Short but sharp(eyed)?

I'm back, from a short cruise with family members to Phuket, Thailand.

I'm one of those folks who must go through the newspapers that piled up, in my case since Monday (13 Dec). And that's what I have mostly been doing since I got back today, so this posting will be short, and touch on three interesting items in the papers.

First off is the word "boilerplate". It was spotted in today's Straits Times (17 Dec) page one lead, "India, China hail ties, sidestep thorny issues". One paragraph said, "Also missing in the communique, analysts noted, were the usual boilerplate references to India's continued commitment to a 'one-China' policy..."

A quick Wikipedia check had this explanation: Boilerplate is any text that is or can be reused in any new contexts or applications without being changed much from the original. So, in this case, it refers to "standard, pre-vetted or perfunctory" references. One should explore this word further, for its origin, other usages, etc.

Next, spotted in Wednesday's ST (15 Dec) is this time warp. The story "Veteran unionist grew up seeing riots in the 60s", on page A12, has these two introductory sentences: "Mr Victor Pang, 64, was the full-time general secretary of the Singapore Airport Terminal Services Workers' Union before he retired last month.

"He was born into poverty during the Japanese occupation."

I wonder how many people easily spotted the mistake? I'll come back to it tomorrow.

Last item: There is this story headlined "Drug for premature ejaculation approved" (ST, 17 Dec, page A7). No, there is nothing wrong with it. But I sometimes wish ST would be more tongue in cheek with such stories. I would pun on this one thus: "Drug for men's shortcomings approved".

Ok, groan if you must. Ciao, till my next posting.