One senior Conservative MP describes Mrs May’s method of government as “valiant pugilism”. Rapid decision-taking and parliamentary dealmaking are things to which she is particularly ill-suited.
— The Economist, in ‘Missing: the British government’
“It’s a fantastic skill, her ability to do nothing,” says one of her former cabinet ministers, almost admiringly.
In his earlier incarnations in politics, Mr Gove always played Jeeves to an Etonian Wooster. Now the Woosters have imploded and Mr Gove is his own man.
— The Economist, in ‘Michael Gove, moderate maverick’
Hagfish produce slime the way humans produce opinions—readily, swiftly, defensively, and prodigiously.
— The Atlantic, in ‘No One Is Prepared for Hagfish Slime’
TransferWise, for example, charges six times less for international cash transfers than Santander, a high-street bank.
—The Economist in ‘The great foreign exchange rip-off is coming to an end‘
I’ve never understood using multiples for discounts. What does charging ‘six times less’ even mean?
I understand what charging ‘a sixth’ means – ⅙ times the original.
I understand what charging ‘six times’ (more) means – 6 times the original.
I do not understand what ‘six times less’ means. It’s a ridiculously ambiguous term, and I’m sad that even the Economist used it.
P.S.: I love Transferwise. I cannot comprehend how people transferred money internationally before it came around – it’s fast, it’s cheap, and it’s transparent. Everything that the banking system is not. I really love it.
We’ve done this repeatedly over our own history. This current wave of immigration is not the first time that we have had a big wave of immigration, that causes turbulence, and then we come out the other side, and we’re all better off.
It happens that my ancestors came to this country in 1640, so we’ve been here forever.
And we were doing just fine, and then the Dutch arrived. Now, don’t get me started on the Dutch. It was really hard for us to get along with the Dutch, but then we eventually got along with the Dutch, and then we forgot they were Dutch.
And then they were just us.
And then the Germans arrived, and they were really difficult, and we had a lot of trouble assimilating the Germans. And then, after a while, we got adjusted to them. And we, sort of, didn’t even notice that the Germans were Germans.
And then we invented, at that point, a term called Anglo-Saxon to refer to the Dutch, and the Germans, and us.
And then we had a lot of trouble when the Irish arrived…
“I’ve been working on average 22 hours days…and I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or I’m actually talking to you. I’m also on six mood stabilisers and it’s waves of rage and suicidal ideation and seeing Michael Jackson bunnies coming out of my eyes…I should take a little nap.”
The Pidgin phrase Naija no dey carry last, roughly meaning “Nigerians strive to finish first”, has become an unofficial national motto (as well as the title of a book satirising the country).
The fertile world of Nigerian patois, August 8, 2017 at 10:56AM
The celebrated novelist Chinua Achebe’s defence of writing in English, rather than his native Igbo, would ring true today whether spoken by politician or pop star. “We intend to do unheard-of things with it.”
Use my marker 