Chequer count bee rung
THE SPELLCHECK accessory we have installed in our PCs is the ultimate failsafe device, guaranteeing 100 percent correct spelling. Or is it?
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.
Billions and trillions
ON THE question of billions and trillions, as raised a couple of days ago, reader John MacDonald wants to know what happened to the British billion (which we also used in South Africa).
The billion he learned about at school was a million times a million. Now everyone seems to have accepted the inferior American version, he says, which is a thousand million.
I think it's probably got something to do with the fact that when John was at school a billion was something almost abstract, up there in the stratosphere, that nobody would ever have to actually deal with.
But, with the devaluation of currencies everywhere, millions came into vogue – but the British billion was still too big a bundle to put them in, so the smaller American version was chosen. What used to be a billion became known as a trillion.
I seem to recall a brief exchange in parliament many years ago when somebody in the opposition benches objected that while the world was working with American billions, our government continued to use the archaic British billion.
But that has certainly changed since. And in Zimbabwe they're not just using American billions, they're using American dollars as their currency. How's that for wicked Yankee imperialism?
I'm sure Britain has also yielded to the American billion. When Gordon Brown talks of a billion pounds here and so many billion there, even he can't be talking millions of millions. There'd be a lynch mob out.
Statistics
STATISTICIANS have a way of pulling together all kinds of information to yield results of a significance that might otherwise escape us. The years 1981 and 2005, for instance, have great interest and symmetrey.
Interesting year 1981:
* Prince Charles got married.
* Liverpool were crowned soccer champions of Europe.
* Australia lost the Ashes.
* The Pope died.
Interesting year 2005:
* Prince Charles got married.
* Liverpool were crowned soccer champions of Europe.
* Australia lost the Ashes.
* The Pope died.
Statistical lesson to be learned: The next time Charles gets married, it's time for a spread bet on Liverpool, the Ashes and the papacy.
SOME batty wordplay:
· Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
· A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
· Dijon vu – the same mustard as before.
· Practise safe eating – always use condiments.
· Shotgun wedding – A case of wife or death.
· A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
· A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
· Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
Traffic lines
IAN GIBSON, poet laureate of Hillcrest, is so impressed by the performance of Rob Byrne, who reports SABC radio about traffic conditions, that he has strung together a few lines. Byrne, he says, seems to know more about what is happening on our roads than the traffic authorities themselves.
Our traffic reporter called Byrne,
Is someone from whom we all learn;
He's efficient and clear
About roads far and near;
As Minister of Transport he'd be a star turn.
Tailpiece
A WOMAN in an art gallery is puzzled by two seemingly identical still life paintings showing a table laid for lunch with a glass of wine, a basket of breadrolls and a plate of sliced ham. One is priced at R750 the other at R1 000.
"Why the difference?" she asks the gallery owner.
"In the expensive one you get more ham."
Last word
England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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