User:Ewen

Pages I started
A very limited list but I thought it worth recording:

Alan Martin (writer)

Andrew Conway Ivy

Aquilonifer

Betws

Chemophobia

Cobalt thiocyanate test‎

crAssphage

Duquenois-Levine reagent‎

Gower College Swansea

Haloalkane

Krebiozen

Phocomelia

Photoelectric flame photometer

Presumptive test

Racemic

Siwoloboff method

Swansea College

The Educated Mind

Tracey Curtis

Twikker

Pages Ewen Deleted

 * Truth About IB

You really don't want to be censoring my right to post a link to this site ObserverNY (talk) 13:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)ObserverNY

Yes, ObserverNY, I have deleted your link to the 'Truth About IB' page from the IB pages on wikipedia. This has been discussed at length. There is no consensus to include the page and you have never offered justification for pushing the link. Do you want to debate it or just keep adding it (and we'll keep removing it)?

Ewen (talk) 14:27, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Barbecue
It's my nature to get annoyed by little mistakes that people make over and over. The first time it happens I get very slightly ticked off. Then I see it again, and again...

'Barbeque' is one such example. I did check before making changes: see Talk:Barbecue which cites Australian, British and American dictionaries as prefering 'Barbecue'.

According to the Macquarie Dictionary 4th ed 2005 "The alternative spelling barbeque is much more widely used in Australia than in the US or UK". The dictionary marks barbecue as the head entry and more common... As to the Oxford Dictionary it doesn't even mention barbeque. User:Alex Sims on User_talk:Van_der_Hoorn. Webster's dictionary Webster's also has barbecue as the headline entry.

'Barbeque' may be acceptable in some versions of English, but 'acceptable' isn't 'best'. Why use an inferior spelling that may be acceptable in some countries when we could use the prefered spelling which is correct in all countries? See WP:ENGVAR and Opportunities for commonality.

Impact
I'm all for modern English but isn't it ghastly when we hear phrases like "This tax change impacts on the lower paid."? There is a perfectly good verb, affect, which is not only well-understood, but briefer: "This tax change affects the lower paid." If you want to emphasise the negative aspects of the effect, what about "This tax change harms the lower paid."? 'Impact' is a noun: There is no need to verb it if you have some sort of vocabulary.

George Orwell (in Politics and the English Language) recommended:

1: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

"Impact" is a metaphor. In most cases, there is no physical effect.

2: Never use a long word where a short one will do.

Replacing "have an impact on" with, say, "influence" does violate this rule, I admit.

3: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

Replacing "have an impact on" with, say, "influence" is a 4-1 win for this rule.

6: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Always worth considering, and my favourite rule.

Incidentally, so far I've had 8 "thanks" and 2 reversions when I've changed an "impact" text, both by the same user.

misc
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Bits of wikimarkup code I can never remember
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