Irony, right.
Yebbut the point is, some broadcasters talk down to their supposed audience, which can be offensively patronising and not "matey" at all.
IMO.
Youch.... irony.... hardly matey. How was the tooth doc? Did he (she) give you a good report? And didn't you like how I rhymed dentist with adventist?
... still pleased with self. Where's Clary?
My Mother Night was a bust. I am surrounded by whimperers who cannot stay up late and who blanch at rain and wind.
Piffka wrote:Youch.... irony.... hardly matey. How was the tooth doc? Did he (she) give you a good report? And didn't you like how I rhymed dentist with adventist?
... still pleased with self. Where's Clary?
My Mother Night was a bust. I am surrounded by whimperers who cannot stay up late and who blanch at rain and wind.
Yo, Piffie
Visit to dentist was for running repairs, sad to say...I'm to have three new crowns in the new year. That has a kind if a Xmas ring about it, wouldn't you say? Three kings bearing gold, Novocaine and myrrh.
Your rhyming was a blast.
Clary gone I think. She was going to Africa to be with her sons for Crimbo, but there are problems with aircraft leaving the UK at the moment. But she'll get there I'm sure.
Chortle, from The Guardian financial pages today:
Pedants' revolt
It must be the season of goodwill: Tesco is offering refunds for its poor grammar.
Last week, you may remember, this column reported the supermarket chain's extraordinary explanation of why the signs above some of its check-outs say "ten items or less." Good English, most of us still think, demands "ten items or fewer" but Tesco said it felt free to use its wording because its customers "feel more comfortable" with it.
Many readers responded. Most agreed that the comfort of Tesco's shoppers is irrelevant; the language can't be tweaked so easily. Marks & Spencer's adoption a few years ago of "... or fewer" was widely applauded by the purists.
One correspondent had something more shocking to report. She had bought charity Christmas cards at Tesco and found recipients would be offered "seasons greetings" and a "merry christmas." Could the missing apostrophe and lack of a capital "C" be the latest victims of Tesco's mission to make its customers more comfortable?
Thankfully not. "Unfortunately, there may have been a few apostrophes and capital letters missing from your correspondent's Christmas cards," explained a Tesco spokesman. "We're happy to exchange or refund any product our customers aren't entirely happy with."
The spokesman even added, in un-Tesco-like manner, a tongue-in-cheek apology for the construction of his last sentence: "Apologies for the dangling preposition."
Who's he calling a pedant?
Three Crowns? It sounds like a pub. Good luck with 'em.
Thanks for the update on Clary. Africa! My, she gets around.
What a state of affairs... Christmas without the capital??? Season's Greetings sans apostrophe!!! Thank heavens there's nothing more earth-shattering to worry about... like wars, pestilence, etc.
And a Cheery Merry Christmas to you! Nothing like a little Scotch and shortbread to improve the temperment. I hope you've got some nearby.
Watching "Mrs Henderson" on BBC TV this evening--did anyone else see it?(the story of the Windmill Theatre)...I saw something which jarred.
On the credits at the beginning, there was the declaration:
"Based on true events"
That seem a nonsense to me. You can have an actual event, or a non-event, but an event cannot be said to be true or false.
So I phoned up my brother and complained. His company was partly responsible for the making of the film.
Hello there, happy campers, back from Africa - Tunisia which is really just a Mediterranean country, not true Africa in my book. It was great!
According to my lads, Mrs Henderson was worth watching, but I was out boozing with friends... the generations have switched places. Like the Tesco story.
McTag wrote:Irony, right.
Yebbut the point is, some broadcasters talk down to their supposed audience, which can be offensively patronising and not "matey" at all.
IMO.
When speaking to infants, if you just babble "baby-talk" at them, cooing and making jibberish sounds, they seem to quickly lose interest.
However, i found many, many years ago that i could hold an infant spellbound by speaking to them as i would to an adult--it is only necessary to assume imaginary remarks and retorts on their part. They will be fascinated, and usually delighted (if you have not already frightened them by being a sudden and unexpected lout rudely inserted into their field of vision). In fact, if carried on for even a few minutes, i find that they attempt to "talk" to you, gabbling and laughing, and apparently delighted that their poor efforts seem to make sense to you.
No one likes to "talked down to," and i have come to associate the complaint about someone being a "know it all" because of the language they use to be a defense mechanism by someone who is intimidated.
Setanta,
I am surprised. You do speak English using common words. I thought you didn't like people. You like dogs and babies. Happy New Year again. I do say that again with sincerity.
tryingtohelp wrote:Setanta,
I am surprised. You do speak English using common words. I thought you didn't like people. You like dogs and babies. Happy New Year again. I do say that again with sincerity.
Surprising. Set is one of nature's gentlefolk.
I saw some nice quotaions about dogs recently, I'll see if I can find them.
For dog lovers and philosophers
There is more truth than poetry in some of the sayings
The reason a dog has so many fr iends is that he wags his tail instead of his tongue.
-Anonymous
Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
-Ann Landers
If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.
-Will Rogers
There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.
-Ben Williams
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
-Josh Billings
The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
-A n dy Rooney
We give dogs time we can spare, space we can spare and love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made.
-M. Acklam
Dogs love their friends and bite their enemies, quite unlike people,
who are incapable of pure love and always have to mix love and hate.
-Sigmund Freud
I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult.
-Rita &nb sp;Rudner
A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.
-Robert Benchley
Anybody who doesn't know what soap tastes like never washed a dog.
-Franklin P. Jones
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
-James Thurber
If your dog is fat, you aren't getting enough exercise
-Unknown
My dog is worried about the economy because Alpo is up to $3.00 a can. That's almost $21.00 in dog money!
-Joe Weinstein
Ever consider what our dogs must think of us? I mean, here we come from a grocery with the most amazing haul, chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!
-Anne &nbs p; &nb sp;Tyler
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
-Mark Twain
You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says,
'Wow, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'
- Dave Barry
Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.
-Roger Caras
If you think dogs can't count, try putting three dog biscuits in your pocket and then give him only two of them.
-Phil Pastoret
My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog thinks I am.
A kiddly tivy too, wouldn't you?
A kiddly divy too, yes, but I've changed it.
Well I think I'm bright but I know I'm not gay.
Happy Hogfest to you and yours!!
McTag wrote:Watching "Mrs Henderson" on BBC TV this evening--did anyone else see it?(the story of the Windmill Theatre)...I saw something which jarred.
On the credits at the beginning, there was the declaration:
"Based on true events"
That seem a nonsense to me. You can have an actual event, or a non-event, but an event cannot be said to be true or false.
So I phoned up my brother and complained. His company was partly responsible for the making of the film.
No-one disagrees? I must be right then!
Hooray for me!
I think you are right, but I wouldn't have spotted it myself.
"True events" and "15 items or less"... honestly, they don't bother me anymore. What was that film with Arnold Schwarzenegger - True Lies? (shudder)
It is the use and lack of apostrophes that grates my nutmeg. If anything, the grocery line sign "15 or less" reminds me of a petty criminal saying, "Buy this or else" and thus I snicker to myself while haunting the aisles of Safeway and QFC, hunting & gathering for the family.
I loved your doggy-isms, McTag. A friend has a bumper sticker slightly different from the last one in/on* your list. I like her version better because of the dog-god coincidence. What do you think?
Dear God, please make me the person my dog thinks I am.
That one from Phil Pastoret works for horses, too.
*in or on, if you're British?
Works for me.
Missing apostrophes: Lynn Truss had a wee article in the paper at the weekend where among other things she mentioned the newspaper headline:
Residents Refuse To Go In Bins
I, too, would refuse to go in a bin--after all, who would want to reside in a place without a WC?
