These darn things fascinate me:

These darn things fascinate me:



Obviously it's useful for advertisers to make their slogans etc as punchy as possible, for example doing away with awkward auxiliary verbs ("Grow your knowledge", suggests Oxford University Press) and curtailing adverbs ("Shop Smart").

Now, if you're a hardline grammarian all this may make your skin crawl. But I can't help feeling that, say, Apple's "Think Different" actually conveys a different shade of meaning to "think differently" - not just "think in a different way" but something more like "make difference your goal". In which case, "different" would be an adjective, not an uninflected adverb.

But what part of speech is the "fresh" in "eat fresh"? It's a brilliant slogan, two equally stressed syllables with similar vowels, which instantly convey what Subway is offering, ie, salad. Surely it can't be a Manx version of "eat freshly" - that doesn't make any sense. Is it a sort of abbreviation of "eat fresh food" or even a poetic "eat freshness"? Or perhaps an unpunctuated "Eat. Fresh." This is language that works; it's not wrong. But how does it work?

(no subject)

I've been confining links and remarks about bullying to ETAs in previous postings, but I figured it was time for a roundup of the latest stuff. It is heartening to see one bullying target after another getting justice. I'd love to say "It's your turn now, fuckers, we're coming for you", but in fact the folks being held responsible are - correctly - the schools and workplaces which allow the tremendous damage caused by bullying to continue.

For example: Bully victim wins case against Sydney college. It's enraging that the school's anti-bullying policies turned out not to be worth the paper they were written on. They let the abuse of a suicidal twelve year old continue into mental illness. But she survived and, in the end, she kicked their ass for half a mill. We all love to bemoan our litigious culture, but the fact is, a whallop in the wallet can sometimes overcome inertia that a child's suffering can't. Nice one, ma'am!

Also enraging, and heartbreaking: so much social aggression is a form of woman-on-woman violence. IMHO it is a profoundly anti-woman, anti-feminist act. (Women sneaking around, ganging up, and sabotaging each other? Men must laugh their heads off.) As Kate Middleton knows, girls make the best bullies: a UK journalist compares her own experience of abuse to that of the royal fiancee. "Boys do still tend to lose their tempers, fight, and then forget their differences. Girls more often operate sly longer-term campaigns, often using social networks sites. I've seen that pattern with my own children (two boys, three girls) and the inter-girl fights are far more poisonous." (How can online fangirls put their differences behind them when every blunder and squabble is gleefully reported and lovingly catalogued?)

There are some other links and things floating around - I'll ETA them here.

ETA: This 2008 Australian briefing paper gives a good summary of the definition and results of bullying in schools (much of which applies to bullying at work, in fandom, etc). It is "a distinct form of aggressive behaviour that typically involves a power imbalance and deliberate acts that cause physical, psychological and emotional harm. It can involve physically threatening behaviour such as punching; verbal and relational forms of aggression such as name-calling and social exclusion; and... online social cruelty or electronic bullying. Evidence of the negative consequences of bullying show that it can be a physically harmful, psychologically damaging and socially isolating experience. Longitudinal studies confirm school bullying as a significant causal factor in lowered health and wellbeing. Outcomes include physical and somatic symptoms, anxiety, social dysfunction and depression. Peer victimisation has also been linked with poor outcomes, including school failure and the uptake of unhealthy and socially damaging behaviours such as alcohol and substance use." (all emphases mine)

One important difference between bullying at school and bullying online is this: that report notes that a very common form of school bullying is "appearance-related teasing" which is "intended to humiliate or harass". I've seldom observed this online, I think for two reasons: one, we generally can't see each other; two, it'd be tricky to get away with it in progressive circles. (An exception is the unflattering photograph which has found its way online.)

"Both boys and girls report being victims, especially when the bullying includes verbal insults and harassment, and there is some indication that the effect of bullying on mental health status is more enduring for girls. More often than not, boys tend to bully in direct and physical ways, while girls tend to bully in emotional or indirect ways." Interestingly, though, cyberspace is starting to "blur these gender lines".

ETA: Flood hero's brother bashed and bullied. I am uncharacteristically speechless.

Cyber bullying alert: "cyber bullying victims consider suicide twice as often as victims of physical bullying... it's more harmful because it's nastier, more malicious, it follows you wherever you go and the perpetrators often tend to remain anonymous."

There are brief, clear definitions of what is and isn't bullying at the Australian National Centre Against Bullying site.