February 16, 2008
As befits one with more aural capacity than most, on account of having less follicle matter surrounding his lugholes (see side view above), Guru likes to keep his ear to the ground, as it were, to pick up juicy bits of HR stuff and nonsense.
So when getting his weekly fix of the Personnel Today news podcast, he was a tad alarmed to be rocked out of his slumber by some serious mangling of our great language – a crime against society.
There was some fellow – it turned out to be John Charlton, the editor of Training & Coaching Today rambling on about ‘aye-osh’ in some neo-ecky thoomp northern twang – really a reference to the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.
Then there was somebody’s rum assertion that something or other was ‘heart rendering’ – which is something Yours Truly can understand, having recently seen a pargetter actively engaged in just such an activity up the side of a Norfolk hostelry, and something Lord Lugholes himself Prince Charles is keen on himself what with owning half the Norfolk landscape.
Not to be outdone, however, our northern chum dropped in a mindblowing ‘two-thousand and fohw’. That’s right… ‘fohw’ with the empasis firmly on the ‘w’.
Reeling with aural confusion, Guru staggered across the ‘flohw’ opened the ‘dohw’ and went down the shops ‘fohw’ a paper.
On his return he listened again. And again. And again. That’s ‘fohw’ times.
However, despite the linguistic mangling, Yours Truly thoroughly recommends giving a good listen to this broadcasting gem – and some of the previous episodes – if only to listen to the alluring tones of Louisa Peacock, anchorwoman extraordinaire.
However, he does feel it should be renamed, as 'Podcast' sounds like something that gets left behind after a bodysnatcher has emerged and taken on its human form.
To paraphrase Leonard Nimoy in the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers: “Don’t be trapped by old concepts, JC, you’re evolving into a new lifefowhm..."
