|
Post by Twoddle on Jun 5, 2019 17:30:13 GMT
OK, you've forced my hand. In a Basque town in Spain the town council decided to build a dance hall for its citizens to use. Unfortunately the town wasn't very well off and the council was forced to cut corners and to build the dance hall with only one external door. During the inaugural evening the hall was packed to the rafters but, as the townsfolk were happily bopping away, a fire broke out, and in the ensuing panic many were crushed or burned to death while trying to leave the building through the sole door.
The moral of this is that you shouldn't put all your Basques in one exit.
I love puns, I do.
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on Jun 5, 2019 17:34:18 GMT
In most of the current photos I've seen of HMQEII with Trump, the latter towers over Mrs Windsor by almost double her height. I know that Betty's short (and getting shorter with her stoop), but were the photographers trying to make a point with such juxtapositions? The robust bully and the delicate old lady? The new king of the world being superior to the queen of diminished dominion? Twod: You have a joke about the Basques; I have one (a funny tale, rather) about the Queen. At a royal garden party a guest is introduced to HM, who asked the fellow what he "did". The chappy responded that he was a photographer.
[Now read this with the proper royal accent / intonation]:
"Oh!" ejaculated HM. "How interesting. I have a brother-in-law who is a photographer."
Her guest replied: "Oh! How interesting. I have a brother-in-law who is a queen."
HM was reported to be less than amused.As you were. I doubt Her Maj understood the joke. (Made all the more pertinent by the Queen's brother-in-law being bi, allegedly).
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on Jun 5, 2019 21:37:00 GMT
Is "Climate-change denying" an adjective? Perhaps it's a gerund.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jun 7, 2019 22:44:38 GMT
Is "Climate-change denying" an adjective? Perhaps it's a gerund. A climate-change-denying politician … Yes, a compound adjectival modifier (but note my insertion of an extra hyphen). Still thinking about the possibility it could be a gerund.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jun 7, 2019 22:47:30 GMT
Barngarla language revival thanks to missionary’s dictionary.One of Australia’s many “dead” Indigenous languages is seeing a revival thanks to a dictionary compiled in 1844 by a Lutheran missionary. The missionary’s aim was to convert Aboriginal folk to Christianity – in which he largely failed (thank the gods). Now his dictionary is being used to bring the Barngarla language back to life. I suppose missionaries can be useful – just occasionally. About the only significant aspect I've remembered of my (misguided youth) theological training is the so-called missionary position – and even that's over-rated. ;-)
|
|
|
Post by Little Jack Horner on Jun 8, 2019 11:51:17 GMT
I sent an e-mail to a local amateur dramatic society in which I praised their current production. I received a reply which, in part, said:
“I will pass on your email to the cast and crew - they also will be pleased you enjoyed the show sufficiently to put pen to paper.”
Pen to paper? I am afraid I wouldn't have taken the trouble to write and post a letter but I still loved the idea of putting pen to paper when sending an e-mail — so much more attractive and so much more pleasing than putting finger to virtual keyboard.
It recalled to mind that Finnish schools apparently no longer teach cursive handwriting, having moved to touch typing instead. But when was the last time you saw a typewriter outside a collection of historical artefacts? Probably, most are now stored in the loft or junk room. No doubt, of course, some contributors to this forum still use their mechanical machines but I can comfortably recall seeing my first electric typewriter with a daisy-wheel printer.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jun 8, 2019 11:59:10 GMT
In the late '70s I had an IBM Selectric ("golf ball") typewriter, and in the early '80s used an extended version of the same machine (extended keyboard, layout and memory functions) for producing newspaper galleys. Wonderful machines. My next typewriter was of the daisy-wheel variety, though I don't recall the make.
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on Jun 8, 2019 22:55:47 GMT
I recall the evolution of the typewriter from the viewpoint of my employment by five successive local-authorities. When I started work in 1971 they were mechanical devices, with one of our typists being so heavy on the keys that we could see daylight through her full stops. It wasn't until my third or fourth local-authority - around the late seventies or early eighties - that I saw electric typewriters in use; then there was a brief period when machines were used that included small LCD screens and correction ribbons that allowed the typists to backtrack on what they'd already typed and to amend errors without plastering the page with correction fluid. Those were followed fairly swiftly by green-screened word processors, and finally by the marvel of desktop computers with "wysiwyg" ("what you see is what you get") word processing of the kind now employed universally.
My former colleagues tell me that Microsoft Office for businesses (Word and Excel) is now so expensive that it's been dumped in favour of other wonder-software and tablets, with the letters and records that they produce being uploaded directly into the æther, and with paper being largely redundant except when writing to recipients who don't have e-mail. I'm so glad I've retired.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jun 9, 2019 1:18:21 GMT
I frequently grumble about the expression for free; now I have an even bigger grumble over something I heard this morning: for pretty cheap. Aarrgghh!
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on Jun 9, 2019 21:19:35 GMT
Is there a word that means "Stating the bl****ng obvious"? On the BBC News app on my 'phone I've just read the headline, "Lightning strike death was 'freak accident'". As opposed to the more usual deliberate lightning-strikes, perhaps?
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jun 11, 2019 4:40:00 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Dave Miller on Jun 11, 2019 7:10:10 GMT
I use far too many exclamation marks when writing for the monthly car-club magazine I produce. So I write, then go back and prune. I sympathise, then, with the author here, though I don’t find my actions “exhausting”.
|
|
|
Post by Verbivore on Jun 11, 2019 8:35:20 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Twoddle on Jun 11, 2019 10:14:46 GMT
I don't think I overuse exclamation marks; in fact I'm forever castigating the Contessa for doing so. "That's not an exclamation, it's just a sentence!", I exclaim, but she ignores my pleas entirely.
She also uses multiple exclamation marks where only one, or even none, is appropriate. "Looking forward to seeing you!!", she writes, as I grind my teeth in frustration and try unsuccessfully to explain that multiple exclamation marks mean no more than the single one that was unnecessary anyway.
|
|
|
Post by Little Jack Horner on Jun 11, 2019 11:41:10 GMT
¡Hola! Of course, the Spanish go to the extent of alerting one to an exclamation by using an inverted exclamation mark before a sentence that ends in one. I have never seen multiple exclamation marks in Spanish writing.
|
|