picture, comic, pearls before swine, funny, wordplay, britishness, usa,
Today’s Pearls Before Swine.
Anything American that mentions “fanny” is so much funnier for Brits, believe me.
The sheer level of tongue-twistiness and willingness to butcher the English language in search of an acronym is one of the things that amuses me about US legislators. It caught my eye again in a story about a new piece of legislation that will render ineffective any judgments against US writers that are sued for libel, should the US consider that judgment to go against First Amendment principles.
The legislation in question is called the SPEECH Act, which stands for the “Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act”.
Seriously.
I love how they have quite obviously decided what the legislation is going to be called, and then made some words fit, even if they don’t exactly flow or give any indication as to what the Act is about. A true backronym, if there ever was one.
A similar example is the USA PATRIOT Act, which stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act”. The USA doesn’t even stand for the usual USA! And who could vote against something called the USA PATRIOT Act?! It’s just some absolutely stunning propaganda.
There’s plenty of argument about the actual merits of both Acts, and I can understand why the US viewed the SPEECH Act as necessary, because the British libel system is one of the most defendant-unfriendly systems in the world, but I prefer to just concentrate on the convoluted way in which these names are created. To my mind, it’s pretty funny.
picture, comic, pearls before swine, languages, wordplay, britishness,
I love Pearls Before Swine.
American terminology when describing football never ceases to amuse me. I mentioned it ages ago when reading a different match report, and I still find it funny how certain words are used which just don’t crop up in British football writing.
This caption is from a Sports Illustrated article by Peter King, who I gather is usually an NFL columnist. It’s interesting to see how the World Cup is being perceived by someone who has not really had an exposure to the sport before, as opposed to someone like me who is totally immersed in the football world 365 days a year.
A selected list of shires in England:
Berk-
Buckingham-
Cambridge-
Gloucester-
Hamp-
Hereford-
Hertford-
Huntingdon-
Oxford-
Shrop-
Wilt-
Worcester-
York-
The
New favourite word: “sinlaws”.
As defined by Urban Dictionary: “The parents of your live-in boyfriend/girlfriend.”
I always find it too long to say “the girlfriend’s parents”, and I don’t quite feel comfortable with “the inlaws” just yet, so “sinlaws” is just perfect for my situation.
(This post brought to you in conjunction with quotation marks…)
Predictions for headlines in tomorrow’s Sun:
Clegg on his face
Cam’s the Man
Brown and Out
Any more?
Reading about the oil slick in the US Gulf just reminded me how juvenile my sense of humour is sometimes.
There will never be a time in my life when “Rear Admiral” is not funny.
It’s mojito’clock on a Friday. Cheers!
