|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 19, 2019 8:03:13 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 20, 2019 0:32:58 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 20, 2019 12:02:14 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 24, 2019 3:56:19 GMT
I'm literally born again …Harrumph! I want to ask Mr Glasheen if he literally crawled back into his mother’s womb before again descending the birth canal.
|
|
|
Post by Little Jack Horner on Jul 26, 2019 14:08:13 GMT
Is it worth reporting that I have just seen an advertisement for a play “based on a true fantasy” ⁉️
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 26, 2019 21:18:21 GMT
Is it worth reporting that I have just seen an advertisement for a play “based on a true fantasy” ⁉️ An example of promotional hyperbole? Or just rubbish? Perhaps it's true that someone entertained the fantasy, but a fantasy it remains.
|
|
|
Post by Little Jack Horner on Jul 27, 2019 19:38:23 GMT
Have a look here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49137619I have some sympathy with avoiding “got” as an essay at school was returned to me with the word underlined and with the notation, “inelegant language”. More than sixty years on, I still feel guilty when I notice I have used the word.
|
|
|
Post by Dave Miller on Jul 27, 2019 21:12:31 GMT
I’d read that article and found it faintly ridiculous.
I can see what he’s trying to avoid, in “banning” those words, but the guidance is far too strict and simple. There are occasions when “equal” will be just the right word and any attempt at a synonym laughable: equal rights, for example, are not ‘rights of identical value’.
Esquire may be the traditional way to write down the formal name of a non-titled MP, but “all” non-titled males?
The requirement for imperial units is just silly. I was taught in metric units while still at school - and I’m 65. Apart from some jingoistic reference to a long-gone era, what good would it serve?
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 27, 2019 21:40:27 GMT
I find the fellow risible, but that's a mild adjective for any politician. People are elected to govern, then avoid that responsibility by dishing up trivia such as style guides. In Oz our pollies are too fond of their TWSs (three-word slogans), which they substitute for governance.
There are some of Rees-Mogg's dicta that I like, but really, imperial measures? Perhaps the dinosaur is no longer fit for purpose.
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on Jul 27, 2019 22:10:27 GMT
Rees-Mogg is frequently referred to as the "Member of Parliament for the Eighteenth Century".
I agree with LJH about "got", though. I find it much more pleasant to hear or read, "I have a … " than, "I've got a … ".
I see Rees-Mogg's point to an extent. This morning I received an official letter from the county council of these parts regarding some volunteering work that I undertake. It wished me well in my "volunteering journey" (I haven't planned a journey) and,* in the event of my details changing, it encouraged me to "let Liam or I know". I do feel that communications from official bodies should avoid trendy jargon and use correct grammar.
*Oh no, I used a comma after "and"! It's the tumbril for me.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 27, 2019 22:12:12 GMT
[…] I do feel that communications from official bodies should avoid trendy jargon and use correct grammar. Hit them over the head with Gowers's Complete Plain Words.
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on Jul 27, 2019 22:25:35 GMT
Jacob Rees-Mogg comes from a wealthy and ultra-posh family, and is married to a woman from an even wealthier and posher one. When he was door-to-door canvassing to become an MP for the first time, the journalists who were following him noticed that he was being assisted by an unknown woman who turned out be his family's nanny. In response to the journos' ribbing regarding this extraordinary state of affairs, he's alleged to have said something along the lines of, "I don't understand why you're so surprised. You wouldn't make a fuss if my valet were assisting me, would you?".
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 27, 2019 22:31:19 GMT
Jacob Rees-Mogg comes from a wealthy and ultra-posh family, and is married to a woman from an even wealthier and posher one. […] A social climber using other people as rungs in the ladder perhaps? I wonder if the wife's parents were concerned that she was marrying below her station. I really must tear myself away from the Mac and set about reassembling my car (complete nuts-and-bolts restoration for the minutiae obsessed).
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on Jul 27, 2019 22:40:06 GMT
A social climber using other people as rungs in the ladder perhaps? I wonder if the wife's parents were concerned that she was marrying below her station. Does owning £55 million and marrying Helena Anne Beatrix Wentworth Fitzwilliam de Chair (the only child of Somerset de Chair and his fourth wife Lady Juliet Tadgell), and increasing one's assets to around £150 million in the process, count as social climbing, do you think?
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jul 28, 2019 9:33:23 GMT
A social climber using other people as rungs in the ladder perhaps? I wonder if the wife's parents were concerned that she was marrying below her station. Does owning £55 million and marrying Helena Anne Beatrix Wentworth Fitzwilliam de Chair (the only child of Somerset de Chair and his fourth wife Lady Juliet Tadgell), and increasing one's assets to around £150 million in the process, count as social climbing, do you think? Oh not at all, Twod. I shouldn't wish to disparage Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esq., MP more than he warrants, so perhaps I'll leave it at "entitled snotty rich twat". What happened to Lady Juliet's three predecessors? Did de Chair, Esq. bump them off or was he just impossible to live with? Entitled randy rich twat, perhaps? If being so superior is what floats such folks' boats, who be I to judge? (My attitude couldn't possibly be attributed to my Fourth Fleet convict ancestry. Ahem.)
|
|