They had the widescreen part right with this 1978 entertainment centre, but flat screens were a little way off.
* * *
A large government ministry is briefing staff on operational changes, a reader writes. "Today's memo to staff included some inspirational Maori phrases. Three of these cameout okay but the fourth was savaged by spell-check, so [the translation] read, 'He orange naked, he poking Wairau'."
* * *
Tired of correcting his students' spelling errors, university lecturer Dr Ken Smith wants academia to embrace common misspellings.
Writing in the Times Higher Education magazine, the criminology lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University said: "I am fed up with correcting my students' atrocious spelling. Aren't we all? But why must we suffer? Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, university teachers should simply accept as variant spellings those words our students most commonly misspell."
He goes on to suggest the most common misspellings are: Argument/Arguement, February/Febuary, Wednesday/Wensday, Ignore/Ignor, Occurred/Ocurred, Opportunity/Opertunity, Queue/Que, Speech/Speach, Their/Thier, Truly/Truley, Twelfth/Twelth.
(Source: Daily Mail)
* * *
A Devonport reader was disappointed chocolate had been dumped in favour of dried apricots for local school fundraising, but a Mt Eden reader wishes the annual chocolate binge would stop.
"It sends mixed messages when schools dictate that lunchboxes have no lollies, fizzy, chips or chocolate, yet send the kids home with a $40 haul of chocolate. It's up to the parents to shift it, to ply around the neighbourhood or eat it themselves."
Today's Webpick: The Cosmopolitan Institute has completed a decades-long study on how to please your man.
Watch the report here. Scroll down.
These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
