They said What?!

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Gone are the starting blocks that launched many a swimmer to glory. So, too, the water treaded by learner and professional swimmers.

"Treaded"?!

The water is covered by tyre treads?

Thank you to reporter Beatrice Thomas (Old Beatty Park pool consigned to history, The West, 25 Oct 2011) for that gem of dubious grammar.

"This has widened students' horizons, boosted their confidence and provided a powerful stimulus for learning in our school."

This is a school principal's comment, quoted by Michelle Scott, Commissioner for Children and Young People WA (Creative thinking is vital for young people, The West, 25 Oct 2011). Is Scott unable to recognise overblown jargon when she reads it?

Why pick a quote which is clearly pulled from the Desperate Principal's Book of Acceptable Educational Jargon? Did no-one write, "The kids had fun, they learnt a lot and the teachers will apply what we all learnt from the experience"?!

Target your audience... or you will lose them.

And now... for something completely different: Sculpture in the city.

There's a new sculpture outside Wesley Church. There's a photo in today's West (Sculpture outlines millennium goals for nations, 25 Oct 2011). The sculpture looks like a giant metal golf ball sitting on a tee.

More than that, it looks like a children's toy. You may have seen them: a plastic ball with holes in it. Holes with different shapes. The child learns to poke the square peg through the square hole... The ball pulls open, to remove the successfully inserted pegs.

So now, in the city, is a sculpture of a ball... with various shaped holes.

I just hope that the sculpture pulls open. How else will we remove the variously shaped pieces of rubbish which will be inserted through the variously shaped holes?

Independent thinking & independent analysis of your problems. Agamedes Consulting: Support for your thought. email nick leth at gmail dot com