Tuesday 19 May 2009

Power Your Car With an Electric Toothbrush!

"South Korea's top technology university has developed a plan to power electric cars through recharging strips embedded in roadways that use a technology to transfer energy found in some electric toothbrushes."

I read just so far, paused, and had visions... I've often mused on the residual dark-energy found in electric toothbrushes,-if you're at all psychic, you can see the crackling field of satanic power that surrounds such a thing. Wise folk, fearing contagion, plague, or being posessed by a demon, shun these frightening devices. I, being braver than many, simply wear an amulet, made by the wise old lady who lives in the hovel in the woods. And use my buzzy-brush without fear.

It seems that, protected by my amulet, I could collect dozens of electric toothbrushes, rip out my diesel turbo engine, and stuff a bundle of buzzing gum stimulators in its place. NOOOOO!!! ladies, ladies, TOOTHBRUSHES only!...... Well, obviously a gearbox redesign might be needed, in order to translate buzz into forward motion.

Maybe I should read the rest of the article.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25498972-5014239,00.html

Sigh. How disappointing. A more honest journalist would simply have said "induction charging". Yes, toothbrushes do use it, and so do a lot of other things.
However, the sentence structure used is clumsy, a confusion between subject and predicate. My old schoolteacher, Miss Carter, would have rapped my knuckles for writing such a confused sentence. When I was eight. Why is it that journalists are not ALL required to be literate?

p.s. I'm not a journalist. my use of English may often be open to criticism. I will rarely feel guilty if I transgress.