not ANZCA Day

The notice board of a local pub advised of the pub’s activities on ANZCA DAY, presumably commemorating the college of anaesthetists, or chartered accountants, or Australia, New Zealand and California, or Canada, or any one of the 315 other people, places and things listed on The Free Dictionary’s acronym finder. Several days later, that had been changed to ANZAC DAY, commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

See here for a discussion about whether it should be ANZAC or Anzac (and also generally on acronyms and initialisms. The public holiday is officially Anzac Day. (The pub’s notice board has upper-case plastic letters.)

Also note the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian involvement in the Battle of Gapyeong (22-25 April 1951).

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Not sure about these …

I recently encountered three usages which I’m not sure are good or bad. About half of the articles I subedit come directly from companies, and about half from PR agents. If PR agents have an official title, it’s usually something like “account manager”. But one has the title of “chief wordsmith”. It’s a real word, dating from 1895-1900, meaning:

1. A fluent and prolific writer, especially one who writes professionally.
2. An expert on words. (The Free Dictionary)

So a PR agent certainly fits that definition. But there’s something slightly strange about the word. Most smiths either work(ed) with metal (blacksmith (iron), coppersmith, goldsmith, ironsmith, redsmith (copper), silversmith, tinsmith, whitesmith (tin plate and galvanised iron)) or make/made artefacts from it (2). Also, the slightly problematic fingersmith, a midwife or pickpocket. A hammersmith may once have been an occupation, but the only references now are to the suburb of London. And goodness only know what a sexsmith such that it became a surname. One genealogy website suggests ploughshares (French soc) or sickles. That’s not what I was thinking.

Then there are wordsmiths, songsmiths and tunesmiths, all of which sound to me to be slightly less capable than writers, songwriters and composers, respectively. Maybe there’s something too non-physical about words, songs and tunes. 

In the end, it didn’t matter, as a PR agent’s name and title don’t appear in a published article.

pallet, palate, palette, plate

I was reading something online a few days ago and the writer mentioned a ‘pallet cleanser’. Perhaps they meant a ‘palate cleanser’. Or a ‘palette cleanser’.

image: lastappetite.com