet, which I will probably not have. Sorry.
Sounds like a summer break to me.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Snag-Faced English in the Latest Economist
Whining about not being able to take a vacation -- or how our socialized betters on the Continent "summer" for six weeks while we Yanks slave away -- has become the 2000's equivalent of the old post-vacation slide show. No one in their right mind would choose to experience either one.
Re: Snag-Faced English in the Latest Economist
It's puzzling to Americans to watch Europeans on vacation. It doesn’t look like much fun, actually, trooping along the Cinque-Terre as the Italians do each August, shouting into their cell phones at Mama back home, “fa caldo, Mama!”
Or marching along the meltingly hot streets of New Orleans, as I saw some German tourists do, with a loaf of bread and a grocery bag of sandwich fixings – “lassen uns haben ein Picknick,” the father kept grimly intoning to his drooping, miserable family.
Europeans are always boasting about their many weeks of government-mandated vacation, but who wants five weeks of French-style camping, which entails, as far as I could tell, pulling onto the muddy shoulder of the highway and sitting unsmilingly on the capot de voiture?
The essence of the American summer is spent in the backyard (we have bigger ones than our European friends, much much bigger ones) drinking beer and watching the kids jump around in the sprinkler.
Our European friends, blessed with many, many days off during the year and a more civilized attitude towards wine at lunchtime, never seem quite so busy as when they’re on vacation.
Re: Snag-Faced English in the Latest Economist
I've always marveled at the way the Economist's style guide warns against regionalisms, then the magazine blares something like: "Toff Snaffles Dosh, Fleet Street Chuffed!"
Re: Snag-Faced English in the Latest Economist
Matt: it is not a magazine. As the Economist reminds us, charmingly, in every issue: it is a newspaper. ;) One of the quaint things I love about it, like the way every letter to the editor begins with an abrupt and somehow Pythonesque SIR -.
Jul '10
Re: Snag-Faced English in the Latest Economist
I've cribbed that habit for my emails.
I don't like the new "Lexington". It's like every successive one understands America and Americans less and less.
Jun '10
Re: Snag-Faced English in the Latest Economist
... and has anyone checked the film libraries of the major studios?
Aug '10
Re: Snag-Faced English in the Latest Economist
Sir,
It's always been rectangular. Now it's just stretching from 1.33 to 1.6 to 1.77777777777777778. Perhaps flat-eyed, or box-eyed, or quadrilateral-eyed. How about Q-Eyed for short?