Wording matters. People do take things literally.

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I have written before about the importance of wording choices, when I examined the legislation that California had brought in to help improve situations with how the LBGT community are treated in convalescent care. In that post, I looked at how just a simple phrasing could be interpreted one way, which totally negates the spirit of the legislation.

The spirit of the law and the actual law are two entirely different things. This is why it is vital that legislation and policies need to be carefully scrutinized by those well versed in legalese. In a way, it’s a lawyer’s job to find those loopholes in the way things are worded.

However, when you are not talking about legislation, many are willing to forego the importance of wording choices, and just paraphrase things. At times, this is perfectly okay. There are other times this is not.

Emails sent as a public statement in response to a court case verdict is not the time to be paraphrasing and forgetting about the importance of wording choices. As much as you might hate the idea, people do take things literally. Wording matters.

Let me set the stage.
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Easter

Easter is exactly when it should be…

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Every year, I hear someone complaining about how Easter is too late, or Easter is too early. And the number of people that complain about how Easter can't seem to have a fixed date… Every year, I respond to these complaints in the same fashion.

"You do know how Easter is calculated, don't you?"

The blank stares are borderline hilarious.

Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.

(Okay, the Spring Equinox for the Northern Hemisphere.)

It's a simple calculation really, or at least one would assume so, until they discover the truth behind the equation. While the description appears to be one based on astronomical events, it's really not.

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Weather Related Owies

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Those who follow me on Facebook or Twitter will know that I don't cope well in the heat. I hate the high temperatures in Summer (and New Zealand is just coming out of Summer). I like feeling warm, yes, but there is a limit as to how much my body can tolerate.

Even in my youth, I didn't cope well with the heat, suffering from heat exhaustion and borderline heat stroke on numerous occasions. I know the signs and symptoms to look for. When people tell me that it's all in my head and that I don't know what I'm talking about...

I might not be a medical doctor, but I do have Outdoor First Aid training and personal experience to draw from. I also have AWESOME research skills.

For this month's new episode on Conversations in Science, I decided to talk about heat exhaustion, heat stroke and hypothermia, and a whole rafter of other weather related owies.

Weather Related Owies
(First aired on KLRNRadio, Monday, March 19, 2018)

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Heart in Turmoil: A Poem from 1996

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The following free-form poem was written in 1996 when I was studying engineering at university.

Heart in Turmoil

Love is funny. You sit around waiting for a dream. Yet, there's another right there.

But it's the dream you want, even though you know it won't last. You keep asking yourself, "How long must I wait?" Yet, there's another right there.

The dream you've known for years. You know his thoughts, his actions, his dreams and fantasies. You know him so intimately that you even know what he is thinking before he does. But he's only a dream, and there's another right there.

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Citizen's War Memorial outside Christchurch Cathedral (23 June 2017)

7 Years Ago, The City Fell

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It's hard to believe that seven years have passed since my home city of Christchurch, New Zealand changed forever. On February 22, 2011, at precisely 12:51pm, an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale leveled the city. I kid you not.

For many other earthquake-ridden cities around the world, it took an earthquake of much greater magnitude to cause anywhere near the same level of devastation, but even then, it's not nearly every building in the CBD that needs to be demolished. Over 70% of the buildings suffered irreparable damage during that quake, continuing to stand only just long enough so people could get out. Some buildings didn't even do that. Whole suburbs, most of East Christchurch, needed to be abandoned and bulldozed to the ground — and because if it, we have a severe housing shortage, even seven years later. But what really makes Christchurch so unique is that we were already a broken city.

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