BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[PurplePenguin]

I'm not going to waste braincells on reading any B de Pf Johnson, so I'll let others be the judge of whether he's a good writer.

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So better than the parody?

 

[briantrumpet]

So better than the parody?

No idea, though the parody does seem to pick up the chaos and narcissism of BdPJ well, which is why I liked it. I don't imagine his prose is much better organised than his speeches, which, from what I've read, are little better organised than his hair.

 

[All uphill]

I can't remember who reminded us here that a dictionary is descriptive not prescriptive. The same goes for grammatical rules, imo.

We no longer revere people with 'cut glass' accents; maybe it's time for this old pedant to be less stuffy about grammatical niceties. Easy to say, difficult to do, I find.

 

[briantrumpet]

I'm very intolerant of punctuation snobs who laugh at things like "We sell pizza's". There's usually some commentary around the standards of English "these days" and then, if pushed, the importance of punctuation emphasised by changing commas or worrying about how many horses are in the horse's' field, and finally there is a baffled look when I ask if they were unable to understand "We sell pizzas".

My tolerance varies depending on context.

Obviously there's no punctuation in speech, but speech is a slow way to take in words, and the brain has time to use the context to parse meaning accurately.

In written stuff, if it's just informal stuff, on social media and the like, it doesn't bother me, even if it registers. A bit like my speaking French, as long as the meaning is clear, it's not a problem, and I'll only be pedantic if a person making an error is picking on someone else for making an error. In other words, be tolerant to other non-professional writers who are just trying to communicate stuff.

Professional writers who ought to know different are a whole nother [sic] ballgame. It's their job to write well and stick to conventions, as the conventions are there to allow readers to read speedily and accurately without ambiguity/confusion. Research has been done showing that deviations from standard usage causes the reader to 'stutter' as the brain registers a problem and then checks what was (probably) intended. My experience is that if you politely point out to a professional writer a lapse that they might have made, then they will often appreciate what is in effect free proofreading, and helping them to keep their professional image. In the same way, if I'm doing formal writing, I'm very grateful if someone spots an error and lets me know. I know I'm fair game too, and don't mind teasing if I've lapsed.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Keith Waterhouse is sadly missed.

 

[Ian H]

Its "it's" is.

Reading John Aubrey, 'tis does for it's and he uses a standard possessive its, even back in the 17th C.

 

[icowden]

It should be a possessive "its", not a contraction of "it is". A good way to check is to substitute "his" and "it is" into where the its/it"s is, and then it becomes obvious which is correct.

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I was looking at the wrong "it's"

 

[Ian H]

I was looking at the wrong "it's"

Oo-er, missus.

 

[briantrumpet]

I was looking at the wrong "it's"

I had a feeling you might have been, hence my screenshot.

 

[icowden]

Oo-er, missus.

That's an awful lot of "it's"

(to paraphrase...)

 

[briantrumpet]

Breaking (Telegraph) news!!!

 

[briantrumpet]

Lewis Goodall talking to Ken Clarke. Gotta be worth a listen. Sanguine. Likes jazz, football and cricket. And does politics thoughtfully. Still sharp.


View: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ken-clarke-on-the-budget-from-hell/id1640878689?i=1000737828173

 

[briantrumpet]

Haha. Had to laugh at Clarke's dig at Cameron, saying that he staked the UK's membership of the EU on an "opinion poll", and when Goodall said it was a referendum, Clarke fired back "that what he called it".

 

[icowden]

Breaking (Telegraph) news!!!

Sometime it is so hard to work out whether something is real or satire.