How to be a Christian

He’s the champion of the poor, the lost, the meek and dispossessed;

He invites all creeds and colours to his parish to be blessed;

He believes in being human, and in peaceable protest;

He loves Jesus, and he calls himself a Christian.

They’re a loving, married couple with a huge and loyal flock;

Spreading news of God through microphones and family-friendly rock;

They already know the getting-into-heaven secret knock;

Praise the Lord! Ch-ching! They call each other Christian.

He attends the sick and needy, if he gets the flights for free;

He tells lies and sells his arse to gain election victory;

He’ll support a wealthy mogul, but turn back a refugee;

He’s not quite a priest, but calls himself a Christian.

He’s ensconced within the Vatican, with wine and jewels and prayer;

He condones the rape of children by the men charged with their care;

He’ll protect the church’s name, but not those families in despair;

He’s a cardinal, and calls himself a Christian.

Now, I’ve read the Holy Bible, but I’m still a bit confused;

About what a “Christian” says and does, and how the word is used;

Which behaviour’s unforgivable, and which can be excused?

By what standards can one call oneself a Christian?

When I look to Christian leaders, their example isn’t plain;

Some are good and meek and giving, some destructive, cruel and vain;

But there is a single common thread, a prevalent refrain:

Someone’s Christian if they call themselves a Christian.

Wrong.

Because once and a while it gets to me.

Far be it for me to criticise how people speak;

But this is, after all, suppose to be quite tongue and cheek.

I cannot curve my appetite for offering advise,

When people make mistakes – another words, don’t dot their eyes.

I know that some can’t help theirselves, but somethink must be done;

Our language is on tender hooks – it’s doomed! Ask any one.

‘Cause when the death nail sounds and we ignore what could of been,

We’ll all be saying ‘PIN number’ and ‘ATM machine’.

We need to reach agreeance on the things what people say,

And weather one way’s better then a wholly nother way.

It’s still a working progress; all we need is some incite.

There’s no statue of limitations on getting it right.

Whatever your criterias or currant paradigm,

I urge you all whole-hardily – it’s really worth your time.

If that don’t work, I think I’ll chuck it in – I minus well;

For all intensive purposes, our lingo’s gone to Hell.

Dropping Twords #4: The Way Nature Intended.

Because 'no pants' isn't for everyone.

I haven't dropped a tword in months, so I thought it was high time I addressed a little niggle of mine. Please, please don't ever tell me that something should be done "the way nature intended". Unless you want me to slap you a little bit.

I love this thing called Nature, with its jasmine scent of Spring;
With its moonlit nights and stalactites and lambies gambolling
With its violent hot eruptions and its caves of smooth blue ice;
With its winds and tides and saccharides, it’s really rather nice.

But there’s a little phrase, by which my ears are most offended;
And although I’ve tried, I can’t abide “the way nature intended”.
Oh, I might be too pedantic, I could take a small step back;
This barely needs my frothing screeds but damn, I’ll have a crack.

Does Nature really have intent? Does it express desire?
Has it had a plan since time began? To what does it aspire?
Has it even been consulted? Was its sage opinion sought?
Do we just suppose what Nature knows, without a second thought?

And where does humankind fit in? Are we a part of nature?
I’m quite sure you’ll find us in the scientific nomenclature.
So just where is the distinction between ‘natural’ and us?
Should organic food and being nude become ubiquitous?

Should we tweak a corn crop’s DNA or kill a beast for food?
And does Nature think that squeezing drink from cows is simply rude?
Are we messing with a grand design by quaffing a Chablis?
Should we only eat what’s at our feet and fallen from a tree?

Should my polar fleece be scrapped because it’s made from bits of plastic?
Should I let my smalls be prone to falls ‘cause Nature hates elastic?
Should the Bedouin cast off their thawbs? The Inuit their parkas?
Should we duly ditch each stifling stitch and run around full starkers?

Should the hope of couples deemed infertile never be restored?
And should broken bones and kidney stones be utterly ignored?
Are those babies born with holes in hearts all part of Nature’s plot?
Should we just stand by and watch them die? Perhaps we’d better not.

Maybe Nature has intention, and it wants us to be smart;
To make cooking fire and copper wire and clothes and books and art;
To create a word like ‘Nature’ and the concept that it fits,
And to use machines or other means to argue it to bits.

Talking loud. Saying nothing.

I would like to dedicate this piece to all those project managers who make the world a more customer-centric place.

Before we kick-start into the initiation stage,
Let’s do a status check so that we’re all on the same page.
Our focus group suggested that our target demographic
Has disconnect, and in effect, they’re driving website traffic.

We aim to add some value to the current paradigm;
To implement best practice and to minimise downtime;
To move the project forward to a workable outcome;
To incentivise with KPIs will be our rule of thumb.

Let’s look at the big picture; take a helicopter view.
We need some clarity around objectives for Q2.
We want to think outside the box – that’s crucial for this phase;
Think B2B for SME and other TLAs.

We’ve dotted ‘i’s and crossed our ‘t’s and jumped through every hoop;
We’ve kept our key stakeholders in a constant feedback loop;
We’ll transition into handover, show-stoppers notwithstanding;
And send out comms on CD-ROMS to gain some understanding.

Dropping Twords #2

About as necessary as antlers on a bar of soap. Literally.
Some words are used so much that they lose their impact, and their meaning fades into ancient history. When they reach that point, People-Who-Couldn't-Care-Less-About-English throw them around like old tissues, with nary a thought for how stupid it makes them look.

To illustrate, see if you can figure out the difference between the following sentences:

1. The woman's car was swept away by the flood.
2. The woman's car was literally swept away by the flood.

I'll tell you the difference. Nothin', that's what. But try telling that to a Channel Ten newsreader, a Today Tonight reporter or another Champion of Unnecessary Filler Words. It's as if adding the word 'literally' gives a sentence more drama; makes it more newsworthy.It's as if the person who wants to say, "there's a hole in my sock" needs to beef it up with, "no, man, really, I'm not kidding - there is really, truly a hole in my sock", when it's quite easy to take his word for it in the first place (incidentally, if you have any issues with my use of the masculine pronoun to denote a person of unspecified gender, please contact me and I'll talk you through it).

Using the same example, if the person in question had a hole the size of a tennis ball in his sock, he could say, "there's a hole in my sock and it's literally as big as a tennis ball". In this case, the addition of 'literally' is justified, because a hole that big is unusual, and a listener might respond with, "Oh buullll it's as big as a tennis ball. You're full of malarkey".

If you find yourself tempted to use 'literally' in a sentence, first try the sentence without it. Please.

Dropping Twords #1

My concern around preposition abuse.

Over the last year or so, I've noticed a special brand of evil creeping into the business vernacular. It's so sinister that it's disguised itself as a single preposition. It is the word "around".

How can this word be evil, you ask? The same could be asked of gunpowder, plutonium and bagpipes - they're not inherently evil, but put them in the wrong hands and they have the potential to bring civilisation as we know it crumbling to a pile of smoking rubble.

But please, allow me to explain.

In my workplace, a large insurance company which represents a fairly typical corporate office environment, I hear sentences like the following every day:
"We have some concerns around the implementation of the program."
"If you could just prepare a summary around what worked well and what we could do differently..."
"The whole presentation is around the future direction for the department".

In my world, around means encircling, encapsulating, even avoiding. What on earth are these people on about? What happened to "about", "of" and "regarding"?

An introduction to Toxic Words

Little stinky linguistic blobs with no nutritional value.

I've decided to begin a new theme, based on those little bits of language I hear at work and through various media that make my nose wrinkle up and my eyes go squinty. You know what I mean - you're sitting in a meeting or watching a politician hold a press conference on the news, and out it pops - a turn of phrase so utterly meaningless and blatantly evasive that it makes "um" a wealth of information by comparison.

I choose to call these linguistic voids, 'Toxic Words'. Because like cleverly administered poison, they seem benign when first introduced, but have a cumulative effect so devastating on the development of rich, useful, elegant language that they endanger its very existence.

Now that you're familiar with the concept, in the interest of brevity I'll adopt a nickname for these Toxic Words in future posts. Hmmm... now what shall I call them for short? Let's see... they vary in length; they have little substance to them; they can be dropped noisily and accidentally by even the most discerning of English users; and they offend the senses.

How about Twords?