Quite the discussion point, this – you’ve been quick to defend some of the ‘worst words’ choices referenced in the news story, but have many of your own nominations ...
I think it a bit harsh to condemn 'hello' as being one of the 'worst' words in the language, 'moist' does have unfortunate connotations particularly when in conjunction with 'gusset'
Someone I went to school with was called Mona Flood, you can probably guess what her unfortunate nickname was
Unpopluar choice amongst some I'd guess: entitled.
If anyone does things you don't like, you can spring out the word "entitled" to ascribe the worst possible behaviour and motives, without having to prove them or even bother thinking about it too much.
Alas we can report that Oxford Dictionaries has halted search for most disliked word after “severe misuse”– for more on the “flood of offensive choices” their website received take a look at our colleague Alison Flood’s piece at the following link:
Apropos of not much other than what time of day it is, as well as those baking successes and failures readers are sharing what they’ve been eating for lunch ...
Well I'm having a bacon, egg and black pudding sandwich for lunch.
I came across a great piece on aeon by physicist Sabine Hossenfelder. Like me, Hossenfelder receives a lot of correspondence from amateur physicists. Usually they claim to have proved Einstein wrong, or that a recent breakthrough is a fraud; sometimes they are reporting a breakthrough of their own. All are frustrated that mainstream academics and media alike are ignoring their work. As someone who, unfortunately, does mostly hit delete, I was fascinated by Hossenfelder’s own decision to stop deleting and start engaging. She has opened a hotline, offering physics consultation, including theory development. There are, of course, arguments to be had about whether charging people to talk science is promoting a different type of insiderism. But it’s an interesting form of engagement and seems to be working – one of her clients is even preparing to publish a bona fide academic paper.
What have you been reading this week? Tell us below the line.
You’ve been following the story with interest below the line – here are some of your views so far, some in response to our question, “was it a fuss over nothing?”
I don't think it was necessarily fuss over nothing - it was caught in an odd crossfire between Silly Season non-story and the Corbyn hype train (no pun intended) meaning that it grew into something more than that non-story while half the people commenting on it complained that it wasn't a story. Erm...are you keeping up?
What I mainly took from traingate was the impression that Jeremy Corbyn's entourage are too incompetent to reserve seats. My late mum travelled the East Coast main line well into her eighties and she never forgot to reserve her seat.
A few sulking Blairites are making the Labour party look a shambles. My issue of the week and previous months is - where is the public outrage at what the Conservative Government is doing and saying. A Tory dominated media including the BBC is focussing solely on Jeremy Corbyn and how best to ridicule him and his supporters. The Guardian and C4 seem to be the only media outlets attempting some perspective but it's not enough
Traingate would have been at least a single day news story, or should have been news, if any politician was caught in a dispute with a major company as Corbyn and his team were..
What made it last more than a day were the Confused stories about it from his team, and momentum members. If A spokesperson of Corbyn's team straight away said "OK there were a few seats, but we wanted to sit together and like other people sat on the floor for part of the journey, apologies for exaggerating slightly with "Ram-packed", but we were attempting to highlight the terrible train service."
Instead there were a load of confused messages from different parts of his team, which helped perpetuate the story overnight, leaving it to Corbyn to come with a different story the day after (which had been explicitly denied the day before).
Sometimes just apologising in some way and moving on kills the story dead, but the utter chaos in his team has no concept of media/crisis management it appears.
#Traingate: why I spent the day on the 11am train to Newcastle
Martin Belam
I spent Wednesday going from London to York and back, trying to recreate the fateful #traingate trip that Jeremy Corbyn had made. Was it a ridiculous gimmick? Well, of course. Doing it live perhaps added more of an air of ridiculousness to the proceedings than just quietly popping up there and back and interviewing people. But it also generated huge interest. We had over 5,500 comments on the live blog – not all of them calling me an idiot – and after I’d got off the train I settled down into a place with wifi where I could carry on joining in the debate below the line, and also try and reflect some of the discussion that was going on above the line.
It’s a classic political silly season story, but I hoped the train trip would provide a different angle for people to talk about rail policy in the UK, which was, of course, one of Corbyn’s first concrete policy suggestions when he became leader. And, after all, where better to find rail users to ask them what they think about services than on a train.
I met some lovely people, and I do enjoy this kind of reporting. I also spent a night on the London Underground at the weekend meeting people who were using the night tube for the first time. I’m just a bit worried I might be getting typecast as the Guardian’s “this story has a train in it” correspondent.
What do you think of #traingate? Get involved in the discussion below the line.
Readers are sharing their baking successes ... and failures
Guardian readers
Alongside our hectic Bake Off live blog this week we asked you to share your baking successes and failures via GuardianWitness. As you’ll see below, the results were, as we’d hoped, mixed ...
Dalek Cake
Made it to celebrate a new series of Doctor Who. It didn't turn out like the picture in the recipe.
This is my Cookie Monster Cake, everyone wanted me to make it for my 50th Birthday!
The yummy Cookie Monster Cake!
Knitting cake
Made for my friend Fiona's birthday. Turned out to be the first of many themed cakes for friends and family.
Jaffacake Cake flop
Our one and only attempt at making a giant jaffacake cake.. Never again..
You can share your creations via the blue GuardianWitness buttons or by clicking here.
From membership to GuardianWitness: get more involved with the Guardian
Caroline Bannock
Caroline Bannock from our community team writes:
At the Guardian we have dedicated engagement and community teams who work with our readers, involving them in projects and participatory journalism. Two members – Sarah and Matt – are running the Social today. Our readers’ experience enriches our journalism, and can at times have huge impact. One project in our US office, The Counted, has influenced US justice department policy on the reporting of fatal incidents involving police officers. This could not have been achieved without the help of our readers there. Today we’re asking you to help with reporting on NHS cuts.
Hello everyone. Welcome, once again, to our weekly social where we come together to discuss the week’s news and comment, share ideas and projects etc. We will be updating the blog over the course of the afternoon with journalists’ views (including their favourite articles and videos of the week), and encourage you to share your thoughts with us below the line. This is your space, so get in touch to tell us how you want it to evolve (sarah.marsh@theguardian.com). Lots of great stuff lined up today, look forward to getting started.
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