Life & Stuff

Life, the Universe, and the whole damn thing!

The Words Get in the Way

It was interesting, the reports in US web-sites about a Kiwi angler who “snagged” a 700lb tuna. Great fish and all, but the reports show just how different Amglish has become. The reports I am sure were meant to indicate the angler had caught the fish, but in English snagged means to foul-hook a fish, by accident or worse.

The list of the differences between English and Amglish are many, but some can lead to great embarassment – like when I asked a Secretary of a company I was visiting in the US for a rubber. Fortunately help was at hand to explain I wanted an eraser.

I can still remember my reaction when a female US client of mine asked me to hand her, her fanny pack. In English ‘fanny’ is not the backside, and only females have one.

Still I suppose that all these differences only serve to enrich the language, because if English is nothing else it is constantly evolving. But there is one word that Amglish has invented that has no place in anybodies language, and that is ‘gotten’, it is ugly, it is inelegant, and the originator should be shot at dawn ?

Posted by Tony Bishop in fishing humour, Life & Stuff

Milly and Ted’s Big Day Out Fishing – a bit of humour

Over the sixty plus years I have been fishing I have seen many funny things happen, but for some reason, launching a boat at the boat ramp seems to produce the most funny incidents; most as in number and most as in high giggle factor.

A few years ago myself and a number of others watched one of life’s little dramas unfold on a ramp, and it stuck in the back of my mind for a long time. There just had to be a story behind the story of what transpired on the ramp, so here it is…

They’d ‘had words’. Their faces and body language told the story, even to a casual observer.

Milly’s face puckered into that ‘I was weaned on gherkin’ look, that some women practise to perfection. She stared out to sea, her mind a seething riot, as it reviewed events leading to this situation.

At the top of the boat ramp, Ted stomped about the boat, preparing for the trip. His jaw was clamped, his nostrils flared.

Yes, definitely, trouble at mill. Trouble that began brewing two weekends ago.

Ted was preparing his boat and fishing gear, ready for an early start the following morning. Milly, watching his eager work, fired the first shot, “You think more of that boat and fishing gear, than you do me.” Ted, realising that full-blown hostilities could erupt at any moment, raised the truce flag, “Don’t be silly Milly, you know I love fishing, and it should be a good day tomorrow. That’s why I’m excited.”

The truce held for 3 or 4 minutes, so Ted was beginning to think the truce might hold, when Milly fired another shot. “You used to take me fishing, but you never do now.” Ted thought, “That was thirty years ago, before we had kids, and she said she didn’t really like fishing, and she made me put on bait and take fish off hooks, and, and…’

Ted thought that, but instead said, “Would you like to come fishing the weekend after next?” It just popped out, and there was no way of taking it back.

Milly pounced, “Oh, really? I’d love to.”

There it was, set in concrete…..continued here.

Posted by Tony Bishop in fishing humour, Life & Stuff

Plagiarism – it is a really, really small world.

Time was that the world was a really, really big place and New Zealand was a really, really small place in a really big ocean, a really long way from just about anywhere, except Australia which back then really did not count.

But times change, and with the advent of superfast communications and the net, the world has become really small place, in information dissemination terms anyway.

A few days ago I was searching the net for information on a particular aspect of fishing that I had written about in an article about way back in late 2000. This article appeared in a NZ fishing magazine and a couple of months later I put it up on my website. My research was to help me update that original article.

So I was surprised to find an article that was a very thinly disguised version of my original article, even containing many sentences and phrases copied verbatim, written in 2005. Not only written in 2005, but apparantly it won an award from an outdoors writers association in the US.

I am not going to name the article or the association, they are reacting swiftly, responsibly and thoroughly.

This is the third time I have come across my writing under someone elses name.

The real thrust of this piece is to ‘warn’ budding writers, illustrators, and photographers in the outdoors (and other) fields that once your ‘products’ are published on the net, it is freely available to be ripped-off by unscrupulous web-sites and other writers. But you can take some steps to protect your copyright against plagiarism.

Back up your articles etc. onto non-rewritable CD’s or DVD’s. Also back-up a copy of the webpage onto the same CD or DVD. Both these will show the date the files were saved, and these dates are almost impossible to forge and very expensive to do so.

Make it a habit to search for subject matter and key words from a few of your articles at least every week, to make sure there is no rip-off occuring.

Thirdly, have a very clear copyright statement on your site, with clear contact information so people wanting to use the article (or commision an article) can contact you. (I allow non-profit organisations to use my articles, but only after seeking prior permission, and with an appropriate copyright message, and linking to my site.)

As someone who gains most of my income from writing, it is more than just feeling angry about having my work stolen, it is more that someone is out there using my work under there name, and getting the kudos for it. Very naughty indeed.

Posted by Tony Bishop in Life & Stuff