The abysmal failure of the US (and increasingly whole Western) educational system

Here is Fabian Pascal in fine grumpy form as usual, berating the IT industry for its inability to think straight:

As I keep saying: the abysmal failure of the US (and increasingly whole Western) educational system is not only that it produces arrogant ignorance, but also inability to reason.

While we're bemoaning the state of Western education, perhaps it's worth pointing out that the sentence doesn't quite make sense.

Notice that it mentions two particular aspects of the US (and increasingly whole Western) educational system, in the form "not only x, but also y". In other words, one failure of the system is that "it produces arrogant ignorance". Another failure of the system is "inability to reason". However, he probably didn't mean that the system has an inability to reason. What he probably meant was that it produced an inability to reason, or to construct coherent sentences while bemoaning the state of Western education. In other words,

As I keep saying: the abysmal failure of the US (and increasingly whole Western) educational system is that it produces not only arrogant ignorance, but also inability to reason.

How to spot an e-mail scam

I recently received the following e-mail message:

Dear Valued HSBC Customer

We believe that, as in everything else, you deserve the best in banking too. Therefore protective measures is been applied to satisfy our striving customer needs. Our technical service department is currently upgrading our SSL servers to enhance adequate banking security,to give our customers a better, fast and secure online banking service this YEAR 2006. Due to the recent update of the servers, you are kindly requested to please confirm your banking details by following the link below. .

https://Securityalert.HSBC.co.uk/1/2/

HSBC Bank Plc
Security Advisor
HSBC Bank PLC.

Dear Valued HSBC Customer doesn't quite ring true, and even if the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation wanted to use such a cheesy greeting, they surely wouldn't capitalize valued and customer.

The word too is redundant, in as in everything else, the best in banking too.

Protective measures is been applied speaks for itself, but striving customer needs doesn't make sense, and neither does to enhance adequate banking security, which is also missing a space after its comma.

A better, fast and secure online banking service is just confusing, as is this YEAR 2006.

Nobody says you are kindly requested.

There are two full stops after by following the link below.

The signature says HSBC Bank PLC twice, but with two different capitalizations for PLC. The first one appears to be intended as the name of the sender.

If you are going to set up a scam in which you pretend to be a prestigious international bank, in English, my advice is to have an English speaker read the message back before pressing "send".

Espresso, Embiggened

I am grateful to a Mr Allan Mothersill for a number of insights regarding the Dualit 84009 Chrome Espresso Coffee Maker, which he generously reviewed on Amazon UK.

He writes:

Im mostly a drinker off tea, but one off my mates tempted me to buy this, tellign me that it would make me look at coffee in a diferent light.

Consequentely I bort it and how glad I am! Get yorself some desent beans from the super market and prepared with this mashine, you will find coffee that tasts as good as Starr Bucks. Iff you think thats being genrous, it just shows how impressed i am with this mashine. It has certainly embiggened my appreshiation off the brown bean!

Why not 5 stars? Well its not as quick as instant unles you use the capsules though it tastes so much better so if your in a rush you have to fall back on instant.

I notice that he is not a lazy speller, as his spellings of of, if, consequently, supermarket, Starbucks and appreciation are all longer than the conventional versions, although his apostrophe key does appear to be broken.

The word embiggened (which he spells perfectly) is from The Simpsons, where the Springfield town motto is "A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man". Thanks to Mr Mothersill, I came across the Wikipedia entry on Simpsons neologisms, which includes such indispensible terms as Debigulator, Financial Panther and Karmaceuticals.

I do think he might have rather missed the point of the rating system though, by deducting a star when using the Dualit 84009 Chrome Espresso Coffee Maker turned out to be slower than making instant coffee.