Tym Blogs Too!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Tired as hell

It's a strange sort of day when I typo "mind-boggling" as "mind-blogging".

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Technorati Tags: blogging

Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque, Words words words

posted by Tym at 4:24 PM

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

On being plain-spoken

After spending a day or so trawling through interview transcripts wherein government employees regurgitate corporate jargon as if it were the gospel truth, it was something of a relief to find out (via the World Wide Words newsletter) that in the UK, at least, the Local Government Association recognises the importance of speaking plainly and has singled out certain "non-words" that are to be avoided, such as:

capacity building
engaging users
outcomes
pathfinder
stakeholder
synergy

(Those are just six out of the top 100 "banned" words, by the way.)

The Local Government Association's logic is simple:

Without explaining what a council does in proper English then local people will fail to understand its relevance to them or why they should bother to turn out and vote. Unless information is given to people to explain why their council matters then local democracy will be threatened with extinction.

Besides local democracy, I think fruitful and intelligent thought is also threatened with extinction if people keep talking in Newspeak. You know society's in trouble when even teenagers are parroting phrases about "lifelong learning" back to you.

I am going to wave that list of 100 banned words in the face of the next government client who asks me why I didn't just use the language in their press release. Maybe their new motto oughta be: Jargon Less, Say More!

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Technorati Tags: jargon, Newspeak

posted by Tym at 5:45 PM

Sunday, January 06, 2008

I can't believe I've been saying it wrong

I've always said I have a limited command of Singlish because I don't speak Hokkien. I didn't get the humour in Money No Enough and other Jack Neo classics because of that, and even my swearing is limited to a couple of common phrases I picked up on the school bus.

Now it turns out that I've been getting a bit of my Singlish-of-Malay-origin wrong too. I've been saying "pasar", as in "not my pasar", which I thought meant "it's not my concern" or "it's not part of my job" --- but it turns out the correct word is "pasal". "Pasar" means "market", which I knew but never spotted as being at odds with the phrase, while "pasal" means "business", which is where the phrase comes from.

Dammit.

Interestingly, no one's ever corrected me till a few days ago, and the Dictionary of Singlish and Singapore English lists "pasal" as a variant of "pasar". Even so, I'm going to try and say the right word from now onwards.

Oh, and "Sarawak"? Is pronounced "suh-RAH-wahk", not "SAIR-ruh-wahk". Damn my Americanised pronunciation sometimes.

Edited to add (March 7): I recently learned that I've been getting "hentam" wrong as well. It's not my fault --- my mother and many people I know say "hantam" instead!

Oh wait ... they're all Chinese ...

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Technorati Tags: Singlish, Singapore English, Malay

posted by Tym at 10:59 PM

Saturday, December 22, 2007

What English am I speaking?

I was talking to a friend about another friend, Jamal, and for some reason I started pronouncing the name as "Juh-MAHL" instead of "JAH-mull". To which the friend I was speaking to said, "He didn't grow up in Noo York, you know."

I have no idea where that moment of cultural disconnect came from, but I felt very contrite. I felt even more contrite when I was thinking a little harder about the name and my brain switched channels to "Malcolm-Jamal Warner" --- yes, he of The Cosby Show fame (or lack thereof). I knew watching hours and hours of that show as a kid would someday come back to haunt me.

Time to spank the inner street slangster and get my tongue back to a less affected local pronunciation.

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Technorati Tags: Jamal, pronunciation

Labels: Pop culture, Words words words

posted by Tym at 5:14 PM

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Random run-ins today

At Bugis Junction, I was intercepted by a slip of a girl claiming to be from a modelling agency and would I like to ... "I'm not interested," I said, and waved her off. I have no idea what she wanted. I mean, I was wearing a boring button-down office-y shirt I had resurrected from the back of the wardrobe because I needed to look respectable and in case the weather turned cold, paired with skinny jeans and wedges --- the faux successful "creative" look, as one might generously call it. Definitely not one of my better-dressed days.

Also at Bugis Junction, I'd arranged to meet someone off one of my email lists to buy a secondhand Margaret Atwood book off her. Which may not sound that remarkable, but given how all-over-the-place my schedule has been in the last twenty-four hours, I'm amazed no one else beat me to it. Guess there aren't that many prospective ~~purveyors~~ purchasers of Moral Disorders after all.

In other randomness, it looks like both the projects I was rushing to get finish before Xmas are pushing their deadlines back --- due to circumstances that have nothing to do with me, of course --- so maybe I'll get to enjoy a little pre-Xmas jollity next week. Earlier this week, I was in a house that had two real Xmas trees and real Xmas wreaths scattered throughout all the ground-floor rooms. It smelled incredible.

Finally, for my l33t-sp43k1ng fr13nds: who'd've thunk it that "w00t" would make Webster's word of the year?

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Technorati Tags: Margaret Atwood, Christmas, Xmas, w00t

Labels: Books books books, Freelancin' living, Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:16 PM

8 comments | Trackbacks

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Better than the SAT

Via Mr Miyagi, I've found FreeRice, which pledges to donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations World Food Program for every vocabulary word that you define correctly (don't worry, it's multiple-choice). In 10 minutes, I've clicked through 500 grains of rice and my vocabulary level is hovering around 45. I'm particularly stoked that they had "grok" and "reave".

I'm not sayin' that this is the best way to do something for charity. But if you're going to fritter your time away on the internet anyway, and you like word games, this is as good a place as, say, Scrabulous to spend your time on (you know who I'm talking about).

Plus I got to learn what "nictitate" means.

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Technorati Tags: vocabulary, Free Rice

Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words

posted by Tym at 12:38 PM

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Rhymin' games

I typed this in an email today: "online moniker Ondine".

Now say it five times fast.

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Technorati Tags: tongue-twister

Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque, Words words words

posted by Tym at 2:00 PM

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Random word-related observations of the day

Dear Channel NewsAsia,

I refer to your news report dated 23 October 2007, "Penal code should be updated to avoid gender biasness".

Please note that "bias" is already a noun and there is no such word as "biasness", nor any need for one.

It's not clear from your news report if Member for Parliament Charles Chong used the word "biasness" in his actual remarks, but if he did, you might want to tell him that too.

Love,
Tym

* * *
Speaking of unexpected errors, I was just revising something I wrote two weeks ago and found that I'd written "breakbacking work" (instead of "backbreaking work", obviously). Oops.

Maybe I should thank Ang Lee, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal for making "brokeback" a household term.

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Technorati Tags: English language, brokeback, Channel NewsAsia

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:41 PM

Monday, October 22, 2007

The most unexpected language error I found today

"Hick-ups", instead of, well, you know.

It's a strange error to find, especially since it's in a Singapore publication from 2002 and it's not like Singapore wasn't thoroughly so English-educated then that people didn't know then what hiccups were.

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Technorati Tags: hiccup

posted by Tym at 12:12 PM

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Fighting the good fight

I failed to read blogs for a few days (as I, um, often do) and when I popped over to Little Miss Drinkalot, I found a Grammar 101 question (yippee!) and a misguided answer (boo!). So I exercised my elfin bow of gold and pointed out that an apostrophe-s is used to denote a possessive only if the noun in question is a plural form, not necessarily with proper names that are singular.

On hindsight, it was a very restrained explanation --- much shorter than the detail I went into on this blog last year (Raffles' vs. Raffles's was the proper name in question at the time).

Predictably, there was a detractor (predictably, an anonymous one) but two subsequent commenters, armed with their respective elfin bows of gold, took care of that. I'm just glad I didn't have to whip out New Hart's Rules all over again.

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Technorati Tags: English, English language, grammar

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:38 PM

7 comments | Trackbacks

Sunday, September 02, 2007

Quote of the day

There would be no space for goons if it was spooky.

To think that it all began with me innocently pointing out, "Oh, look --- Kallang Airport ... "

If you can make sense of this phrase, you have way more esoteric sources of knowledge than the average person.

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Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 5:23 PM

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Saturday night spelling bee

Not since I was a pre-teen have I needed to be sure I got the spelling of "hippopotamus" right ... and I almost had to use "hippopotami".

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Technorati Tags: hippopotamus, spelling

Labels: Twitteresque, Words words words

posted by Tym at 12:54 AM

Monday, August 06, 2007

I'm a weak-minded fool and you're all sly, crafty old rats, encore

Previous posts here and here.

So I spent the morning Facebooking instead of rushing all the work I need to finish before I go on vacation. I blame this firmly on all the invitations I've been getting, as well as the alleged promise of finding old primary school classmates (as kk has done). Not that I can remember the name of very many primary school classmates to begin with ...

In other news, I desperately want to say "vacay" instead of "vacation", but I think it would make me sound totally Valley Girl.

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Technorati Tags: Facebook, vacay

Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words

posted by Tym at 9:52 AM

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Changing the world (or not)

It is very strange to see the word "reformed" used in the BBC News report on LiveEarth to refer to bands that have formed again, e.g. "reformed group Genesis, featuring Phil Collins" and "reformed New Zealand group Crowded House". I keep wondering: Did they behave really badly and have to go to a reformatory school? Since this was a LiveEarth event, are they reformed in the sense that they're going to cut their carbon footprint and preach the green message (as opposed to say, the profit-motive message) anymore?

But it seems nobody is being that radical.

Of course, the BBC could've just stuck a hyphen in it to say "re-formed", and it wouldn't have gotten my hopes up ...

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Technorati Tags: reformed, re-formed, hyphen

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 12:27 PM

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

What do you call it

For the first time ever, someone in conversation this week said "ex-husband", by which they meant mine. For a moment I felt like I had been unplugged from what was going on around me, then the feeling passed and the conversation maundered on.

I have not said "ex-husband" much myself. Mostly I use his name, as most of the people I talk to recognise it. Otherwise, the default term is still "husband", out of habit. "Ex" sounds too trivial --- one in a string thereof, no different from how one would refer to an adolescent sweetypoohbear or a boyfriend who lasted all of one month. Not that one's age or the duration of a relationship alone mark the seriousness of a relationship, but I think being married to someone for seven-plus years quite clearly falls into a separate category of intimacy and dependency.

Then there's the "we/I", "our/my" conundrums that trip up one's speech. We used to have a car, but I don't have one now. It's our flat but my clothes that are in the cupboard. "The" becomes remarkably handy, filling in for any possessive pronoun that would otherwise draw too much attention.

What it boils down to, ultimately, is that I never thought "ex-husband" was a word that would be admitted to my personal lexicon --- but there it is.

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Technorati Tags: ex-husband

Labels: Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:15 PM

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Wordiness: An introduction

I like words. I like learning new words. But I don't learn words so well when I learn them out of context, which is why trying to read through the dictionary never did help me very much.

Fortunately, since words are the tools of my trade, learning new ones is very much part of the job. The only problem is my Swiss-cheese memory's inability to retain more than a few of the good ones. Since I rely on the internet to keep track of so much of my life anyway (including my recent albeit late-to-the-party delight with Google Calendar), I figured I might as well use my blog to keep track of cool new words that I come across.

Ideally, there will be a Wordiness entry everyday. On the other hand, this is very much an experiment plus no one pays me to write this blog, so --- we'll see.

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Technorati Tags: word, wordiness

Labels: Life in the internet age, Wordiness, Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:10 AM

Friday, March 09, 2007

Let this not be my destiny

Where would I be without Urban Dictionary? Today's unbeatable word of the day:

technosexual n. A person, male or female, who is so deeply enthralled with technology they discuss it with a level of passion that most people reserve for sex. Not always a geek or a nerd, but generally someone who has the latest and greatest everything.

I don't have the latest and greatest everything, but I often wish I did. I don't discuss technology with a level of passion that most people reserve for sex, but I do write for Popgadget. I cannot deny that I'm somewhat enthralled with technology.

Oh dear.

Edited to add (8:55 pm): Entirely by coincidence, mrbrown blogs about a completely different definition of technosexual that Calvin Klein's trying to exploit.

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Technorati Tags: technosexual, technology, geek, Urban Dictionary

Labels: Geek girl, Life in the internet age, Words words words

posted by Tym at 8:03 PM

Kill me now

I almost just typed "greatful" over MSN. The only thing I can blame it on is the fact that I was looking at the Great Eastern website (for work, not for personal edification or entertainment).

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Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words

posted by Tym at 3:26 PM

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Hamlet Prince of YouTube

In lieu of actual blogging, here's the first YouTube video I've ever clicked on that wasn't recommended by a friend.

To post; to blog:
No more; and in that blogging, to say we counteract
The thousand stupendously stupid comments
The Net has heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.

Yes, I really enjoyed this one.

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Technorati Tags: Hamlet Prince of YouTube, Hamlet, YouTube

Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words

posted by Tym at 1:25 PM

Thursday, February 22, 2007

It was gonna happen eventually

One of the occupational hazards of being an teacher is that one of your extremely competent (and hopefully not too frightful) former students might someday be your boss.

While this hasn't happened (yet), I knew that after I became a freelance writer, it was more likely that someday, somewhere, some student would be in a position to become my client. If I was lucky, maybe it would be a) a student who didn't have it in for me, and/or b) a project that I didn't mind working on.

Fortunately for me, when the opportunity did come round (thanks, suzie!), that's been true on both counts. The worst I've had to fear is that suzie will mock my copywriting because I know that she, like me, has a wicked ear for spotting the soullessly bombastic phrase or the abuse of adjectives like "unique" and "distinctive".

I think I used "unique" only once.

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Technorati Tags: teaching, writing

Labels: Freelancin' living, Once a teacher, Words words words

posted by Tym at 4:49 PM

Sunday, February 18, 2007

A sign of the times, or something

Today's Urban Dictionary Word of the Day: gong xi fa cai (though they spell the last word incorrectly as "chai").

Never thought I'd see the day when a commonplace Mandarin greeting for the Lunar New Year would become an entry in a glossary of contemporary slang.

Happy Year of the Pig, everyone! May you enjoy much bacon and (since this is a Chinese New Year after all) fat piggy banks to carry you through to the next year.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, Urban Dictionary

Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words

posted by Tym at 7:39 PM

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Pas mal, pas mal du tout

I'm feeling mightily accomplished tonight. I just sent my cousin something for her birthday off her Amazon wish list, which may not sound like much to you until I tell you that she failed to mention in her mass email that the entire Amazon site is in French.

Now I took two years of college French and a couple of courses in intermediate French at Alliance Francaise after that, but it's been eight years since then and even though I now work with people from Montreal who chatter away in French half the time, I can't understand anything more complex than "Comment ca va?"

So I'm pretty proud of myself for parsing envies cadeaux ("wish list") within five seconds without having to resort to Babelfish, and guessing sufficiently from the context to punch in all the right credit card information and even opt for an additional EUR2,60 gift tag. I also figured out what addresse de facturation was (though I ran a Babelfish check before clicking on the final Confirmer button, just in case), even though I'm fairly certain facturation was never in any of my textbook vocabulary lists. Yeah, they don't make Amazon-friendly vocabulary lists.

Adventures en francaise aside, I'm also thrilled to have whittled down my stack of unread emails from 20-something to 5. Hurrah!

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Technorati Tags: French language

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 1:15 AM

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Sars does it again

No, not the disease, the much more talented writer.

"Sincerely Your's" has been one of my favourite grammar guides ever and now she's followed it up with "Sincerely Your's II: Pirates of the Carribean".

My favourite entry, because I've been seeing this particular error a lot lately:

adverse/averse
"I'm not averse to the idea." NOT "adverse."

I think "commerical" might be more of a typo problem than a grammar one (I know I have an autocorrect entry for it) and I say "supposably" when I'm trying to channel Joey Tribbiani, but otherwise, I'm with her all the way.

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Technorati Tags: English, English language, grammar

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:17 PM

Thursday, October 19, 2006

I have plus 10 geek cred

I like Urban Dictionary's word of the day. Sometimes it's silly, sometimes it puts the finger on that very term I've been looking for (as it did with the recent "tune wedgie" or last month's "mancation").

And sometimes it's just hits. The. Spot.

Yesterday's word of the day was "geek cred", the meaning of which isn't too difficult to parse. But it was one of the illustrative examples they provided that killed me:

"You have the un-edited original trilogy ripped from the laser discs? That's like, plus 10 geek cred."

I have the un-edited original trilogy (Star Wars, in case you weren't following) ripped from the laser discs, thanks to the kindness of the ex-boyfriend.

I have plus 10 geek cred.

Thank you, everybody.

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Technorati Tags: geek cred, Star Wars

Labels: Geek girl, Pop culture, Words words words

posted by Tym at 7:35 PM

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Incidental research

And the most sexually stilted quotation by a Really Famous Person that I found today:

The function of muscle is to pull and not to push, except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.
--- Leonardo da Vinci
as quoted in The Columbia World of Quotations

Man, Leo really had a way with words.

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Technorati Tags: Leonardo da Vinci

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 7:36 PM

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Note to all copywriters

The word "spend" is a verb, not a noun. You cannot say a discount is valid "with minimum spend of $100". You can say valid with "an order of at least $100" or "a purchase of at least $100".

And guess what? The latter phrases are not only grammatically correct, they fit more or less within the same amount of space you'd have to lay out the grammatically incorrect text.

The OCBC Rewards Programme, I'm looking at you.

See also My Very Own Glob's "Copywriter from hell (or just a really bad school)?".

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Technorati Tags: English, English language, grammar, copywriting

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:45 PM

Sunday, September 10, 2006

The pedant in me

It's the weekend, but the boss and I have traded several emails today about whether to go with Raffles's or Raffles' to mark the singular possessive case. As with other perennial dilemmas such as whether one sits side-by-side or facing one's dining partner, or whether one squeeezes toothpaste from the bottom of the tube or from the middle, there is no right answer (even though some people believe that there is and will argue it to their bitter eaten-shot-and-left end). The important thing --- for credible writers or editors, anyway --- is simply to be consistent.

At any rate, here's the evidence.

In favour of the apostrophe-and-s: New Hart's Rules (2005 edition)(aka the bible of Oxford University Press).

An apostrophe and s are generally used with personal names ending in an s, x or z sound: Charles's, Dickens's, Marx's, Bridget Jones's Diary

But an apostrophe alone may be used in cases where an additional s would cause difficulty in punctuation, particularly after longer names that are not accented on the last or penultimate syllable: Nicholas' or Nicholas's, Lord Williams's School

Jesus's is the usual non-liturgical use; Jesus' is an accepted archaism.

It is traditional to use an apostrophe alone after classical names ending in s or es: Euripides', Herodotus', Mars', Erasmus'

The style should be followed for longer names; with short names the alternative Zeus's is permissible.

In favour of the apostrophe only, without an s: the AP Stylebook (aka the bible of American journalists).

SINGULAR PROPER NAMES ENDING IN S: Use only an apostrophe: Achilles’ heel, Agnes’ book, Ceres’ rites, Descartes’ theories, Dickens’ novels, Euripides’ dramas, Hercules’ labors, Jesus’ life, Jules’ seat, Kansas’ schools, Moses’ law, Socrates’ life, Tennessee Williams’ plays, Xerxes’ armies.

And just for fun, because this was my rule-of-thumb because I became a professional writer/editor, here's Sars's (notice the apostrophe-and-s there) take on it, from "Sincerely Your's" at Tomato Nation:

And when you use an apostrophe to denote a possessive with a name or place that ends in "S," you need to add another "S," unless it's a plural ("the Joneses' house"). "The princess's car." "Cletus's truck." The only names that don't take another "S" at the end: Jesus and Moses. Don't question it. Just learn it.

For the record, the boss is making an executive decision to go with Raffles', while I will continue to rally for the cause of Raffles's on my own time.

Thus endeth the lesson.

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Technorati Tags: English, English language, grammar, editing style, copyediting

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 12:12 AM

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

My humble neologism

When I hailed kk online today, she asked me how I was, as usual. My typed response was, inadvertently, "Goodbusy."

Come to think of it, it's a good word, innit?

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Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:02 PM

Friday, June 23, 2006

Going nowhere fast

Chatting online with Ondine tonight, I admitted rather abashedly that I have no real goals in life at the moment. Then I remembered that I cobbled some together for a meme some time back, so perhaps I should revisit them:

1. Write a novel. Any novel. Even if it's chick lit and Stellou never speaks to me again.

Does starting several short stories and toying with the idea of interviewing my grandparents oral-history-style count? Baby steps, man, baby steps ...

Okay, perhaps I should have an intermediate goal, like complete one of those damn short stories by the end of the year.

2. Learn to speak another language.

I think this one will have to wait till I have more dough, or can trade lessons with someone who wants to learn English. If I could, though, I'd take refresher classes for French or start Japanese.

3. Keep a cat or dog. Iguanas need not apply.

Hey, accomplished! And it wasn't even planned that way.

4. Attempt another musical instrument (maybe the cello?).

See #2 above.

5. Bake a cake or brownies from scratch (i.e. not out of a Betty Crocker box).

This might have to wait till we get a real oven, which really isn't a high priority for us right now. Also, till I become accustomed to spending time in the kitchen again.

6. Live in a place that I can afford to furnish with enough bookshelves for all our books.

Heavens, no. Though we keep buying more books! Again, I sense that money will be an issue for this ... Unless I learn to build my own shelves, which doesn't seem likely given the fact that it's usually a struggle for me to assemble Ikea furniture.

7. Finish this damn meme already.

Well, that's done, but it really doesn't count.

I think I need some better life goals.

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Labels: Books books books, Domestically challenged, Memed, Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 10:57 PM

Thursday, June 15, 2006

"Wacko the ducks"

So here I sit, reading the transcripts of David Marshall's oral history interview from the National Archives of Singapore, and I can't help noticing that he has something of an affection for the phrase, "Wacko the ducks". He seems to use it in the way one would react with great surprise or shock, sorta like "Get outta here!" (if you're American) or "No way!" (if you're a teenager) or "Well, slap me around and call me Suzy!" (if you're just colourful that way).

"Wacko the ducks," he recalls saying on more than one occasion, including when he was offered the position of French ambassador.

I have no idea where this phrase originates, as even Google helpfully informs me that "Your search - "wacko the ducks" - did not match any documents."

Wacko the ducks!

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, Wacko the ducks

posted by Tym at 5:42 PM

Sunday, May 28, 2006

Gah

I know language evolves and changes, and words take on new meanings and implications.

But when did "architect" become a verb??!!??!!?

As in: " ... so that companies can architect and coordinate their supply chains with ... "

!!!

Corporatespeak will be the death of me, I know.

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Technorati Tags: English, English language, pedant

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:57 AM

Friday, May 26, 2006

24 things that took way more than 24 hours

So I've been tag-team-tagged by Chandler and a gecko's tale.

Once you've been tagged, write a post with 24 weird facts/things/habits about yourself then tag 6 other people.

1. If I don't do a meme straight away, I'll sit on it for weeks and weeks on end before finishing it. This one, for instance, took a good five days to get done.

2. I haven't not had a drink everyday since Sunday, 15 May.

3. Many moons ago, I went by the nick LizVader.

4. I frequently think of something, immediately forget it, and then spend ten minutes (or hours, or days) trying to dredge the thought up from the miasma of my brain. Yet another reason my domain is named what it is.

5. Before I went to university, I was painfully shy. Funny how it looked a lot to other people like I was being aloof, when I was just absolutely crippled by the thought that everyone else was too cool to be interested in me.

6. I still think everyone else is too cool to be interested in me.

7. I obssess about how untidy my handwriting is, even though a) I'm hardly twelve years old anymore, and b) I hardly ever handwrite anything anymore.

8. I have to practise my signature because at some point since the last time I renewed my passport, my signature's gotten a lot more indecipherable, to the point where official-type people have asked me to re-sign documents to make sure I really am the person I say I am.

9. My favourite comfort food is buttered toast with sugar sprinkled liberally on top.

10. I really didn't need or want an engagement ring, but Terz insisted.

11. When I was a kid, I quavered in fear some nights, thinking that giant monsters (?) would swoop down from the mountains (what mountains? Singapore has no mountains) and kidnap us away to their giant cave.

12. My nose is so sensitive to dust that cleaning up just one room in our tiny apartment is enough to send me into sneezing fits for the rest of the day.

13. I can't type the word "enlightenment" accurately on first try. The impulse is always to type "englishtenment" instead.

14. I have a cat who enjoys clambering into and sitting inside the washing machine drum, although he looks a little confused when he unintentionally sets the drum turning.

Clearly, he's no hamster.

(Okay, so this point is about how my cat may be weird, rather than about how I'm weird, but I'm running out of steam here.)

15. I remember song tunes rather well, but I'm hopeless at song titles and even worse at song lyrics. It's all about the melody.

16. I go to dance clubs to people-watch, not to dance, because I don't dance. More accurately: I can't dance.

17. I have a horrible poker face.

18. After consuming one unit of alcohol, I turn red faster than anyone I know. People who've never been out with me before often feel the need to point it out, probably because they're afraid I'll pass out on them or something. I've been told it's got something to do with good circulation and/or a particular enzyme that Asians are genetically predisposed to having. All I know is it means I can't have a drink over lunch and then go back to the office because everyone'll know I've been drinking.

19. I don't use makeup, except for a dash of lipstick when I remember to, but, more importantly, I don't know how to use makeup.

20. I typically IM in grammatical and correctly punctuated phrases. And I generally apologise for typos.

21. I have an incredibly poor gauge of distance. If there weren't markers on the ground where I run, I wouldn't have the faintest idea how far I'd run. If you ask me how far away something is, I can give you the dead distance in terms of how long it'd take to get there, but I'd be hard-pressed to say so in kilometres or, worse, miles.

22. I'm multiracial. That's less common than you'd think it was in ostensibly multiracial Singapore.

23. I'm a great believer in vibes. If I have bad vibes about a person/place/job, I probably won't pursue it. It's all about the gut instinct.

24. I don't mind the odd meme, but I feel guilty about tagging others, so a lot of the time, I just let the meme die with me.

Like this.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, meme

Labels: Kitty corner, Memed, Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 1:08 PM

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Revelation of the day

So apparently, I am a Senior Researcher and Script Editor.

It's nice when other people make up nice-sounding titles for the work I do.

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Labels: Freelancin' living, Personal, Twitteresque, Words words words

posted by Tym at 2:36 PM

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Dead end

I just realised that the script I've been working on is nothing more than an excuse for the two characters to take turns playing the Exposition Fairy for this particular story. Pah!

Perhaps even more disturbing is that I have, of late, acquired an unholy prefernce for the font Times New Roman.

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Labels: Geek girl, Words words words

posted by Tym at 7:03 PM

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Work things

[She was] a copy editor, possessed of the rare capacity to sit all day in a small cubicle, like a monk in a cell, and read with an almost penitential rigor.
--- David Leavitt

(Quoted on Testy Copy Editors.)

While I'm not a copy editor, my current line of work does involve some copy editing and it's a métier that's made it to my (very) shortlist. I would be quite happy to have that quote posted over my desk.

Speaking of which, I'm going to be moving desks, er, actually, moving offices soon. New contract, new workplace, new colleagues. I've had good vibes about this job since I met the people involved a few weeks ago. It's nice when you leave a business meeting with both a giddy, top-of-the-world feeling and a strong sense of harmony, as if everything's coming together in its proper place.

Funnily enough, that was on Valentine's Day.

Of course, the current workplace is good too. I will miss the creative vibe, the easy atmosphere, the adrenaline rush of trying to meet multiple overlapping deadlines, and of course, the copious amounts of good, cheap food in Chinatown.

It's been a good place to ease into my new line of work. And the nice thing about my line of work is that completing a job and leaving the colleagues doesn't mean I'm never coming back.

* * *
For the first time since the start of the year, I will not be parked at a table at Wala Wala tonight, soaking up the sounds of The UnXpected.

No, no --- my well-honed Confucian slash Protestant work ethic demands that I stay home and put in the required laptop-time for certain non-day job-related work (notice how accurately, though not necessarily clearly, I punctuated that contorted adjectival phrase?). That's what I get for taking on too many assignments with deadlines that are compressed into the same week.

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Labels: Freelancin' living, Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 4:25 PM

6 comments | Trackbacks

Nightcap

At our friendly neighbourhood 24-hour roti prata joint:

"Which is older, Sanskrit or Arabic? Are they related?"
"Sanskrit, I think --- "
"Don't think they're related --- "
"Sanskrit's older.
"Why do you ask?" Beat. "Because they both have squiggly script??"

The things that pass through our minds over overly sweetened coffee and Milo...

For the record, a little judicious Googling puts Arabic as dating back to the 4th century CE, while Sanskrit dates back to 2500 BCE.

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Technorati Tags: Sanskrit, Arabic

Labels: Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 1:23 AM

Friday, February 17, 2006

Bylines galore

If anyone was wondering where I disappeared to for a week last year: here's 10 ways to enjoy Padang, even more stuff to do in Padang, and some places to chill out in Singapore.

Apropos, addendum: Fear not frog leg soup, and other tips (link via Popagandhi; free subscription required). Helpful reminders, even to those of us who've been travelling free'n'easy for decades now.

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Technorati Tags: travel, Padang, Tiger Airways, Tiger Tales

Labels: Freelancin' living, Words words words

posted by Tym at 8:55 AM

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Remember

Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.
--- Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife

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Technorati Tags: freedom

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 8:46 AM

7 comments | Trackbacks

Monday, February 13, 2006

Must be Monday

It's not everyday that I message the boss with the following:

Sorry, I will be late! My shoe broke, getting a replacement now.

I don't ordinarily pull off the Bohemian look, either, but desperate times call for desperate measures. If you saw a woman wandering barefoot in the basement levels of Plaza Singapura around 3 pm today, that was me. My sandal snapped irrevocably as I was entering the adjacent MRT station, so I had to hightail it over to the nearest shoe shops at the mall. It didn't help that I was supposed to be back at the office for a 3 pm meeting.

I like shoes, I like shoe shopping, but I don't like shopping for shoes under stress. For one thing, it automatically means that they won't have any shoes that I find attractive. They didn't today, in either X:odus or Charles & Keith. On the bright side, both stores were having post-Chinese New Year sales --- you know, the ones that come right after the post-Xmas and Chinese New Year sales --- so I didn't have to pay too much for the least offensive and least uncomfortable pair of shoes that I finally settled for.

I was highly apologetic at my lateness upon finally getting back to the office at 3:30 pm --- but as it turned out, due to other more compelling deadlines and appointments, we didn't have our meeting till 6 pm anyway.

The best word I found in the (online) dictionary today: abecedarian n. 1. One who teaches or studies the alphabet. 2. One who is just learning; a beginner. adj. 1. Having to do with the alphabet. 2. Being arranged alphabetically. 3. Elementary or rudimentary.

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Technorati Tags: shoes

Labels: Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:41 PM

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Sex in the office

It is very difficult to have to write an advertising slogan about doing things in pairs when the job brief eschews all sexual innuendo. I keep thinking of lines like "Grow a pair" or "Tired of doing it by yourself?" --- when really, it's so, so wrong.

On the other hand, it is very amusing to read an email in which a colleague has written to our boss, "[Tym] & I have come out with 4 possible taglines ... " [emphasis mine]. Uh, he's not gay, either.

The best (non-sex-related) word I came across today: ambage n. archaic 1. Ambiguity. Often used in the plural. 2. ambages Winding ways or indirect proceedings.

Oh all right, I guess it could be sex-related if you tried hard enough.

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Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 11:41 PM

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

What you shouldn't write in your professional bio

I had to write a short professional bio for myself today and Ondine was whining about how she couldn't go running because it was raining, so I distracted her by making her help me.

Some help she turned out to be. We were trying to rephrase the idea that I "take challenges in [my] stride":

Ondine: [Tym] is very good at taking curveballs that are thrown at her?
ME: Ha ha
ME: Yes yes v good
Ondine: Just the hand-eye coordination cannot make it.
ME: Yah
ME: strictly metaphorical
ME: in actual ball games, she sucks
Ondine: And occasionally trips over herself and falls down.
ME: Argh
ME: You are evil

Needless to say, none of this made it into the final version of my bio.

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Labels: Life in the internet age, Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 9:23 PM

Monday, January 16, 2006

On writing

I can stare blankly at my laptop screen for half an hour

OR

I can head out to meet a friend for lunch and, in the ten minutes it takes me to walk there, come up with everything I needed to write, punch it into my cellphone so that I don't forget the exact words and transfer it all to an email to my colleague as soon as I'm back from lunch.

Damn this writing process.

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Technorati Tags: writing

Labels: Geek girl, Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 4:47 PM

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Third day

Today it rained, then it stopped raining in time for lunch, then it picked up again, stranding me at the lunch place till we condescended to purchase an umbrella, then the sun came out an hour after lunch, then it really rained again, straight sheets of it, and now it's sunny and raining. Welcome to monsoonal Singapore.

I'm not complaining, by the way; I love the monsoon. I only chastise myself for forgetting an umbrella this morning.

It's nice working at a job where I get only about 30 emails a day --- as opposed to getting 30 emails every 30 minutes, as at one of my previous jobs.

The best word I found in the (online) dictionary today: commove tr.v. 1. To cause to move with force or violence; agitate; disturb. 2. To rouse strong feelings in; excite.

Other words that I actually used in work today: leverage (as a verb), position (as a verb), competencies and fundamentals (as a noun). Kill me now.

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posted by Tym at 6:23 PM

6 comments | Trackbacks

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

First day

To let you know the kind of place this is, observe that I arrived at work just after the stipulated starting time of 9 am, and I was the first one in. In fact, technically I was the second one in, because I didn't have a security pass and so had to wait for someone else to show up and let me in.

The other thing is that this is the kind of place that doesn't specifically proscribe the installation of software on its computers --- which is how I come to be using Thunderbird (instead of the dreaded Outlook) for email, hurrah! Also, immediately after setting me up with an email account, the boss's next question is, "So, do you use MSN?"

At lunch, one of my colleagues pronounced me "gadgety" after admiring my 3G phone. I suppose this comes as a result of him also drooling over my Contax last week and nodding approvingly of my iPod some months ago.

The best word I found in the (online) thesaurus today: boodle n. counterfeit money or bribe.

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Labels: Geek girl, Life in the internet age, Personal, Words words words

posted by Tym at 3:57 PM

Friday, December 09, 2005

Go read

"Art, Truth & Politics", aka Harold Pinter's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

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Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 10:59 AM

Monday, November 21, 2005

After the weekend

It's very strange to wake up after the word "gewgaw" has been dancing around your mind all night.

Oh, it's a real word, I assure you.

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Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 8:25 AM

4 comments | Trackbacks

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Maunderings

From an email I sent to Stellou today:

... there are two public holidays this week (Tue and Thu, one is Hari Raya Puasa or Eid ul-Fitr as the rest of the Muslim world calls it, the other is Deepavali, not sure which is which because the bloody local press is helpful in using shorthand to refer to it as "Deeparaya" *puke*) ...

I have been having lacklustre meals of late (including TWO Burger King meals, ordered and eaten entirely of my own volition, it wasn't like we were on a desert island that had nothing to eat except Burger King), so we'll need to fix that in the coming week.

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Labels: Food for thought, Singapore stories, Words words words

posted by Tym at 1:55 PM

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The world is ending

I just heard a British talking head on the local ESPN channel say, "Who would want to be in the role of a goalkeeper, whereby you're in a position where you have to ... "

Whereby?!
Whereby?!($#(*$&@($@#($#@$#^@
It's where, WHERE, WHERE!!!

You know the war is lost when even the ostensible "native speakers" of English get it wrong.

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Related posts: The uses of A-level English, Grammar geekout, Public service announcement, Hope! for English teachers everywhere, SSLSB and Teen Girl/Grammar Queen!, Okay, look

Technorati Tags: grammar, English

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 7:51 PM

Monday, October 24, 2005

Are you an armchair inclusivist?

This one's for Agagooga, who isn't online at the moment for me to share it with him: Butterflies and Wheels' Fashionable Dictionary --- "your guide to the language of pseudoscience and fashionable nonsense".

I particularly like:

assumption: something to be examined when it is our opponent's and taken for granted when it is our own,
bigot/fanatic: someone who believes something I don't believe, and
paradigm: a thing that shifts, thus proving that scientists make up their findings.

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Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 3:39 PM

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Scrabble babble

It's no secret that I love rainy weather, and nothing's better than a rainy afternoon spent at Book Cafe.

Especially when I finally win a Scrabble game for the first time in my life, and score more than 200 points (211, to be exact).

Huzzah!

Because merely playing Scrabble isn't enough, the four players are now invited to write something using all the words we played in each game in the order in which they were played, viz.:

Game 1: dancer, an, glower, chad, coronet, ant, cages, axis, winter, die, goo, maven, hemp, goon, torn, awake, miller, proved, tearful, quit, zip, tearfully, doe, maxis, jay, sour, qi, fa, goo (yes, it made a second appearance).
Game 2: scabby, boiling, horny, data, thorny, wholes, safe, silks, luau, peons, quiz, option, yen, confess, magnates, gamer, dew wend, divot, jived, latte, plod, ax, ex, turn, roil, re.

Contributions from non-players are welcome.

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Technorati Tags: Singapore, cafe, Scrabble, rainy day

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 9:34 PM

Friday, September 23, 2005

Okay, look:

Empathy and sympathy are not the same thing. The two words are not interchangeable.

Empathy is when a person's experienced something and therefore understands how another person going through the same experience is feeling. E.g. I've failed a test before; you've failed your test; ergo, I can feel empathy for you and imagine how you feel.

Sympathy is when you care for another's misfortunes or situation because it evokes your feelings of compassion, pity, etc. E.g. I've never been through a hurricane, but I feel sympathy for what the victims of Katrina are going through; I cannot possibly empathise with them because I haven't been through what they've been through.

Dictionary.com has a useful analysis of the spectrum of related synonyms here (scroll down to about the middle of the page).

Get it right already.

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Technorati Tags: English, English language, synonyms, sympathy, empathy

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 12:43 PM

6 comments | Trackbacks

Monday, September 19, 2005

SSLSB and Teen Girl/Grammar Queen!

Because everyone needs a superpower (or two).

(For my non-Singaporean readers, be warned that Singlish abounds. But I think it's still possible to get the gist of things.)

... brown: Self-Styled Leader of the Singapore Blogosphere
brown: will be my new title
Me: Is it time for a new MSN nick? :)
brown: yeah
Me: Whee!
Me: Power.
brown: as if i asked for it
brown: I like powerrrrrr
Me: Yah, you are a power-hungry monster.
Me: Just trying to take over tiny little Singapore with your blog power.
brown: ya
brown: sure there's no money in it
brown: but got POWERRRRRR
brown: laser beams shoot out from my eyes
Me: Guess we found you a superpower ;)
brown: Yeah.
brown: I like laser beams
Me: Hee hee.
Me: I always liked Marvel Girl. Telekinetic! Telepath! Tele-everything! That's my ideal superppower.
brown: Telephone!
Me: Eh.
Me: That is the superpower of ALL teenaged girls.
Me: Nothing speshul.
brown: ah
brown: but can call without handset!
Me: Ha. That is called telepathy already lor.
brown: no lah
brown: telepathy is mind to mind
brown: telephony is mind to phone
brown: different
brown: like Skype for brain
Me: Telepathy more powderful.
Me: Can spook people.
Me: Telephony - aiya, people just think I'm calling.
brown: not everyone has a brain
brown: but everyone has a phone
brown: so Telephony more useful
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHA
Me: You are evil.
brown: when I call with Telephony
Me: I should totally log this conversation and put it on my blog. [Ed: Because, you know, we think about blogging ALL the time.]
brown: your caller id says
brown: brown's mind
brown: no number one
Me: Hee hee. What a scary place to be!
brown: ahhh
Me: Sekali people hang up.
brown: haha
brown: then i will get momentary headache
brown: from the hang up
brown: oh dear, another brown silly moment on someone's blog
brown: hahaha
Me: Nah, it's ok.
brown: I dun mind
brown: haha
Me: We shall not embarrass ourselves TOO publicly.
brown: The Return of Teen Girl!
Me: Got reputation to protect, you know. You are self-styled leader whatever.
brown: no need lah
brown: protect what
brown: haha
brown: my name is mud liao
brown: Teen Girl: Telepathic, Telekinetic, and Telephonic!
Me: Mmmmmm ... I like.
Me: Your superpower name is too long, v hard to pronounce when in danger.
Me: "Help me, Teen Girl!" vs "Help me, Self-styled Leader of the Singapore Blogosphere!"
brown: Able to morph into any outfit
brown: SSLSB!
brown: that's me
brown: Blogger Maaaaaan!
Me: Yah, damn acronym.
Me: Truly Singaporean.
brown: ya
brown: Operating from an HDB underground bomb shelter
brown: something like bat cave
brown: but must vacate within 4 hours
Me: Ha ha ha ha ha.
brown: if the gahmen needs to use it
brown: My Blog Mobile no need COE
Me: Terz asks if you are gaming with them, SSLSB. Have you gotten holy permission?
brown: er the Popepess nair say
Me: Popess lah.
Me: Spell wrongly.
brown: orh
Me: Oh, that is my other superpower: Grammar Queen!
brown: Yeah
brown: Teen Girl and Grammar Queen
Me: Two-in-one superheroines.
brown: keeping the world safe from Fashion and Language Faux Pas
Me: Heroine.
Me: Eh, that is a good line! ...

Anyone feel inspired to design our superhero costumes?

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Technorati Tags: superhero, mrbrown, mr brown

Labels: Life in the internet age, Pop culture, Words words words

posted by Tym at 9:14 PM

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

cApS aLeRt

My cellphone is being wonky. Specifically, the # key, which toggles upper/lower case and the T9 dictionary for messaging, is not responding. This means that all SMSes sent henceforth may be improperly punctuated, except for the automatic capitalization of the first letter of each new sentence.

I cannot tell you how much this bothers me at a visceral level. I flinched when I had to send a message to Terz tonight with "Darren" spelled in lower case. Trickier yet will be abbreviations that ought to be in upper case to distinguish them from their lower case counterparts, e.g. "IT" vs. "it". I may actually have to go old-school on this point and punch it in as "I.T.", so that the intervening full-stops prompt the T9 dictionary to capitalize the subsequent ~~alphabet~~letter.

All told, the cellphone's served me well since December 2003, particularly if you consider the fact that I dropped it into the toilet some time ago. I'll try to hold out as long as I can on getting a new one, since the bank account is highly displeased with me after last month's excesses (too many cab rides did it in, methinks).

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Technorati Tags: spelling, cellphone, cellphones, cell phones, mobile phones, sms, texting, T9

Labels: Geek girl, Words words words

posted by Tym at 10:54 PM

____. Take. Have.

I am really, really craving a good crossword puzzle right now. I firmly blame this on Little Miss Drinkalot's Sudoku obsession. If I recall correctly, the back of her Sudoku book described it as "a crossword puzzle without letters" --- which got me thinking about how long it's been since I did a good crossword... I suspect it was during the flights on last year's vacation.

I have no interest in Sudoku, at least, not at the moment. I like words, and meaning, and word play. It's not about hammering an assortment of ~~alphabets~~ letters into a black-and-white checkerboard; it's about marvelling at the connect/disconnect, and teasing your brain to make sense where, really, there oughn't to be any.

And now I want a crossword very badly --- in particular, a big ol' Sunday crossword --- and all the sites that used to be free are either charging money for their good crosswords (the New York Times) or their archive sites are mysteriously not responding (the LA Times). So I had to bring myself to register for access to the Washington Post, whose crosswords I've never done before but which I expect should be on par with the other two publications', and get myself a couple of printouts.

That's the thing about me and crosswords. Terz does the Yahoo! ones online, but I like pencilling (or rather 'penning') them in. Yes, even though I'm not actually very good at crosswords and constantly make mistakes, I still like using ink and making a big old mess of the grid.

I got a Borders book voucher for Teachers' Day a couple of weeks ago. I think I shall spend mine on a crossword puzzle book.

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Technorati Tags: crossword

Labels: Words words words

posted by Tym at 3:21 PM