They've corrected it.

Our (free) local paper again ...

Mrs X, of whose company Allders own's more than ?20,000 ....

Actually what they are trying to say is that Mrs X's company is owed more than ?20.000 by Allders.

I give up!

choose, surely?

Yes, indeed! Oops.

Oh...? Tell me more!

Round here, it's pronounced bowkay!

From our local residents' magazine - editor's column..

'...thank you to all of you who answered my please for drawings...'

New owners or our local Fish and Chip shop. Sign says says they sell Tarter Sauce !

Evidently acidulated.

Is anyone else distressed by the apparent demise of the word "led"? Since the advent of spell checkers, the past participle of "lead" seems to have changed to "lead". It's appearing all over the place.

Which reminds me that fewer and fewer people use the word "its" to indicate possession - that naughty apostrophe will keep creeping in! Is there any point in trying to stem the tide of change?

My hunch is that this is a confusion with "read" which doesn't change its spelling between infinitive and past participle. I think there's a similar confusion with "choose" and "loose" (when people actually mean to write "lose").

Indeed. The last time I saw several instances of this mistake was - ironically - in a post bemoaning declining standards of grammar and spelling.

Another one is in sentences such as "in a week's time" where the apostrophe is missed out half the time.

Young woman bitterly complaining that it's SO difficult for young people to get interviews these days . . . shows me her job application letter :

" . . . in June 2002 I past 8 GSCEs . . . "

Including English, presumably . . . .

I still can't get my head around this one. I can't separate the French and the English versions.

OK...bouquet...okay...bowquet....m'suis perdu...

Spotted on facebook today: "Just had my photo taken with Justin Lee Collin's."

It should be boo-kay. Boo as in booze, not bo as in bonus. Regardless of what you hear "some people" say. Some people also say Nucular and perculator and sikth.

I think Freda probably knows how it's pronounced.

Sorry linda.ff, there isn't a 'should' here, if there was, we might as well say that all British accents say certain words wrongly. I say 'bow-kay' (I'd say I have a fairly obvious South London/Estuary English accent), does that mean I don't speak properly?

I agree.
And, interestingly, when I say the word in French as part of a sentence I say it with the French pronunciation ('not only the 'boo' but also the 'kay' a lot shorter and more clipped than the actual word 'Kay', for instance) but when I use it in English I saw 'bow-kay' (as in violin bow, not as in to bow before the king) because, for better or worse, that's the way I learnt it in English as a kid.

There are tons of foreign words that we've taken into English but that we do not pronounce as they are in the native language.
And that's leaving aside simple regional or national differences in pronouncing the same actual English word.


PS My post has just crossed with Aquarelle's (another UK person living in France) and seemingly we are both on the same wave length !
And, yes, 'bunch' is good - I do rather like 'posy' too but I guess that's a lot smaller (and is alos something to do with my passion for Noel Streatfield as a kid . . .)

In England I would say "bow-kay". In France I would pronounce as the French do - "bookay"

I don't think there is any right or wrong way to pronounce words that move from one language to another because although they may use the same alphabet the letters and their various combinations don't produce the same sounds. They don't even produce the same sounds from one region to another in some cases.

Anyway, if we are talking about flowers we can always settle for the good old anglo-saxon "bunch".

Ah ok. It's been so long since I heard it in an English context that I just couldn't for the life of me think how it would be pronounced in such a setting! Bizarre are these brains of ours.

Yes Ive always pronounced as though it were a french word, boo-kay.

The new owners of our local 'chippy' have on thier menu sign. 'Tarter sauce'

Yes, terribly distressed about 'led' and 'lose'; 'chose' I haven't come across but it's probably a matter of time. And as for 'its' - don't get me started. I don't agree with any argument that these things are too hard to learn - most non-native English speakers get them right so there's no excuse.

Can I throw 'myself' instead of simple old 'me' into the grievance pot?

At the end of the day, it's the old prescription vs description argument. We'll go round in circles until the cows come home on this one.

A sauce which is "more tart" perhaps?

Anyway it's a bit posh for a chippy innit?

Comment seen in Son No.1's school exercise book, in red pen:

"Good spelling and sentances."



I was initially relieved to discover (from Son) that this had been written by a fellow pupil rather than by his teacher....

.... but when I thought about it further, my ire returned and redoubled: what on earth is going on with modern education when teachers have the kids "marking" each other's work in this way?? Talk about the blind leading the blind.... I could understand it if it were simply a question of tick / cross, right / wrong, but this was (or purported to be) qualitative criticism. Sigh!!

Qualitative Criticism??!!!

How depressing....

Bx

Erm - was it something I said? I was trying to think of a succinct way of saying that the teacher was getting kids to provide written feedback and comments on the 'quality' of other kids' work when, frankly, they don't know what they're talking about themselves. What happened to teachers marking written work??

I once overheard a very difficult (but quite amusing) exchange between a New Forest native and a French tourist, who was asking the way to Beaulieu!

Yes, saxophile - I was agreeing with you!

I think I'll go to bed now

Bx

Yes, please do! One of my pet peeves.

Obviously for the more ascerbic clientele



with all of the above.



I can't imagine my English teacher having any truck with that - he was an ex captain of marines. For some reason people didn't argue with him and he never raised his voice.

Teachers are encouraged to let children mark one another's work sometimes - it's called peer review and is supposed to help students understand what good and poor work looks like, thus improving their own efforts. In fact, if the teacher doesn't do this, I believe the Ofsted inspectors give him a black mark.

I don't think it's a regional thing, is it?


Ah, now you've used another well-known bone of contention: fewer.

I have to say that here I tend to be on the side f the anti-pedant. I would use it in the context that you've just used it in, but rarely in any other. In other words, only immediately in front of the noun that it efers to. Blood has been drawn on other forums and discussion goups about "10 items or less"

I'm perfectly happy with "10 items or less". 10 items or fewer sounds fussy and unnatural. "Fewer than" 10 items similarly. Quite happy with "less than". And "less of" - so I might say to a class "Quit a lot of you chose answer A, less of you chose answer B, and even less chose answer C". Less just indicates a smaller number.

Though I find it hard to explain why I feel more comfortable with "fewer books" than "less books" when I'm happier with less in ALL other contexts.

I think it is : my way of pronouncing it is the most common in this area. Accents/ways of saying words in different places is a fascinating topic - but beyond the scope of this thread.

I think it is too - agree with Barry. I probably would say 'bo-kay' around the south east .

Elsewhere ( and on the continent??) I 'd probably pronounce it differently.

Jeremy Paxman recently corrected an economist on Question Time on the use of less/fewer. She looked rather bemused. I'm not sure his intervention helped her explain the state of the European economy, but I'm with him on this one. Starbucks' napkins are printed with 'less napkins', which is one reason I prefer Costa. 'Less napkin' would not offend.

When teaching English as a foreign language one uses "fewer" for countables and "less " for uncountables; The classic example is "fewer slices of bread" and "less bread".

So I think "10 items or less" has an unconcious reference to a "whole" - that is the whole amount of shopping being presented at the till. "Ten" is felt as a whole unit. You can have less than this unit just as you can have less bread. But strictly speaking the term used should be "fewer" because the items are individually countable.

This raises one of the problems of English in that it is a language which is instinctively created by the speaker as he/she speaks it. It does not obey anything like the set structures of, for example, French. It is a very flexible means of expression. Certain ambiguities depend on how the speaker is thinking and these are sometimes justifiable and somtimes not.

I don't agree with "less of you chose answer B" I think it should be "fewer" because less means a smaller quantity of a whole, not a smaller number. So then I suppose you could argue that you were thinking of the class as a whole unit. So you can probably say "Less of the class...." but if you are addressing a number of children and have that in mind you should really say "fewer."

Having just reread this it makes sense to me but I'm not sure if it will make sens to anyone else - which proves my point about English being spoken from the point of view of the speaker!

Perfect sense to me, and also indicates why your non-native speaking pupils will get it right: you teach them. (Erm, can you explain correct and incorrect use of 'due to'?!)

I agree with Aquarelle as to use of "less" and "fewer".

I think "due to" has now passed into English as an acceptable alternative to "owing to". In my youth, I remember a teacher telling me that "due to" was incorrect because due should be used like an adjective (e.g. one should give due importance to ...), and "owing to" was the correct phrase to explain why something had happened (e.g. owing to a heavy shower, the cricket match was suspended). However, the phrase "due to" is now found in the most erudite of publications, and is actually more common than "owing to". Language is a living thing, and at some point we have to accept that common usage is in the end correct usage.

Oh yes, I'm very well aware of the "rules" about less and fewer. The trouble is that so many people never use fewer AT ALL, that in some circumstances it sounds pedantic, and in all the cases I've cited, that is, except when it immediately precededs the countable noun, it can be seen as ambiguous (less than tn people were in the room could be less-than-ten people, for instance), "less of you" can work if you see the "you" as being one uncountable whole. Fewer does tend to sound very stilted in most of these circumstances. I don't give a toss about "correct": I prefer comfortable in these cases - yes, that's regardless of the fact that you would say "many" rather than "much" in some but not all of those cases. !0 Items or less? How much shopping have you got? Ten-items or less shopping?.

No, another one here who uses 'fewer' for countables and 'less' for non-countable things.

Well said, Aquarelle. Very clear - if I may say so!

I agree with you about sentences including numbers, linda.ff. Because we are so used to talking about numbers in a maths context where "less than" is correct, we tend to apply this to any sentence including a number. Hence, I have no objection to "Ten items or less", which my mathematical brain converts to "less than or equal to ten items", and agree that "fewer" would sound pedantic here. I wouldn't use "less" in the context of "you" though; I'd have to say "fewer of you chose.."

For years I have struggled with the current usage of "I" and "me". I still hate book titles such as "The giraffe, the pelly and me", which teach children the incorrect use of "me" - maybe it's just that I had dinned into me as a child that "I" should always be used here. It's interesting that there is a hangover from this in many people's minds; they use "I" whenever it follows someone else, even when they should be using "me", e.g. Sarah gave her father and I a treat.

When did, "It is I" begin to sound pedantic? It's used quite happily in the King James version of the Bible, but I think few writers today would use it unless they wished to indicate that the person speaking was very upper class. "One" has gone the same way, yet it's actually a very useful construct, as one realises when learning French!!

Very often the question of correct/incorrect comes down to the written form, I find. It would be food to remind people once in a while that the written form of a language is only a mere approximation of the spoken language. As far as I'm concerned, if it sounds right, it is right.

Hmmm. But this assumes that the students doing the marking already know what good or bad [let's not mince words here! ] work looks like, which (if this is what the whole exercise is supposed to be teaching them) is rather self-contradictory .... all of which would suggest that the teacher ought to mark it first, and then hand out books at random for said peers to review. However, I'm getting



I was once told (can't remember by whom and whether said source had any real authority) that "due to" could properly be used in a phrase with an attached verb - ie, constructed as follows:

"My train was late. This was due to theft of signalling cables [again]"

but that where there was no attached verb, "owing to" is the correct construction:

"Owing to theft of signalling cables, my train was late [again]"

Fowler's Modern English Usage suggests that this is unduly pedantic and that "due to" will in due course [pun absolutely intended] become as acceptable as "owing to" in the latter context.

I'm confused by this. If the giraffe and the pelly weren't involved you wouldn't name the book "I" or "All about I" - it would simply be called "Me", wouldn't it? As in the 1970s children's programme "You and Me".

I guess it depends whether it's a subject or object pronoun, which is difficult to tell from the context in this case.

It depends on whether you are the subject or the object as to whether you are Me or I.

So "The Giraffe, Pelly and I got on the bus in to town."
Or "The bus carried The Giraffe, Pelly and Me in to town."

Exactly. Which is why I said, "I guess it depends whether it's a subject or object pronoun, which is difficult to tell from the context in this case."

How about "Withnail and I"?

I would disagree with both points of view.

The English language is misused by many sectors of society today. I cannot accept that 'doing it the wrong way' for long enough makes anything right. Innit! LOL

Even BBC Presenters, who at one time provided a benchmark for the correct use of English, now seem to be sinking into the mire of dropped t's and h's, and I suspect have never been taught how to pronounce the word 'either' correctly.

There is also a big difference between spoken and written English, and equally, there are big differences between writing a formal letter, a memo, a book, a magazine article or a newspaper column.

Some of the worst examples of written English that I have seen were authored by individuals who wrote exactly as they spoke, and who could not understand that written and spoken English are different. I am sure that most of us are naturally tolerant of local phrases, (a popular phrase in this area, for example, is 'aam getting wrong' rather than 'I am being being told off'), but such phrases appear out of place in writing; except perhaps in Geordie novels.

I suppose us 'oldies' have an advantage in that we were taught to write letters before there were other means of long distance communication. Long distance telephone calls were very expensive, so it was not unusual to write to somebody we didn't know, and had never spoken to. Letters were therefore very formal, and grammar was usually the best that one could muster. Furthermore, mistakes could not be corrected, and there were no spelling checkers (other than a paper Dictionary), so it was not uncommon to draft important letters on scrap paper several times before writing them out properly on bonded paper.

Oddly enough, whilst I spend much of my time writing on the computer, I find that I am far more likely to miss mistakes on the computer screen than on the printed page. Consequently, I always proof read a printed copy before submitting any report or manuscript.

(Before anyone asks; no, I haven't proof read this post!)

SB

I think this particular book title is rather ambiguous. It's not a complete sentence, so I suppose it could be considered acceptable. As has already been said, it's about whether "me" is the object or subject, and either could be the case here: "The giraffe, the pelly and I went for a walk", or "Someone laughed at the giraffe, the pelly and me". (Take out the giraffe and the pelly, and you wouldn't say "Someone laughed at I" would you?)

For the record, though, I don't think "one" has gone the same way.

I'm in the "fewer" camp too!


....with a fountain pen, in the days when you still got a sheet of blotting paper at the front of your writing pad!