The Rise Of The Filch

Quite a few commonly used words started off in Science Fiction. "Robot" is a good example.

With all the debste over bankers salaries recently - and the extremely wealthy in general - I wonder if the word "Filch" will catch on....

It's found in a 2003 novel by the author L.E. Modessitt Jr. The novel is called "Archform:Beauty" and is set a few hundred years into the future. Earth has suffered an ecological collapse but has generally recovered. Life for most people is good - but especially so for the filch - the filthy rich.

They still have class politics on this 24th century. To quote one passage about a proposed river diversion:

"Senator Cannon, you've opposed the Southern Diversion ever since you were elected to the Continental Senate. Why?"

"The Southern Diversion is nothing more than filch-food. Filch-food for the southwest. Eastslope needs its water... Every liter that goes south raises the cost for the people of Deseret that I represent. It's that simple...!

Senator Cannon, incidentally, is that slightly unusual character in SF - a flawed politician who is nonetheless one of the good guys....

I'm Chuffed To Bits About This Chinwag

I don't know if Cameron and Obama got on as well as this - but here's an entertaining game between High Lawrie and Ellen Degeneres as they try to guess the meaning of English and American slang.....

Help! I'm A Metaphor Falangist

Well. That'll teach me to leave comments on other people's blogs. I criticise someone for describing a Lib Dem as a "Measurement Fascist" and in return get described as being "frankly pathetic".

Ah well, it's a free country. And on reflection maybe I was being harsh. But I wish people wouldn't diminish just how evil Nazism, Stalinism and Fascism were by using such phrases as "Health Nazi".

Having watched the video of "Ukraine's Got Talent" where the inspired sand drawings depicting Ukraine's experience of WW2 have some of the audience in tears, I'm pretty sure they weren't wondering whether Third Reich social workers banned Ukrainian smokers from adopting war orphans. They were thinking about real Nazis.

And it's not as if there aren't alternatives. There's the word Draconian - as in ' Mr X is being too Draconian over this...' You could even describe someone as a "Health Draco", but this might be confused with the J K Rowling character. You could use General Franco's organisation as a metaphor and describe someone as a "Health Falangist". Likewise, you could think of the Franco's neighbouring dictator Salazar of Portugal and describe someone as a "Health Salazar" (although that might be confused with "Health Czar" or even "Salazar Slytherin" which takes us back to J K Rowling).

In all seriousness, if you want to describe someone as being dictatorial and possibly pompous without implying they are totally debased and devoted to evil, go back a further century and describe them as "Bonapartist". Or calling someone . for example, a "Health And Safety Napoleon" might be very effective without being offensive....

You Learn Something New Every Day.....

"maître-pêtre" - literally 'master-spider' - is the word for webmaster in Jerriais

A complete "vocabulaithe du compiuteu" is here.