Thursday, December 9, 2010

Fortnightly 50 Cent Twitter update

There were only 10 tweets in the past fortnight from the rap superstar.

Punctuation, grammar and spelling have increased dramatically.

Only 6 out of 10 tweets were completely wrong.

Two were debatable, with unnecessary and extended ellipsis being the only real fault.

"LOL" was used only once; 10%. This is a drop 8.1%. However, when one accounts for the last report in which the phrase was used 27 times in just 18 days (a rate of 1.5 times a day), the most recent study shows a impressive, dramatic decrease in use (0.1 times a day).

Furthermore, there were two almost flawless sentences among the tweets. Making 20% of 50 Cent's tweets in the last fortnight correct. This means the figure has risen a staggering 17%.

The two correct sentences are provided below.

“Check this sh*t out! The Giants know what's up”
Use of expletive, whatever. Full stop at the end, still going to call this almost perfect.

“Check out this new video!When we went to Nigeria last year.it's on www.lloydbanks.com”
Just gotta use spaces in between sentences and he got him a humdinger of a tweet. Grammar is sacrificed for decent punctuation.

Overall grammar and spelling were quite impressive.

Out of the 10 tweets only one can be said to be shockingly bad.
“that banks I dont deserve you track feat Jeremih is my sh*t !”
Which just fails on various levels.


Overall, there has been a huge improvement from the rapper. Who has obviously read the report from two weeks ago and reconsidered his approach to tweeting.

Friday, December 3, 2010

QUIZ: Where should you emigrate to???

Here is a quiz which has been recently commissioned by the USI, who have seen the errors of the blind assertions of their “Education Not Emigration” campaign. Having promptly reversed this phrase, the nationwide student body is now encouraging students to spend at least half of their study time considering where to emigrate to.
However, this blog has devised a short quiz which will accurately tell you where to emigrate in a matter of minutes. Enjoy.

Please note. The USI have brought out a press release to accompany their decision on the emigration question. Gary Redmond, USI president, has passed on Govt. information revealing that each student planning to stay in Ireland after attaining their degree will be subject to to an intense state psychological assessment.

The quiz:


Where should I emigrate to!?!?! 2010

Take a pencil/pen and some paper and jot down your answer to these 10 questions.

Questions:

1:
Should you emigrate?

a) Yes
b) Yes

2:
In which of these countries is English listed as an official language?

a) England
b) India
c) USA
d) Australia


3:

Which of these European cities has a city named after it on every continent?

a) Dublin
b) Rome
c) Verona
d) Gowel, Co. Leitrim
e) Munich
f) Sparta
g) С нетерпением жду ответа

4:

Who is the best X-Facor Judge?

a) Louis
b) Cheryl
c) Simon
d) The other one.
e) It actually has nothing to do with this quiz.

5:

What kind of music do you like?

a) whateverz on da radio
b) Metalcore
c) Pop-punk
d) Elvis
e) Lil' Jon

6:

What time did you get to bed at last night?

a) Before midnight
b) 2am
c) 3am
d) Championship manager...
e) Got the ride, not sure.


7:

Could you bleed a radiator if called upon?

a) Yeah
b) No, probably not
c) Definitely not


8:

“Travel is...

a) ...a way to explore the world”
b) ...a great chance to write interesting Facebook statuses”
c) ...a necessity”
d) ...a way to find myself”
e) ...what did you say about my family?”

9:
Lol?

a) LOL
b) lolz
c) lulz
d) haha!
e) hehehehe


10:

Are you going to accept your result in this quiz?

a) Yes
b) Yes






--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Key:

Question 1:

a = 1 point
b = 1 point

2:
correct answer = b) India. 7 points. (In all other countries it is the de facto language, but not official).
Incorrect answers get no points.

3:

a) 0 pts
b) 7 pts
c) 0 pts
d) 1 pt
e) 0 pts
f) 0 pts
g) 1 pt - ya mechtayu o tom dne kogda mee stanem odnoy semyoy!


4:

a) 0 pts.
b) 3 pts – wrong but Cheryl still deserves some points.
c) 0
d) 0
e) 6 pts. Correct.


5:

a) 0 pts
b) 1 pt
c) 4 pts
d) 5 pts
e) 6 pts

6:

a) 0 pts
b) 2 pts
c) 3 pts
d) 5 pts
e) 7 pts.


7:

a) 5 pts
b) 1 pt
c) 0 pts

8:

a) 1 pt
b) 4 pts
c) 5 pts
d) 0 pts
e) 1 pt


9:

a) 5 pts
b) 0
c) 0
d) 0
e) - 1 point


10

Both are worth 5 pts.


RESULTS

Tot up your score to find out where you should emigrate to!

0-5 points
You should not emigrate. It is actually impossible to get this result in the quiz.

6 - 10
Nigeria. Believe it or not this hugely populated, fast paced and hugely complicated West-African federal nation is the one for you. Live like a king working for one of the many major oil firms operating on the south coast... until you are kidnapped by one of the many prominent gangs in said region. Keep the faith, sometimes your employer will pay your ransom. If not, watch out for this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome .

11 - 20
South Africa. Re-watch Blood Diamond another 7 times and you're set. Focus on Leonardo Di Caprio's reaction to Dijmon Hounsou's back talk.
All white South Africans are diamond smugglers or mercenaries, usually both. Stop off in Amsterdam and Antwerp en-route to make connections in the business and to practice Dutch with a view of mastering Afrikaans (essential in the diamond trade). Make sure to constantly wrap your driving licence with a 100 Rand bill to escape a myriad of inevitable drunk driving offences. Also, don't keep your pistol on the dashboard, you're just begging to bribe the police officer more if you do...

21 - 30
Thailand. Soapy erotic massages. So suck it up and do a TEFL course. For a comedic take on a very real problem, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQNzLBTCEDI .

31 - 36
Australia. You are young, fun loving, ambitious and moving across the globe to prove it. Shark attacks are uncommon, and they really do have Christmas dinner on the beach. Urban areas along the east coast await your vibrancy and madness. The rest of the country awaits a once off weekend tour by you to glance at indigenous people. Live this lifestyle for 6 months and then see http://www.getajobinthemines.com/kalgoorlie-mining-jobs.html to recover some money. If worst comes to worst, do the opposite of Russell Crowe and take a 9 hour trip east to Middle Earth, and do the same all over again.

37 - 45
USA. Keep your head down for the next month (no drug arrests, no public order offences, limit sexual predatory acts) and get on a flight to California. Take the never ending J-1 option. Carry a fake signed picture of JFK and wait for the jobs to come to you. Inglewood and East LA provide the cheapest and best value accommodation, and are basically full of sound Irish students.

45 - 52
Luxembourg. You should move to Europe's undisputed financial utopian nation. Bring your fluency in the English language and small knowledge of French/German, sit back, and prosper. Luxembourg has huge issues regarding education reform at the moment also, so as an Irish student you should fit right in.
The fact that it has recently been added to the G20's 'grey list' of countries with “questionable banking arrangements” makes Luxembourg all the more appealing.

53 +
Singapore. You are destined to to live in this far-east haven. Climb the meritocratic social ladder of this city-state. English is the main language and the economy is solid as a rock, the people are typically overly polite and unimposing - they await the brashness of your western upbringing.
For fitting in with the layman on the street when you venture into cheap markets for 100% polyester t-shirts, you will need to sort out your knowledge of pidgin English, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish .



Saturday, November 20, 2010

A study of punctuation in 50 Cent's tweets.

The First Ever 50 Cent Twitter Statistics Analysis Report.

A recent PoorlyWrritenNews report on lexical trends in hip-hop star 50 cent, voiced through the medium of his twitter page, has revealed some startling findings.

THE FINDINGS:

The report studied an 18 day period, all the tweets of the month of November so far, from the first tweet of the month (2 Nov) to the time of writing (20 Nov).

The total amount of tweets amounted by 50 cent during this time was 149.

Out of these 149 tweets, just 5 demonstrated correct use of punctuation (around 3%).


When adjusted to exclude tweets with expletives and spelling mistakes the figure dropped to less than 2%.

The writer used the phrase “Lol” at the end of a sentence a total of 27 times (18.1%).

Including use of the phrase “Hahahahaha”, which was used an additional 2 times to demonstrate a similar meaning, the figure rises to 19.4%.



ADDITIONAL INFO:

Some of the correctly punctuated tweets are incorrect for reasons other than punctuation:


Out of the correctly punctuated tweets, the two that were completely sound are included directly below (only one is more than 10 words long however) :

“this is going to be a great year for me.”
Perfect, flawless; a sequence of words that make complete sense in terms of grammar and punctuation. Capital T wouldn't go astray, blah blah blah.

“I think the @Lloydbanks H.F.M.2 might just be the best album coming out this tueday, I'm checking it out now.“
This is a perfectly conjugated sentence. Although the “@Lloydbanks” would not read well to those unaccustomed with twitter.com, this tweet can still be recognised for no flaws in punctuation. However, from a spelling perspective, “tueday” would not suffice in describing the second day of the week.




Below are the other three questionable, almost correctly punctuated sentences that have been counted among the 3% correctness figure:


“Another pic. F*ck around if you want to!... “
(Included is an image of the music artist wearing an all white face veil, only his eyes are visible. He is wearing a white tank top and the location has graffiti on the walls, it is possibly a building in a vacant building)
In this instance the rapper has created an almost fully correct sentence! Even when we disregard the abbreviation of the full term “picture”, the use of an expletive in the middle and the inexplicable use of ellipsis at the end of the sentence is quite questionable.

“How much money is to much ? That's a good question. Lol”
(picture of a large stack of US dollars included)
The space after the question mark is not technically correct. Also, even though “Lol” will be familiar with internet users it not a recognised complete sentence by any right, even with this ignored, it could still do with a full stop to indicate finality in the sentence.

“Ok look I hurt my neck having rough sex. I haven't been my self lately. Lol”
(Included is a link to an image of Mr. Jackson with a neck brace, leaning on the hood of a BMW saloon in a car park)
This sentence reads quite well, but could do with a comma after “look”, preceding the statement “I hurt my neck having rough sex.”.



There were several instances in which the rapper almost correctly conjugated a sentence, but they still fell short of the mark of being counted as correctly punctuated, for various reasons, as the examples will show:


“whos is he talking about?”
Posted on the 11 Nov, the artist has almost managed a fully correct sentence in the 5 words he has used. There is a bit of a spelling and/or grammatical error in formulating a question in this case. It is actually unclear whether the writer is demonstrating possession (in which case the correct form would be “whose”), or whether the writer is demanding to know the subject the other (“who's”). In the case of the former there would still be a pressing grammatical error: a correct conjugation of the verb 'to be' would still be required, i.e. “who is he...”

“Ok were is the hate I'm ready let's go suckers“
Two commas would make this sentence more manageable. Mr. Jackson's persistence in asking a question to the online community and following it up with an invitation to fight him cannot achieve the desired effect without some sort of punctuation.

“i want every body who reads this to want more out of life.more joy,more love, more success.thats what H.F.M2 is about LLOYD BANK$.”
hugely impressed with the masterful break up of the phrases “more joy, more love...”. All that's lacking is that apostrophe to correct the “thats”. Spaces in between sentences are advisable also.

“I'm down today feeling blue. Lol “
(Included picture: the rap star seated on a royal blue coloured Rolls Royce Phantom)
I do of course acknowledge the intricacy of the pun, of which the sentence is centred upon. However, a comma is required between 'today' and 'feeling'.

“I'm getting better at what I do. say my name it will provoke emotions. Weather love or hate I matter. Lol”
In the above example a comma is desperately required to slow the flow of words in the second sentence, not to mention a capital letter for the start of it. A comma is needed in the third sentence, in addition to correct application of the word 'whether'.

“you know you ladies gonna have to share me .im enough to go around just need a 10 min break in a redbull .lol “
“I am” becomes “I'm”, you know this fiddy.
Also, “break in a redbull”.. I know what you mean but, what?

“ok i just watched a porn clip and now im confused.dont know if i want a good girl or a whore.i got it i want a good girl whore.lol “
Laughing out loud again. Commas required: after “ok”, after “got it”. An apostrophe is needed to correct “dont”, also, “don't know if...” should not begin a sentence.


A follow up report will be conducted next week.

Facebook can give you asthma

A treat was truly in store for readers of Dublin's Metro Herald yesterday (19 Nov), the top of page 11 ran the headline "Warning: Facebook could trigger an asthma attack".
Very informative piece altogether; the article repeated the title almost word for word as the first sentence - stirring repetitive rhetoric, there were additionally plenty of solid irrational claims from arcane sources - "Now doctors fear social networking websties such a facebook may be a 'new source of psychological distress"...... "doctors"... really.
There was some great second-hand anecdotal evidence in the piece also - it was reported a teenage male who was dumped by his girlfriend created a new profile under a pseudonym after being de-friended by his ex, who accepted his new persona. The dump-ee then noticed she was "friending" new men. Yes, the paper had friending in inverted commas, and no, I cannot actually figure out whether 'friending' is but an obscure euphemism for something or a an attempt to denigrate the meaning of the verb in order to enforce a view. My gut tells me it may be latter.
Interestingly there is no description in the slightest of any asthma attack in the article (why would you need the text to correspond to the headline anyway!?), though it does mention the 18 year-old "used an inhaler to keep his asthma under control". The Metro Herald could be onto something here, what if this "inhaler" device was readily available to all those suffering from asthma?.... wow.

Indeed, the metro herald seems to have unearthed something truly unique in the field of human psychology. "Doctors" to quote the source, are said to be baffled by this new phenomenon, and have admitted that previous attempts to explore this arena, including the age-old concept known as 'unrequited love' are obviously unrelated, obsolete and pure nonsense. Trustees of the works of Dante, Dickens, Shakespeare and Hugo are expected to issue apologies on behalf of the authors, for prohibited, tactless and extensive usurping of the Metro Herald's unique concept of love related stress in their works.

Psychologists and literary critics alike eagerly await further developments into the Metro Herald's study of this unexplored realm of the human condition.

Monday, October 4, 2010

High Capitalist Pig-ment

The Poorly Written News 04/10/10
The complete fund required to repair the gates of the Dáil from a concerned cement truck which chipped off some paint became public yesterday.
Speaking at Govt buildings, having just come from TCD’s careers week (where he attended the seminar “Outshining The Master – Re-thinking Your Boss & Rising To The Top Of Your Organisation, With A Winning CV”), Finance Minister Brian Lenihan proudly delivered the inconclusive figures of the report to conclude days of number crunching. Addressing an increasingly familiar group of broadcasters outside the buildings, Lenihan admitted he believes the report will assuage the concerns of citizens and hopes to “cement relations with opposition leaders”. When questioned later on whether the irony of his statement had been lost on him, the finance Minister hesitantly assured the public that an inquiry would ensue instantaneously in several weeks time.
Leader of the opposition Enda Kenny commented on the total cost of repainting the gates, seeing the soaring expense as “ludicrous, reflecting this government’s inability to foresee the public use of heavy machinery as a vehicle for protest”. The pun was reportedly not intended. Kenny added that “the signs of such an impending demonstration were obvious to everyone, certainly me... and if anyone else in my party disagrees with me they’re getting f***ed right out”.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore gave a tearful address clutching James Connolly’s statue where he bemoaned the knock on effect of repainting the gates on the common worker, suggesting, vehemently, that “the top 1% should have to pay for the paint job”. After having given his statement, Gilmore left the scene on a ‘Dublinbikes’ bicycle uttering something precise about nursing an injured puppy back to health and aiding a man from Westmeath with his combine harvester work, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Brian Cowen was unavailable for comment and had reportedly already drunk 3 litres of the paint in the Dáil bar. An anonymous Clare Fianna Fáil T.D. admitted “the craic was mighty, yeeeow”.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Bin there... seen those articles


Writing the first entry is always tough. So tough that were going to need a topical metaphor.

First of, Poorly Written News is a blog that seeks to highlight and correct non-factual, prejudiced, narrow-minded and sensationalist press. In a world where the tabloid has become the daily base reading for so many, media accountability seems to have been driven out in the process.

There are several blogs committed to similar goals (http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.com/http://www.fivechinesecrackers.com/), and new blogs in this field are cropping up every week. Why is this? Indeed it does seem that there is so little media accountability in tabloids that there is such a massive scope for varied and dynamic criticism.
This blog will focus on underlining the follies of the aforementioned poorly written news (not specifically tabloids, broadsheets are capable of such writing) as well as some other cultural observations and adaptations of famous works (just for fun!... and to examine how words can be manipulated in the passage of time - Chinese whispers sort o' shit).

Where have you bin?

Blame it on the PR consultants going on holidays, blame it on cats, blame it on cat persecutors... the past week has been a field day for the poorly written press. I'd like to think that the planets were having an off day and aligned themselves wrongly which would give a better explanation as to why that woman decided to leave that cat in that bin post-caress.. I'd also like to think that the poorly written press didn't pick up on it and make it the focus of poorly written news. Wishful thinking.

The hand that strokes is the hand that bins.

Lola the cat, ironically, may well be a perfect example of how the tabloids treat their readers. Readers of the tabloids are groomed into believing what is written in this form of press is the truth. The stories are just so appealing, so sensationalised, so as to make the reader want to swallow up every bit of this writing style. Following the Lola story may well be a master stroke of journalism - elucidating the fickleness of sensationalism and the effects of buying into it.

Don't fall for the free lunch. What is brought to your attention on the front page of a newspaper is worth more than a cat being thrown in a bin. There happen to have been some floods going on in Pakistan and a half dozen town centres in Iraq blown up for instance. But no, we get some very serious articles on a confused cat owner. Don't get me wrong, newspapers need some comic relief - a semi-serious article on a frivolous topic – but the 'Lola' story has been treated with nothing but mindless seriousness.


If we take the other cat story popping up in the news last week in Ireland - the DART kitty who got on at Malahide and got off at Pearse Street - as the root of an analogy, the Poorly Written Press is highlighting their own incapacity to deliver real news. (To be honest, I was surprised to be informed of this story in news broadcasts throughout the week. It never seemed outside the realm of possibility to me before that a cat could board a train. Indeed, once you take in this incredible occurrence, what else more is there to say on the matter? It's a dead end of pointless news.)
Maybe reputable strands of the media are actually using this story as a metaphor to describe how they've de-railed (barely even a pun, sorry) from the pursuit of meaningful news items. When broadsheets cover sensationalised news like this, its like they’ve followed this amazing cat's initiative and gotten on the DART with a real news story at a pleasant station, and departed the train at a less desirable spot, stuck to the floor of the well worn platform rotting open on page 3.


A metaphor creates an implicit analogy between two objects. Something which doesn't crop up often in the poorly written press is the use of metaphor in an article. A metaphor generally renders a writer much more open to defamation - events and ideas of the past can be implied as the subject of the article's through a mismanaged metaphor.

Most of all a metaphor presents one thing as something else. Consider stories like cats in bins and cats on the DART to be twisted metaphors - presenting themselves to be news when they're actually just fodder for fatuousness.

Tabloids and other poorly written news do this, they stroke you, as to arouse you, but they're end goal for you is the bottom of the wheelie bin.

When metaphors do appear in the poorly written press, they usually amount to trite puns and statements about as elegantly figurative as a pre-diet Johnny Vegas. The only way I could imagine a tabloid using a metaphor these days would be something along the lines of:
“MEPH-APHOR – X FACTOR CONTESTANT METAPHOR ADMITS TO MEPH ADDICTION JUST DAYS AFTER ADMITTING TO HAVING USED SIMON COWELL’S TUNING FORK BEHIND THE SCENES: SIDE NOTE: – Powerful new street drug ‘mephogrance’ known to our nation's children as “meow meow scandal” expert puritans claim a “hit” of the drug can be bought on the streets for the same price as an annual subscription to the Daily Mail”.


Tabloids and sensationalised broadsheets will forever propel us to the depths of wheelie bins unless we exercise vigilance in the face of ignorance.

All in all....

This blog feels writing has bin better.