Sunday 6 November 2016

A dog's Brexit

What a mess. I blame Cameron for kowtowing to the hate-filled pseudo-politics of Little Englanders. Hate-filled...
<phonological_digression>
In my youth, hateful meant the first of these two definitions (from the Collins Dictionary of English):

I wonder if, in a country full of speakers of English as a second language, this anomalous definition (as opposed to the many -ful words that have a clear sense of filled-with-<noun>, like careful) the word was readily confused with the very similar-sounding hate-filled  [especially if, as is often the case, the /d/ is not fully released]). Not, of course I suppose I still have to make this clear (although I keep making the same point) that I'm saying the newer sense is wrong.
</phonological_digression>
Examples of hate-able-ness
  • Trump, Farrage et al blithely going around, whether intentionally or not, inciting the sort of violence that claimed the life of Jo Cox
  • as Caitlyn Moran called it in Friday's The Times (referring to Twitterstorms  the sadly predictable avalanches of vitriol and bile provoked by Lily Allen and Gary Lineker's good-hearted expressions of compassion) "denouncing people for being kind"
  • threats of death and rape made, criminally, to Gina Miller after her brave and constitutionally impeccable stand 
  • etc, etc
For pity's sake, these are PEOPLE we're talking about. In the words of Sky Masterson. Let's keep the party polite.

Stats update

Back in January 2015 I wrote (on the subject of visits per day to this blog
Footfall (eyefall?) has been markedly higher in the first two weeks of 2015: a smidgen under 50 (49.85, as of midday on the 14th).
That was then. As I write, in the first 4.5(-ish – as I have said before. these stats are based on an Internet-day, based [presumably] on some arbitrary stretch of 24 hours: maybe PST) days of November, daily visits are averaging about 110 per day. So that growth over the last year (to August 2016) was fairly flat at just over 16,000; until the most recent quarter, when it was just short of 20.000. [Update: Just before midnight UTC on  5 November it was well over 120 per day.]

b

Update 2016.11.06.15:50 Added PS
PS Stop Press – Daily Page Views now over 125  and counting.

Update 2016.12.13.15:40 Added PPS

PPS: Another update: Novembers uptick is continuing; nel mezzo del cammin di nostro Adventu, as Good Ol' Mr terza rima himself might have put it, December's well on the way to matching November. But I have promises to keep etc, learning words for Saturday week.


























Update 2016.12.21.16:55Added PPPS

PPPS Last one, honest :-)

In the last fortnight the blog has gone from cliché to cliché. In the last 3 months there have been nearly 19 thousand  page views; and there are several more blogging days left before the month's end. In the previous 12 months there were just over 17½ thousand. An update to the graph is left as an exercise for the reader.

No comments:

Post a Comment