I’m reblogging this great new post from Harold Ambler, author of ‘Don’t sell your coat’ which we reviewed here on the talkshop recently. Hyperbole in climate journalism numbs the brain…
Attention scientists and journalists: I want my word back. You don’t get to use it anymore, unless you want to admit that you are in the business of deceiving people. That word? “Ever.”
I know I’m in for it when I hear this word at home. “You don’t ever…” and “You never” and “You always” – these are statements that I’ve gotten my beloved wife to see seldom accompany truth-telling. What they do accompany is strong feeling.
And you’d need strong feelings to use the word “ever” to describe 150 years in Earth’s history: “Warmest ever,” “third warmest ever,” “hottest ever,” “fifth hottest ever,” “second warmest ever.” Taken as a whole, statements like these, which are found in articles purporting to inform the public, become incantatory, and indeed echo literal hymns sung in literal churches, worldwide: “Forever and ever and
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Tallbloke's Talkshop 
I will never use ever again
Forever I have used ever but never again
Ever and ever will be for nether
If you ever ask me again
Forever I will say, never, never, never
lol
Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather
Whether we like it or not.
Vacuum is another that should be banished from physics,as it seems to be filled with mythical beasts like virtual particles, messenger photons, virtual electrons and energy… e.t.c. Doesn’t sound like any vacuum I’ve ever known!
“You always, you never, Forever, and Ever, and Ever”
These types of statements are always the result of sloppy and emotive thinking. They never accompany careful or precise meanings which can lead to real understanding between the sender and the receiver in communication. To catch it in one’s own thought process first is forever a challenge.
Ever helpful, Zeke