Thursday, May 24, 2012

Why all this anker?

It's been ages and ages since we cavorted merrily together with Ceri Radford on the DT. Alas, when Ceri stopped writing about Constance Harding, I retreated to the Finance Section.

Here's a little MyT blog about what I found in the Finance Section....
:-)

--------

The character string anker has become popular in comments that appear on the main Telegraph website. In fact, anker appears most frequently in discussions about the Financial Crisis.

It is noticeable that people who use anker in their comments like to draw attention to what they are saying, by prefacing the string with an asterisk so that it appears as *anker.

There are also variations of *anker, notably the plural form *ankers and the abbreviated form *ank. For added emphasis, these variations are often followed by an exclamation mark, as in *ankers!

Now you may well be puzzled by all this.
But I truly believe I'm beginning to see the light.
The more I see *anker in DT comments, the more I think of it as a canker.

What's your opinion?

:-)

9 comments:

Expat said...

Hmmm...well, it could possibly be banker, since it's the financial section. Or danker, in reference to the economy. Or tanker, in reference to Facebook stock after the IPO. But on the whole I think it's a lot more fundamental than that. One has visions of a lonely banker, reflecting on the economy and crying over the drop in value of the Facebook stock he so greedily bought, all alone in his room, crying into his martini and consoling himself with an interestingly illustrated magazine and a good...*ank.

Dolores Doolittle said...

Hee Ho, both!
I sometimes find Ceri writing entertaining tv reviews on Telegraph Culture but Oh - how one hankers for those fond days of MyT...

(sorry - feeble brain moves more in the realms of manky cat sank to bottom of tank)

Canary Islander said...

Hello All,

I think that a *ank is an abbreviation for a rotary internal combustion engine in which a curvilinear, triangular, eccentrically pivoted piston rotates in an elliptical chamber, forming three combustion spaces that vary in volume as it turns.

A chap called Felix Wankel invented it, and it became known as the Wankel Engine, and I carefully copied the technical detail from my OED.

I think plagarism is fun. And we are flying back to the UK tomorrow! I'll wave as we pass over the IOW !
:-)

Expat. said...

Wankel, huh? If you say so, but I, with the mind in the gutter, know better.

Have a great flight, and watch out for the wankels at airport security!

Dolores Doolittle said...

We'll be waving jumpingly on top of Culver Cliff, CI - I'm a dazzling six-foot blond with a big red hat. Have joyous times!!

JW10 said...

Hola CI!

Delighted to hear you're perusing business pages. And muchos gracias for the technical data about old Felix and his triangular stroke engine.

I've seen anker prefaced by lots of asterisks on occasions. I read one that was ***** *anker. I could only deduce the writer was alluding to an old Humphrey Bogart film- Casablanker.

Enjoy your trip to the UK. The weather is like Tenerife at the moment.

Canary Islander said...

JW!
Glad you are back! Hope all is well!
Expat left an important message for you which I reproduced in an earlier blog for you.
:-)

Canary Islander said...

Dolores, why do six-foot blonds look amazingly like midgetty non-blonds when viewed from 30,000 feet above?

But I'm annoyed by the big red hat - no view of cleavage! Curses!!!
:-)

Dolores Doolittle said...

CI - 'Oo are you calling "midgetty non-blond"?! What an enormous shame you missed the palpitating voluptuousness...