There’s a New Scientist journalist called John Hoyland who invented the term ‘nominative determinism’ for those strange and interesting cases of people who seem drawn to their chosen profession because of their name. He became interested in the subject after hearing of a scientific paper by authors JW Splatt and D Weedon on the topic of incontinence, on the same day as seeing a book on the Arctic written by Daniel Snowman. Some obvious examples include Judge Judge and Doctor Nurse, as well as the music teacher called Miss Fiddle who became… Read More

Choice is the word of the week it seems.  Voting in Ireland about whether or not to permit women to choose to have an abortion in their own home town or to be forced to go overseas for it, and voting here in New Zealand about whether to let everyone choose when they want to die. It seems a no-brainer to me.  I wouldn’t for one moment assume I have the right to make those decisions on behalf of anyone else, when that person is perfectly capable of making their own decisions. … Read More

Looking back Historically, the attitude towards ‘blindies’ in the 19th Century left a lot to be desired. We managed the odd mention in literature as interesting background characters, excluded from the central plot, but in life were largely regarded as charity cases, except, of course, for those shielded by wealth. Academically, then, as now, there seemed to be no shortage of scientific papers on causes and effects, but most lapse into a terminology that render them practically useless as a point of reference to those of us experiencing sight loss on a… Read More

I really don’t think I’m racist. As a feminist, I’m definitely not sexist, and I’m not age-ist or ??? (what else is there?). But I have now come to realise that I suffer from a different kind of -ist. The other night just as I was getting ready to go to bed, fireworks started up outside my window, which looks out over Auckland Harbour. It wasn’t New Year’s Eve or Waitangi Day or any other special public day, but it was quite a spectacular display that went on for about ten minutes…. Read More

Sometimes I’m struck by the richness of the English language, by how one word can have so many different meanings, arriving as it does by a variety of linguistic routes over the years across Europe and beyond. One such word is chuck which I discover has numerous meanings both as a noun and as a verb. Chuck as a verb means to throw something carelessly or casually: The family was frightened when someone chucked a brick through their window. Some people can make a living out of stuff other people chuck away…. Read More