Surveys

..my
objections, and I think it’s more likely she might mention them to somebody
now that I cold-heartedly aborted the call.
Not that it will make the slightest difference to the quality of questionnaires
in the short term. Flouting the convention of poll questions being couched in
neutral language is just one of the downsides of the ghastly trend of making
policy by polling. Think of it this way: yer actual Hollowmen float a thunk-tanked
policy on the media, then poll the results. Hey Presto! Policy and laws are
enacted. Democracy in action!
I had a look at Galaxy’s website. They proudly say that they conduct political
polling for The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph, The Herald Sun and The
Courier Mail. Say no more.

Except that they also state, ‘Galaxy Research have moved to the final
frontier.. Chatswood’. I gather they’re attempting to be droll
here, but it’s not the faint suspicion of humour that I’m questioning.
‘Galaxy Research’ is implicitly the one entity, so, by that definition it
should read ‘Galaxy Research has moved to the final frontier..
Chatswood’
It’s an error that’s become so common, especially in regard to reporting
team sports’ results for instance, that I actually have to pause to
consider before I write Spectrum is doing something or other.
The day is coming when even the purists, professional and dilettantes like
me alike, are going to have to relent, because the dictionary researchers,
formerly stalwart upholders of English language rather than mere recorders
of its degeneration, have succumbed to the inexorable process of ‘common
usage’.
Until that day however, and probably well beyond in my case, (because, a)
dictionaries have lost whatever unassailable authority they once had, with
the exception of the battered Concise Oxford version that Ross and Pat Wilson
gave me in 1970, and b) I’m too old and stubborn now to bother
to change), I shall continue to shake my head and curl my lip in annoyance
at statements like ‘Australia are winning!’ even if they is.

Case in point – well, sort of. I saw this old ‘Greys is Great’ sign on
the way out of Castlemaine in 2002, and it brought back memories of the positive
discomfort I felt when reading it as a young tyke. ‘Greys’ was the brand name
of a tobacco company when just about every adult I knew rolled their own,
((I came from good farming stock), and I’m sure the slogan was chosen precisely
because it sounds so wrong. I get it now, and it doesn’t irritate me at all
– in fact, I feel the warm-glow of identification that comes with having cracked
the code, so to speak.