Marcus Rashford Appreciation Thread

[Satchmo Distel]

Politicians just don't fucking understand that they can go onto the television and say something about somebody and that person can call them out on it and get that broadcast to a million people by the time the original person has got to the end of their next sentence.

But is the BBC Breakfast demographic the same as the one that reads Rashford's Tweets?

The Mowbray thing is odd. He could just have commentated on the football so the choice not to do so was political in itself. It's like when Jimmy Hill called for flogging to be brought back for hooligans and Argentinians.

[Patrick Thistle]

What is the BBC Breakfast reach? It's highly possible Marcus's Twitter followership is bigger. So more people would hear him calling the PM a liar than would hear the lies.

[ChrisJ]

OFSTED
SATs
IT
PE
RE
am
pm

Just some of the impenetrable acronyms I've used while talking to non-specialists. How they cope is beyond me. <smiley thing>

DCI Harry Batt On a serious note, while education is full of jargon and acronyms, can you give some examples of ones that insiders have expected 'outsiders' to know? I'm a bit puzzled, thinking of meetings with parents I've attended and everyone had been very careful to avoid jargon. (Educational psychologist, not EP or EdPsych; Team Around the Child rather than TAC, etc.) In school is a different matter and I often have to ask or at least check. Have they been floating past me without me spotting them?

(I don't know who used FSM and so baffled ad hoc and your good self, but parents with children in school who get free meals would almost certainly know it.)

[ad hoc]

FSM has been used a lot in articles these days following the rashford stuff. I've worked it out now so it's OK. It's just that I used to live in the FSM (the country, not the meals) so it's particularly weird to me. Like the universal suffrage act being called the USA

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

It's curiously jarring isn't it, when an acronym you strongly associate with one thing is used for another. I had that when I started work as a City lawyer and my colleagues routinely referred to the London Stock Exchange as the "LSE" (which to me will always mean the institution where my brother studied and my sister worked for a few decades as a librarian).

Two rivals for the JMB acronym both probably now long forgotten: the Joint Matriculation Board, for which my Dad was an A-level French examiner, and the Johnson Matthey Bank, subject of a scandal-linked colllapse in 1984 - how my parents chuckled when that was on the Radio 4 news at tea time.

"CFC" is linked with all sorts of undesirable things, including the ozone layer-destroying chemicals and the tax haven subsidiaries used by multinational corporate groups for tax avoidance. I'm sure I've heard the words "We are the famous CFC..." somewhere.

[ChrisJ]

FSM has been used a lot in articles these days following the rashford stuff. I've worked it out now so it's OK.

Ah right. But that's journalists using the term?

It's just that I used to live in the FSM (the country, not the meals) so it's particularly weird to me.

Wait - you lived in a Fungal Spores Monitor?

Like the universal suffrage act being called the USA

Blimey. Not come across that one. It is a problem when you hear an acronym that has another, wider meaning. Like people who insist ACL is something to do with the knee, not a union. or MRI having a secondary meaning that isn't the Mean Return Interval of meteorological events. Or... etc, etc. Ignore me, I'm using OTF* and FP** to avoid DIY.***

*One Touch Football
**Facetious posting
***Do It Yourself.

Vets are the worst.

[ad hoc]

Ah right. But that's journalists using the term?

Yes. (it's tonton who blamed teachers)

[ChrisJ]

Yes. (it's tonton who blamed teachers)

I know, soz. I'm just hoping to lure him out of his lair. I think I should go back to painting.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I don't mean with parents, I mean outside work. Ok, it might be niche, but I am niche, you know? Teachers say "SLT" as if it's a real thing in the world. There's no way to stop them saying it.

(As it goes, OFSTED and SATS and shit like that are nonsense too, but they've been beaten into us for so many years that we've succumbed)

[ChrisJ]

I don't mean with parents, I mean outside work. Ok, it might be niche, but I am niche, you know? Teachers say "SLT" as if it's a real thing in the world. There's no way to stop them saying it.

(As it goes, OFSTED and SATS and shit like that are nonsense too, but they've been beaten into us for so many years that we've succumbed)

Always be niche, TonTon!

If you know people who use SLT in general, real world conversation they deserve all the opprobrium you can generate. Tell them to talk about football or which way up Johnson should be hung when he's finally attached to a lamppost.

Back on Rashford, Hancock is being his usual disingenuous twatty self.

Apparently, providing meals via councils is better than through central government, as councils “are close to their local community, and can therefore make the decisions to make sure that the people who really need it get the support”.

Perfectly reasonable if you hadn't already starved the councils of money first, you fucking arse. Shades of Patel with her "can't blame the government" bullshit.

[Fussbudget]

I actually have no idea what SATS stands for, it's some kind of exam isn't it? I've had to have a good long think about 'RE' as well.

[pebblethefish]

I once dated a girl who told me she was a TA. It was the fourth date before I found out that she was a Teaching Assistant rather than a pretend soldier.

[ChrisJ]

I actually have no idea what SATS stands for, it's some kind of exam isn't it? I've had to have a good long think about 'RE' as well.

Yes. It's probably leaked into 'wider' usage by the fact that they are often in the news, and is one of those things that anyone who's got a child in/been through education (which is probably the majority of adults) will know. In fact a lot of parents now will have done SATs themselves. I've noticed that while it means something different, it seems to be completely mainstream in the US. Ambitious or overachieving characters in Hollywood films will refer to their SAT scores.

In general, though TonTon is right and jargon is to be avoided if possible. It's perhaps one of those things resulting from the line between home and work becoming so much more porous. And most teachers I know spend a lot of time outside work, thinking about work, which probably doesn't help. But stop us if you can!

*RE = religious education.

pebblethefish Edit - they're called TPs (teaching partners) now. Perhaps because of people shooting at them? Looks like TonTon was right.

[ursus arctos]

Standard Attainment Tests

Not to be confused with the USian Scholastic Aptitude Tests, which are a rather different thing

[ChrisJ]

Standard Attainment Tests

Not to be confused with the USian Scholastic Aptitude Tests, which are a rather different thing

To which would said ambitious characters be referring? (Usually in a scene near the start when their prospective employer, Basil Exposition, is reading our young hopeful's file to them. Just before we learn they graduated a year early and top of class from MIT or Harvard.)

[Fussbudget]

Thanks both.

My work is full of acronyms but they're so niche there's no danger of any of them leaking into non-work conversation (I get enough blank stares talking about my job as it is)

[ursus arctos]

Obnoxious characters in US films would be referring to the Scholastic Aptitude Tests, which are taken before one applies to university. They used to be entirely multiple choice, but recently added an essay section. Some sections of the country tend to use the ACTs (American College Tests) instead. ""Elite" universities increasingly downplay or even ignore the results of such tests, in part because extensive preparation and gaming of the system can influence results.

There are similar exams for graduate schools, all of which are only referred to by their acronyms: Graduate Record Exams for Masters and Pu.D programmes, Law School Admissions Tests for law, Medical College Admission Tests for medicine, General Management Aptitude Tests for business school, etc.

The entire complex is a multi billion dollar enterprise

[pebblethefish]

I'm disappointed to find this out. I always assumed our SATs were the same as your SATs, so when the spymaster recruiter hired the young buck straight out of college and said "I see you scored highly in your SATs", I thought it meant that they used to be good at spelling.

[San Bernardhinault]

Blimey. Not come across that one. It is a problem when you hear an acronym that has another, wider meaning. Like people who insist ACL is something to do with the knee, not a union. or MRI having a secondary meaning that isn't the Mean Return Interval of meteorological events.

The one that's been getting me recently is when people talk about UCL when they mean the European Cup, rather than Jeremy Bentham's alma mater on Gower Street.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Oh god yeah, all the bloody nonsense football ones. EPL. EFL. UCL. BUGGER OFF. USE WORDS.

[ad hoc]

The one that's been getting me recently is when people talk about UCL when they mean the European Cup, rather than Jeremy Bentham's alma mater on Gower Street.

I spent much of my life working in a field called "EFL" and now the football league has rebranded itself with those very same initials.

[DCI Harry Batt]

When things get "rebranded" so they no longer have an actual name that means something but instead have a set of wankarse initials, people should just tell them to bugger off.

[Diable Rouge]

Whatever Mowbray said, such was the backlash that he has deleted his Twitter account.

[Patrick Thistle]

Already noted, DR.

He said something about there being two sides to the debate and a gif of someone stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The rock being starving children and the hard place being called scum, I suppose.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Germany also indulges in very irritating acronyms from time to time. When I used to keep up with German language news, a few decades ago, journalists occasionally referred to a "GAU" scenario, meaning, I think, some kind of apocalyptic catastrophe, possibly specifically nuclear-related, but I never found out what the letters stood for.

Edit: not to be confused with "Gau" of course, a geographic division used by the Nazis, as in "Gauleiter".