Tag Archives: Stroppy Git Award

Batteries

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As Jerry Seinfeld might have said, “What’s with all these teeny little button batteries? How come everything you buy that has a button battery, it’s a different size than the batteries in all the other things you’ve got? And they have these weird code numbers. Not just one either: they have aliases, like secret agents. ‘Come in, 377. Or should I call you… AG4?’” [Audience laughter.]

But seriously, it’s me, your ethical influencer who accepts not a penny from any manufacturer, distributor or advertiser of the products he tells you about. I know, I know, I said I was going to give up my career as an influencer and be a scriptwriter. Well, I finished my online scriptwriting course, scored 82% for my final assignment, and am now up to Scene 29 in the first part of a 3-part sci-fi TV drama. Meanwhile, I’m still doing a bit of influencing on the side. So what is it today? Button batteries!

I just received 72 (yes, 72) button batteries in 10 diferent sizes (with 18 different names) by mail order for A$10.17 including postage.  That’s equivalent to a fraction over US$0.09 per battery. I can’t vouch for their quality of course, but one has been in my watch for a week and it’s still going. Want to have some of the same? They came from Good House Keeping Australia Ltd, P.O.Box 291, Moorabbin VIC 3189 [Tel (03) 9532 3880].

While I have your attention, don’t forget to submit your nomination for the Stroppy Git Award for Meaningless Twaddle 2024.  Deadline 15 January, midday GMT.

This Year’s Stroppy

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We had some strong nominations this year, but after much internal debate the Stroppy Git Award for Meaningless Twaddle goes to … drum roll … Ram Charan and Julia Yang, authors of a new book called ‘The Amazon Management System’, published by Ideapress Publishing and available… well, in most places where you’d look for a book these days. My old friend Ron Allan, who made the nomination, selected the following gem:

“Moreover, transparency of such ultra-detailed, end-to-end (cross-silo and cross-layer) real-time and inputs-oriented data and metrics makes the usual uphill battle for cross-functional collaboration much easier.”

With management advice like this, who needs saboteurs? Thanks to Ron, and congratulations to Ram and Julia.

Oh, and the picture is a visual pun on ‘Amazon’, not an intended likeness of anyone either living, dead, extinct or mythical..

Stroppy 2019

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“. . . here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the king’s English.” The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I Scene IV

A reminder . . . The next Stroppy Git Award for Meaningless Drivel (aka The Stroppy) will be awarded on 17 January 2019. Nominations will close at 2359 UTC/GMT on Sunday 13 January.

The English language is under unrelenting attack from those whose ends are served by ambiguity and the re-purposing of words – and from an army of the ignorant and lazy, it must be said. The word ‘whom’ has all but disappeared. ‘I’ and ‘me’ are becoming interchangeable. ‘Phenomena’ and ‘bacteria’ are following ‘data’ on a slide towards singularity as their parents ‘phenomenon‘ and ‘bacterium’ look on helplessly, aghast at the prospect of their own demise.

The award each January of The Stroppy is an attempt to use public ridicule as a weapon in defence of linguistic rigour. Feel free to join this noble cause by submitting a nomination.