Friday, September 25, 2009

gawd bless yer, ma'am

Couple of interesting things about the review of William Shawcross's biography of the Queen Mother in the Independent today:
  • Firstly, the reviewer makes the common error of writing the phrase "soft-pedal" as "soft-peddle". Unlike "get shut of" this one is in the Eggcorns database, and the comments make the astute point that this sounds plausible because "peddle" means "sell", and "soft sell" is a phrase in reasonably common use. Whereas the musical derivation of "soft-pedal" is a bit less obvious. But it's right and "soft-peddle" is wrong, so deal with it.
  • Secondly, and more entertainingly, the book provokes Johann Hari into this tremendously vitriolic hatchet job on the Queen Mum, everyone's favourite lovable fishbone-inhaling Nazi grandmother. Then again if the very fact of us having a ROYAL FAMILY, for fuck's sake, in the 21st century doesn't provoke you to pull your own face off in rage and frustration then there may be something wrong with you.

2 comments:

Emma said...

I won't hear a word against the Royals. They do a marvellous job.

electrichalibut said...

Um, yes. And those Duchy Original shortbreads are quite nice.