Schade

'Schade' is a lovely word I learnt in German last night meaning 'shame'. I guess that's where we get 'Schadenfreude' by tying it to 'Freude' which means 'pleasure'.

'Schade' is my state of mind today as I've realised I've been giving the poor people who work for me bad grammatical advice based on a poorly remembered article I read in my communications course last year. I mean, the advice presented my preference as a rule when, in fact, it was only optional.

I remember ten years ago when, as a freshly minted graduate, I had a boss who crossed out all the definite articles in my work because he thought it made it sound more authoritative. I thought it made me sound like we were from Yorkshire, and was highly offended. But I still left them out the next time I wrote something.