And the winner is...

Chosen at random, the winner is...

... Kelloggsville, who writes at A Guiding Life. Glad you were guided to this chocolate, Kelloggsville. Congrats to you. I will be in touch, and I hope you enjoy your egg!

Thanks to Hotel Chocolat for providing this giveaway.

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Free chocolate here!

Yes, thought that would get your interest.

Do you remember that before Christmas I reviewed some chocolate from the lovely Hotel Chocolat? Those lovely people have given me the chance to show you one of their yummy Easter products, and they're going to give one of you a free sample. It's this:

Looks delicious, huh? And it's so witty, which is one of the aspects of Hotel Chocolat products that I love. Look at those chocolate toast soldiers - white bread that's been dipped in a soft boiled egg! How clever is that?

You can buy one of these "You Crack Me Up" delights at the Hotel Chocolat website, for £28.00. Alternatively, you can leave me a comment, and on 27th March, which is 9-yo's birthday, I will have her pick a number at random out of a hat, and we will tell you who gets the prize. So entries please by midnight on Wednesday, 26th March. To enter, you have to leave me a comment telling me a happy chocolate memory - and it can be anything, because remember, the winner pick will be random and not based on the quality of the memory you share.

And while you ponder your own chocolate memories, I'll tell you one of mine. For my 21st birthday, I went out to dinner with 9 friends. We were at university at the time. We went to a fondue restaurant, and when we were all stuffed to bust with melted cheese and raw veggies, for some reason, inexplicable except that we were young and having fun, we ordered a chocolate fondue for dessert. I remember walking back to my college room afterwards, and feeling like really I should carry on walking all night, just to get rid of that weight of rich food in my stomach.

Share a happy chocolate memory with me, and you might receive that lovely "You Crack Me Up" egg! (You can enter the giveaway wherever you live, but the prize can only be posted to a UK address.)

Disclaimer:
For this post, I am receiving no chocolate. Just the egg (retail value £28.00) that is going to one of you lovely readers of my blog. (Incidentally, just so you know how much I love you all, I might mention that I was offered the choice of receiving the product for review, or running a giveaway, and I opted for the latter. We had free chocolate at Christmas, and I believe in spreading the love a little.) The opinions of the product are my own.

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Why use one word, when...?

We British English speakers love to use words. We do. And in my opinion, we're right to do so. I mean, they're free! You don't have to pay tax on them, or count them as you use them. They're not a finite resource like the world's oil supply, and they don't leave an environmentally damaging imprint. Lovely, lovely free words! Why not use as many of them as you like?

It does mean, though, that when you first arrive in America, everyone sounds as if they're being just a little discourteous. Their language doesn't have that lovely British floweriness, that makes us seem so ultra polite. Where I would say "Oh, thank you very much indeed, that's so kind of you", they would say "thanks".

You get used to it after a while, but at first, I did notice it all the time. So much so, that when I overheard a conversation in the changing room of the local swimming pool, I wrote it down. It went like this:

A: Are you swimming?

B: I did.

A: Oh, you swam already.

Doesn't that sound odd to British ears? Now, in a British changing room, the same conversation would have used so many more words to convey the same information. It would have gone something like this:

A: Are you here for a swim?  

B: Actually, I've just finished. 

A: Oh, you mean you've already been swimming. 

See what I mean? American brevity is so efficient, but I like the way we do it over here. Now I'm back in the UK, I still notice our over-use of words. Not so much in conversation - that just seems normal. But in public signs and information.

On the London Underground, for example, a recorded announcement tells you to "Stand clear of the closing doors".

But why bother with the word "closing"? For a start, all the doors are closing at that point. It's not as if you have to look at the doors you're standing next to, and assess whether or not they are the closing doors referred to. You don't turn to your neighbour and say "We're ok. These doors aren't closing. We don't have to stand clear.".  I'm guessing that a committee in Transport For London came up with the idea of combining the two ideas (the doors are closing, and you need to stand clear of them) in one short phrase, and probably felt rather clever. But I bet you that in America, the recorded message would say simply "Stand clear of the doors", because that would do the job.

I saw a sign today, on a gate to a construction site, that read " Before attempting any reversing manoeuvre, drivers must use a banksman". "Attempting any reversing manoeuvre"? Couldn't you just say "reversing"?

Supermarkets provide rich pickings for the spotter of over-wordy signs. All those ones that begin "We regret to inform customers that...". I'm sure Wal-Mart would be satisfied with "Sorry." They probaby wouldn't even bother with that. 

Once you start the game of spotting over-wordage in signs, I'm afraid it's rather hard to stop. If you see any examples of redundant words in signs in the next few days, do share them.

And if you like chocolate, keep an eye on my blog for a fab giveaway coming up soon.

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