Is this thread going to contain too much pedantry

[dellzeqq]

American English often harks back to an earlier time, which fact can be used by either side in this discussion hence it is of little value.

wise words, TMN, wise words. And who was it who said that 'English is a joint stock language in which the Americans have most of the shares'?

 

[dellzeqq]

Imagine the scene, a stonemasons' workshop in the mid 19th century, a mason sits alone in the corner, his head in his hands, gently sobbing to himself, other masons wander over, look at the block of limestone on his bench and start laughing.
Enter the foreman stonemason:
FS, Reet lad, I've had a crack wi't'bosses, they say t' U 'll have to stay out if there's no room for it. We'll mek up some radged story about it being a local tradition
Mason, Thank you sir.
FS, But Lady Barrow says she won't be doing with her husband being called Sid, you get busy mekking an R, apprentice Tom'll start chipping that D off.
And another thing, I've asked everyone I could find, none of them are sure if there is a difference between T'Baronets badge and t'Ulster red hand, so we'll just mek do with t'drawing we've gotten.


Actually it was damaged in a lightning storm.

mid-nineteenth century stonemasons were a rebellious lot. The client who complained about his likeness would have been well advised to carry an umbrella if the masons were up on the scaffolding. O'Shea and Whelan were the champion japesters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O'Shea_and_Whelan

 

[rich p]

Phewist = a person who carps on about few and less. Oh hang on, I could be one of those ...

Carpeter - someone who complains about floorcoverings.

 

[coffeejo]

For effective communication, puntuation is vital.

 

[swee'pea99]

For effective communication, puntuation is vital.

How about spelling?

 

[lulubel]

E-books do spoil and lose some of the feeling about passing on books in their physical form to someone else.

But they improve on the feeling of having to hold a heavy book when you're trying to read in bed, and they're much lighter to carry round with you, so you can read while you're standing in the queue at the post office or the bank.

I hated the idea of ebooks until I was given a Kindle. I've owned it for over two years now, and I haven't read a hard copy book in that time. I even paid about £10 to buy a digital copy of a book that's sitting on my bookshelves in hardback because I wanted to re-read it and couldn't be bothered to carry the book around.

I'll always have bookshelves full of books because I like what they say about you to anyone who comes to your home and looks at them, but I don't think any of the hard copies on the bookshelves will have actually been read.

 

[vernon]

I'll always have bookshelves full of books because I like what they say about you to anyone who comes to your home and looks at them, but I don't think any of the hard copies on the bookshelves will have actually been read.

I buy books for personal enjoyment.

If anyone tried to make sense of what's on my shelves then good luck to them. I've not got a toss to give for any interpretation of my reading material.

 

[Thomk]

My spelling is dab. Some dabass called me lysdexic the other bay the cheeky dugger.

 

[Arch]

How about spelling?

I think there was a joke in there, regarding the importance of puns....

 

[lulubel]

I buy books for personal enjoyment.

If anyone tried to make sense of what's on my shelves then good luck to them. I've not got a toss to give for any interpretation of my reading material.

Just because you don't give a toss doesn't mean people won't interpret it

I buy books for personal enjoyment too, and also for reference purposes.

However, everything you do, say, buy, wear and use says something about you to other people, who have all been learning from birth to pick up subtle clues from the behaviour of others. My books say things about me. For example:

• My books about environmental issues say I'm concerned about the environment
• My books about astrology, past lives and paganism say I'm interested in "New Age" subjects
• My collection of old and classic children's novels says I'm a collector (since I don't have children)
• My language reference books and dictionaries say I love language
• My collection of psychology and sociology text books says I'm interested in how people and societies work

None of these are things that tend to come up naturally in conversation, so most people who think they know me don't know very much at all about the things that are important to me. When I invite someone into my home, it's my signal that I'd like to get to know them better, and my books are there to give them a head start on me, and hopefully to provide a starting point for lots of interesting conversations.

All the books on my bookshelves are books I've read and found interesting (although I might have read them on my Kindle rather than in hard copy). The books on my Kindle are mostly a random collection of novels that I've enjoyed because I like the writer's style. If a book is well written, it doesn't matter to me what genre it is. There are also quite a lot of books that I bought and downloaded when they were on offer, but haven't read yet.

 

[Over The Hill]

You ain't nothin but a hound dog
Cryin all the time.
Well, you aint never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine.

I think in this the subject is a hound dog even though the singer say he is anything else, he has not caught a rabbit even though the singer states that he has never had an unsuccesful rabbit hunt and he is not the singer's friend even though he says he is.

As the song and the annoying American way of ignoring the double negative has been around for sixty years I am learning to live with it.

 

[Archie_tect]

Quite literally hilarious.

Ad, you've used that several times before... it doesn't improve.

 

[coffeejo]

How about spelling?

I think there was a joke in there, regarding the importance of puns....

Indeed. If one cannot play with one's words when one is making a play on words, then we might as well abandon the entire system and return to smoke signals and hieroglyphs.

 

[Archie_tect]

I'm not sending smoke signals, my blanket's on fire.

 

[coffeejo]