One of the few bits of Latin I can remember is the phrase “The mountain laboured to bring forth a mouse.”
To be fair, though, nothing could possibly outdo the gizmo claiming to correct your grammar. This seems to have been put together by some nitwit who can’t speak a word of English, as almost without exception the advice it gives is the reverse of whatever is correct.
Come to think of it, very few IT people can speak English, so that may be the reason.
Anyhow, this preamble brings me to my friend George Machun, who after working on the Microsoft account has for the last few years been trying to get the folk at San Francisco State to market themselves properly.
He just wrote to me about the latest threat to my sanity from Microsoft which is promoted with the dire line
Get the new Office 2010! 5 improved tools for home, work and school. Did anyone get paid to write that?The best line was “budget planning tools that make vacations a reality”. Note to Microsoft, money makes vacations a reality, not Excel spreadsheets! And the funny part is MS spends BIG $$$ on research that results in this crap. Can you imagine the hours of meetings and conference calls it took to produce what amounts to a benefit-free piece of advertising?
I can, George, indeed I can.
P. S. Note to those interested: I shall be working on my writing seminars today – news later. And I also plan to use Survey Monkey to find out what else you would like to hear about.
So what is the Latin for “The mountain laboured to bring forth a mouse.”? My favourite which is on my gate is 'Cave Canis'. This ensures that only stupid people get bitten.
Hi Drayton – I know that the .docx thing isn't the real point of the rant, but if you want to turn that off, and go back to saving your documents as .doc then here's a 1-minute video showing you how – http://screencast.com/t/ZjE2NDY5NDMt
Isn't that wonderful? They introduce an improvement so retrograde people are prepared to watch a video to switch it off!
Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus … It was a laughable mouse
I think as always, the way to reach our cdehlrin is by acting as a solid role model. Whenever this topic comes up, I think about my preteen stepdaughter and how I never want her to engage in this behavior. I recognize that she will see cdehlrin and adults around her doing this, but she wont see it from me! I also think that families should be discussing how our phones, social media, etc. are changing us and our behaviors. It’s crucial that we bring this stuff into awareness.