Hot Mess - 8 February 2016

<p>Sneaky contract lingo, advice for writing well, and preserving a dying language. Say you’re scrolling through an online transaction where you're asked to read the "Terms and Conditions." Do you actually read them or just check the box and move on? If you move on, watch out for the Herod’s clause. Plus: When does your own communication style make you sound out-of-date? A 50-something boss wants suggestions on speaking with and writing for his younger co-workers. Finally, if we lose a language, how many of our childhood memories perish in the process? Also, dark as Egypt, not quite cricket, down to the lick log, light dawns on Marblehead, and sneezing to the truth, and hot mess.<br /><br />FULL DETAILS<br /><br />When you get to the stage of an online transaction where you're asked to read the "Terms and Conditions," do you actually read them? Or do you just check the box and move on? A London security firm once offered free use of a WiFi hotspot, provided the users agreed to sign over their firstborn child "for the duration of eternity." Sure enough, some people signed. The company called that sneaky contract language a Herod clause, after the Biblical king who ordered the deaths of firstborn babies in Bethlehem.<br /><br />The expression dark as Egypt means "really dark," and is a reference to the story in the book of Exodus of the ten plagues that descended upon Egypt, the ninth of these being complete darkness.<br /><br />If you're down to the lick log, you're close to the end of negotiations, or nearing some kind of decision. This expression is associated with cattle ranching, a salt lick being a place where the herd congregates. The 19th-century frontiersman Davy Crockett used the term in his autobiography.<br /><br />Not quite cricket means "not proper," "substandard," or perhaps even "illegal." The phrase is a reference to the world's second most popular sport, cricket, and derives from the 19th-century notion that the "Spirit of the Game" is the epitome of good sportsmanship. <br /><br />Quiz John Chane