thedanglingmodifier.co.uk

Some people may be tired of the snow, but I love it. What better excuse to avoid going into work (apart from dysentery or swine flu)?

Then what irony! This week I’ve been editing content on “rural accessibility solutions”.

If you’re wondering what that means I should tell you that it’s atechnical term for transport in the countryside.

The content was written by a consultant, an expert in the field of rural accessibility solutions. It doesn’t matter how much or how often you ask a such people to use the organisation’s style guide, they still come up with sentences like:

“The case for rural accessibility solutions can be strengthened by relating benefits to key population groups.”

However, as 2010 is not only a new year but a new decade too, I have decided to take a new approach to such annoyances. Instead of letting the gobbledygook get to me – instead of berating myself for not understanding the words – I’m just going to laugh in the face of phrases like “solution development” and “hitting the ground running”.

Which is one of the reasons why it’s probably better, for the time being at least, that I cannot get into work.

Sometimes I wonder if I am not the only one in the public sector who dreams of better things and a more fulfilling work life. Could that be why the acronym ARTS is being used to stand for Actions on the Integration of Rural Transport Services’? (Surely that should be ‘AIRTS’?)

And – just when I thought I’d done enough blogging about dodgy titles I came across Can Cinderella get to the ball?

No, it’s not a panto, not even a stage show. It’s a paper that was presented to the UK Transport Practitioners’ Meeting in Birmingham, July 2005.  And it’s all about:

“implementing the green travel, countryside access and social inclusion agenda in rural leisure travel”.