Is it a verb? Is it a noun? Well, it's not Superman!

I had a little wander down to our Conference room earlier today, as the Communications Team was holding an 'open house' session to find out what we thought about the restructure, and how the organisation had changed since they last took its pulse.  (If any of you work here, you'll know the answer to that one:  It's worse than that, he's dead, Jim, dead, Jim, dead, Jim; it's worse than that, he's dead, Jim, dead, Jim, dead!)

Sitting around the conference table, puzzled frowns on their faces, pens and post-its in hand, were three programme managers.  Programme Manager (PM) pay grades go from £28,695 - £35,256 a year).  I am a lowly Assistant Programme Manager (APM) and unlikely to ever rise above that grade.  In some organisations the cream rises to the top.  In others, shit floats.  I'll leave you to make up your minds when you read the latest exchange:

PM1: 'What's the difference between effect and affect?'
PM2: 'I don't know.'
APM (me, ignored): 'It can vary, both can be verbs and both can be nouns.  What is your context?'
PM1: 'Does anyone know the difference?'
PM2: 'I'm not sure.'
APM (me, louder now): 'It can vary.  What are you trying to say?'
PM3 (waking up at the sound of unfamiliar words): 'Verbs and nouns?  I've never known the difference between those two.'
PM2: One is a doing word and the other isn't, but I'm not sure which is which.  I know the difference between a noun and a proper noun though, does that help?'

I'll tell you what would help: a cold compress for my head, which I banged, slowly and methodically, on the conference table.

These are English nationals, born and (ha!) educated here in the UK.  I guess they were smoking behind the bike sheds during English lessons.  They certainly weren't paying attention.

Competition information

It's been a while since I blogged, but I wanted to tell you about a competition I've just entered: to win a Kindle Fire 

The blog is true to its name, Given to Distracting Others, because although I only went there to enter the competition, I stayed for a good half hour reading all the other posts about competitions and giveaways.  It's definitely one to bookmark if you want a one-stop shop to find out about competitions!

I can see I shall be visiting it regularly!

Spell cheque

It's not that there haven't been examples of PPSp (Piss-Poor Spelling) since the bear/bare and past/passed debates, it's just that I have been in too much despair to even record them, but two came upon me in such quick succession recently that I have to share them because it's selfish not to.

Coming up to Burns' Night, I mentioned that I was going to be making cock-a-leekie soup for friends and had had a trial run, which turned out to be delicious.  New colleague asked if I would let her have the recipe so I duly emailed it over.  I got an email by return: 'Sounds yum!  I will defiantly give it a go.'

Am I the only one seeing a cartoon of an angry woman in a chef's hat, standing in the middle of a kitchen, hands on hips, fuming, 'I will give it a go, I don't care what you say ...' ?

Only an hour later, I had calendar invitation from a colleague changing the time of a scheduled meeting, stating, 'I hope you don't mind that I've reduced the length of this meeting.  I'm trying to illuminate time-wasting.'

Hm, apart from the thought that she considers our meetings to be a waste of time (frankly, so do I!) the image of said colleague fumbling around in the dark with a torch, shining a spotlight on the words 'time-wasting' did make me chuckle.

I guess they both ran spell cheque but it didn't no what they were trying to say.