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Home / Rotorua Daily Post

The social life: Sentenced for Word Crimes

Alison King
Rotorua Daily Post·
29 Jul, 2014 07:00 PM2 mins to read

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Alison King.

Alison King.

The urban dictionary definition of classic is "pure genuine and worth remembering. Something that will never slip your mind due to its pure humour."

To me, Weird Al Yankovic fits this description, especially his latest works. Renowned for taking popular hits and rewording them - remember Eat it from the 1980s anyone? - he has applied his humour and way with words to popular hits of the last year or so.

While many of us are still reeling from Miley Cyrus' Blurred Lines performance with Robin Thicke, Weird Al has given the song a makeover loved by English teachers and linguists the world over.

If you struggle to read textspeak or you shudder at the misuse of apostrophes then this one is for you.

Word Crimes is Weird Al's name for his tune, and among them are "no x in espresso".

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Two of the other lines are: "You should never write words using numbers, unless you're 7 or your name is Prince" and "Listen up when I tell you this: I hope you never use quotation marks for 'emphasis'."

The video has gone viral - it appeared in my Facebook and Twitter feeds shared by people around the world.

Other viral videos lately have been the dog that fainted and the new Hobbit trailer.

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Meanwhile, if you use mobile devices a lot and you've come out in an unexplained rash it could be your iPad. It turns out the popular tablet computer may contain nickel, one of the most common allergy-inducing metals.

Recent reports in medical journals detail nickel allergies from a variety of personal electronic devices, including laptops and cellphones. But it was an Apple iPad that caused an itchy body rash in an 11-year-old boy recently treated at a San Diego hospital, according to a report in Pediatrics.

Nickel rashes aren't life-threatening but they can be very uncomfortable, and they may require treatment with steroids and antibiotics if the skin eruptions become infected.

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The Social Life: Making the Facebook Messenger switch

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