This mangled quote is rather pleasing though

Newspapers, quotes, misheard quotes - always entertaining.

Susan Greenfield described the mercurial nature of social media (one minute woohooing over a cute kitten pic, the next getting in a rage over some injustice) with the phrase 'yuck and wow' however it was mistranscribed as 'yakawow' spawning its own meme.

My favourite recent example of 'getting the quote wrong' might be this one, which I think I took from the Daily Mail or another tabloid newspaper. I can't remember what the story was but, knowing what the quote should be, I had quite a good giggle at this. I wonder how it happened - did the person giving the quote not know what the phrase is supposed to be, or did the person listening just summarise as best they could while not knowing the original either?

No. No no no no.

It's meant to be...

"It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in."

I'm almost embarrassed by how much this made me giggle: Bus stopping 'ping'

A couple of years ago while on a bus I noticed that the bus's 'Stopping' indicator sign, which lights up and pings whenever someone presses the 'let me off' button, had managed to lose its first four letters. This meant that the indicator just said '.......ping' while actually making a pinging sound. I have to admit that I was overcome with childish giggling every time it was pressed and had to escort myself off the bus, before I finally managed a journey without laughing for just long enough to record a brief video. Here it is, just under three seconds long.



I wonder if this is a case of determinative nominism ;)

Childish fun with our library book stock

Someone's had the rather good idea to see what mild entertainment can be had from their bookshelf.

"Essentially, the idea is to arrange two or more books so that the titles, when read in the order they appear, make sense (or at least coherent nonsense) as a collective. As a form of amusement it can accomodate a variety of approaches: some might think of it as a form of poetry, others primarily as a form of humour. If you have some books, a digital camera, a blog, and the inclination to put them all together, you really should have a go."
http://outerhoard.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/bookmash/

We have some strange books in the Diabetes UK library and archive, and I've not even started on our 'Book Exchange' (staff bring in old books / videos / DVDs, swap for new ones and donate 50p) and I wondered if any of them might lend themselves to some bookmashing.


Hummingbirds of North America using research in primary care


Homoeopathic first aid - know your chances


Henry Wellcome eats shoots, and leaves Google inventing the 20th century