Wednesday Wordage Wodehouse edition

Let us pause to give thanks to the universe for giving us P. G. Wodehouse.  We've had a long run of rainy, gloomy weather, and I was in a rainy, gloomy mood.  Wodehouse, like Mozart, can remind you of the existence of fairer weather.

George wandered down Shaftesbury Avenue feeling more depressed than ever. The sun had gone in for the time being, and the east wind was frolicking round him like a playful puppy, patting him with a cold paw, nuzzling his ankles, bounding away and bounding back again, and behaving generally as east winds do when they discover a victim who has come out without his spring overcoat. It was plain to George now that the sun and the wind were a couple of confidence tricksters working together as a team. The sun had disarmed him with specious promises and an air of cheery goodfellowship, and had delivered him into the hands of the wind, which was now going through him with the swift thoroughness of the professional hold-up artist.

--From A Damsel in Distress, later made into a movie musical, music by the Gershwins, the scene that gave rise to "A Foggy Day in London Town."

Public opinion polls from Mayberry-on-Umpqua

Okay, granted that newspaper readership skews old, and granted that newspaper-writer-in-ship skews crotchety, but I was still surprised by the "question of the week" for our local newspaper's opinion page.  The question was "what are the issues that are most important to you in the presidential election."  Over 400 people responded.  There was no majority, but the most common answer of all, for over 25% of the respondents, was...

...gay marriage.


Gotta say, I'm pretty flabbergasted by that one.  That it's even an issue is incomprehensible to me; that it's the most important issue in a presidential race in 2016 to some people makes me feel like I am living either in a different century or on a different planet.  I mean, really?

Wednesday Wordage Maybe shoulda rethought that acronym edition

A couple of sightings on trucks while driving around today, of companies that might ought to have considered a logo instead of an acronym:  a trucking and logistics firm called "UTI," and a Supplier of Utility pipes etc, proudly branded "PUS."  I guess I can just be glad that UTI and PUS were not traveling together.