Official Website of Mark O'Neill

Apparently a “secret vault of words”, rejected by the Oxford English Dictionary, has been uncovered by a university researcher in London. Apparently the OED get a lot of word submissions all the time and when the OED reject one, it gets stored in a vault. Then if the word pops up again, they go into the vault and see if the word is there.

Apparently newer “words” are digitised but this vault goes back more than 90 years back to when Lord of The Rings creator JRR Tolkien was the editor of the OED. So I guess digitising the vault is going to be a big job. I wouldn’t mind being a part of that to be honest. Would be fascinating work.

But why do the words have to be in a vault? What’s so valuable about them that they have to be locked up?

“Wurfing” means surfing the internet at work, while “polkadodge” describes the strange little dance two passing people do when they try to avoid each other but move in the same direction, and “nonversation” denotes a pointless chat.

Brilliant.

Via Daily Telegraph

I have always loved the Daily Telegraph newspaper. It is one of the first sites I visit every day to read the news and after reading this email which the associate editor of the Daily Telegraph sent out to all the staff, I love the paper even more.  Heffer berates / lectures / teaches them about their grammar failings, which is pretty embarrassing for a journalist to be told stuff like this. It turns out that Heffer does it on a regular basis. It’s a wonder he has time to do his actual job!

I’m glad someone other than me cares about stuff like this. As an editor myself, I sometimes despair at the grammar errors, spelling mistakes and ludicrious new words that seem to pop up on a regular basis. I get accused of being a “grammar Nazi” (God, how I hate that term) but it’s nice to see someone else who thinks the same as me.

Anyway, here’s the email.   A bit long, but definately worth reading.   I might now even buy his book when it comes out.

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I was speaking to my wife today about Doctor Who and the Daleks and that instinctively made me start looking on YouTube for funny Dalek videos. I came across this one by Spike Milligan, a man I revere and whom I once had the honour of meeting.

He was quite simply one of the funniest men ever born with a writing talent I would kill to have myself. But he was also a very controversial figure because of some of his jokes. “Pakistani Daleks” is a classic example.

You would never get a joke like this on TV today with all the political correctness going around.

It has been discovered that Würzburg is going to be one of the locations for the upcoming German / American remake of “The Three Musketeers” movie. Made by Constantin Film (based in Munich), the film will apparently be directed by Bernd Eichinger, who produced movies such as Name Of The Rose and Perfume.

Würzburg will double as 17th century Paris, which I am not sure is a compliment or not! Apparently they were drawn here by the Bishop’s Residence, the Altebrücke (Old Bridge) and the Fortress Marienberg.

And the stars of the movie? Wait for it…..

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As you will know by now, the World Cup is finally over, with Spain the victors.   However, feelings are still rather raw here that Germany didn’t even make it through to the final.   Here, it would be an understatement to say that Germans take their football very seriously, so much so that the German coach, Joachim Löw, has been rewarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (Federal Cross of Merit) and the team, the Silberne Lorbeerblatt (Silver Bay Laurel Leaf) – just for getting to a semi-final of a football competition.

I would understand the awards if Germany won the final and came home with the trophy.   But to get medals for being beaten in a semi-final?   And Löw’s contract negotiations are also apparently going extremely well at the moment.

Which just goes to show that there really are fringe benefits to beating your old enemy, England, 4-1.

The Germans have really come alive during this World Cup tournament and the last one.   Flags are flown everywhere (including from almost every car), spectators sing the national anthem and there are huge street parties whenever Germany won a match.  But there were also tears when Spain abruptly ended Germany’s hopes of winning the tournament.  And Paul the Octopus, who has a knack for predicting football results, had to be given protection from angry football fans.

Thank God it’s all over and we can get back to normal!    I sometimes can’t believe the effect that football has on otherwise calm people.