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tripps
Senior Member


1404 Posts
Posted -  24/02/2011  :  12:29
I've been thinking of starting this topic for a while.  Let's see how it goes....

Asked if he was in charge of the nation, in the absence of the Prime Minister -
Mr Clegg told Metro: ‘Yeah, I suppose I am. I forgot about that.



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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 07/08/2011 : 05:09
Hee Hee Cloggy, ain't it always the same, it's the rich what gets the money and the poor what gets the blame. See this LINK for the lyric of 'She was poor but she was honest'.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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tripps
Senior Member


1404 Posts
Posted - 09/08/2011 : 16:01
Sign next to a (trashed)  ATM machine on the floor in London today......

"FREE CASH WITHDRAWALS"   


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 10/08/2011 : 05:41
Fifty years ago the Post Office were running a campaign, 'Somewhere someone wants a letter'

Graffiti on wall where a condom machine had been ripped off and stolen at a transport cafe in the Midlands. 'Somewhere, someone got a letter'.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 10/08/2011 : 09:49
Lynne Truss puzzled by the following sign (note lack of apostrophe):

"Residents refuse to go in bin"


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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 10/08/2011 : 19:43
Someone writing in one of the papers about stock market panic:
"The stock market predicted 9 out of 5 of the last crashes"


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 07:12
I'm puzzled also. Where would you put an apostrophe in that? What does it mean anyway?


Stanley Challenger Graham




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tripps
Senior Member


1404 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 09:02
I was  thinking of starting a "Pedants' Corner"  thread. I think there is a need.  The apostrophe would go after the s in residents indication the bin was for the refuse of more than one resident.  Recently I've noted  mute used for moot,  elude used for allude, and only today - phased used for fazed.  (To disrupt the composure of; disconcert)
But no one loves a Peter Perfect -  so I didn't. It would be a hostage to fortune!
I think this comes under Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns ".  If you've never come across it before how would you know it was wrong?


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wendyf
Senior Member


1439 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 09:11
I just thought the residents were sensibly refusing to go in the bin.


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 09:16
I suppose so but it's not clear and I still can't see where an apostrophe would be used.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 10:02
Sorry to cause you so much grief! The apostrophe, as Tripps rightly points out should go as shown here:
"Residents' refuse to go in bin"

The sign was intended to tell residents that they must put their refuse in the waste bin provided, therefore an apostrophe was needed after the `s' in residents to make it possessive plural. Otherwise the noun `refuse' can be read as the verb `to refuse'. She related a number of other signs which, to people like Lynne Truss and myself, are ambibguous especially when you are concentrating on driving: e.g. "Children go slow" to me first seems to be a statement that children walk slowly, then it's an instruction telling children to go slowly, and finally I realise that they want *me* to go slowly so I don't run down any children. Why not simply: "Children crossing road. Drive slowly."?


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Callunna
Revolving Grey Blob


3044 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 10:14
quote:
tripps wrote:
I was  thinking of starting a "Pedants' Corner"  thread. I think there is a need.  The apostrophe would go after the s in residents indication the bin was for the refuse of more than one resident.  Recently I've noted  mute used for moot,  elude used for allude, and only today - phased used for fazed.  (To disrupt the composure of; disconcert)
But no one loves a Peter Perfect -  so I didn't. It would be a hostage to fortune!
I think this comes under Donald Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns ".  If you've never come across it before how would you know it was wrong?

Tripps - I have fallen in love with you.

I am often ridiculed for my grammatical beliefs (what exactly IS wrong with correcting your partner's shopping list?)

It's wonderful to know there are others to whom (OMG, is that correct?) spelling and grammar is still important.

And here's another chance to display the only joke I manage to remember and get the correct punchline:

Q. Who led the Pedants' Revolution? 

A. Which Tyler. 


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tripps
Senior Member


1404 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 12:11
"spelling and grammar is still important."

Might that be   ' are still important'  ?        Smile     Takes cover.......


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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 12:45
Tripps, I bet she gets out of that one by claiming she was treating `spelling and grammar' as one item! It does sound like we need a Pedants Corner thread, but we've got to be careful - there are those out there who will think the word pedant is synonymous with paedophile (remember the poor paedriatrician who was hounded out of somewhere lie Guildford? Roosevelt got it wrong when he said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, it should have been `the only thing we have to fear is ignorance). Now, I must just chek my speling befor I post this...


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Callunna
Revolving Grey Blob


3044 Posts
Posted - 11/08/2011 : 17:17
Jolly good, Tripps and Tizer. You both get a bronze star.

Not a gold one though, because 'spelling and grammar' CAN be a singular subject (I learned from the chief sub of a national newspaper so I'm fairly confident of my ground here).

We pedants could spend hours debating it. 

Or should that be 'us pedants'...? 


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 12/08/2011 : 05:20
In that case the Truss sentence was ambiguous, 'Bin' could have been being used in the colloqial sense of detention or gaol and in that case makes sense and doesn't need an apostrophe. Therefore the lack of an apostrophe can be neither right or wrong. Once it is made clear that 'refuse' referred to trash it makes sense. The problem was that it was a badly constructed sentence. (I must get out more.....)

 


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