Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts

13 August 2015

Add An S To A Plural To Get A Single?

This headline probably makes no sense. Allow me to elaborate. A word that is plural usually ends in an S. What if you added another S to that plural? Would you loop around to get a singular word again? Absurd I know. Until I thought of the word Princes and the extra S version Princess. Plural + S = Singular. My mind is blown. Are there any other words like this is wonder..? Answers on the back of a postcardss please.

13 March 2014

Princes Mall Possesses Party Season - Or Can't Punctuate!

Ah, Princes Mall... That weird "shopping centre" attached to Edinburgh Waverley railway station. It seems in your quest for attention you've grabbed mine but fot the wrong reasons! So you have your own party season and you refer to yourself in the 3rd person now...? What else could you mean in this photo when you write "its party season"...? Unless your marketing team and printers don't understand basic English structures like apostrophe for contractions, such as it is becoming it's. Here's an example for you: It's a shame Princes Mall doesn't use a proof reader.

9 February 2014

Taylor Walker's Classic Pub Food? Classic Mistake!

Sigh. Big companies are still making the same basic mistakes. How can you seriously not employ a proof reader with marketing / quality assurance that has a decent grade at GCSE English?

So Taylor Walker pubs have "classic pub food" do they? Well, as the possessive apostrophe doesn't exist in the third person generic, their follow up line must mean "at it is best!". Unsurprisingly that doesn't get my taste buds tingling, instead it gets my grammar goat up!

2 November 2012

Have Brackets Killed The Oxford Comma?

Just like Video Killed The Radio Star, it seems to me that Brackets have killed the Oxford comma.  Now I'm sure some of you will be wondering, "who gives a fuck about and Oxford comma", whilst watching your English dramas...  Well Stephen Colbert cares that's who!  Let me give you an example that is only clear in a world where an Oxford comma exists.  I went on holiday last moth with my parents, Dizzy Gillespie and a French whore.  Now, how many people did I go on holiday with?  If an Oxford comma exists then it was two, my parents who are Dizzy Gillespie and a French whore.  Otherwise I would have written 'my parents, Dizzy Gillespie, and a French whore' - did you notice the Oxford comma after 'Gillespie'?  Clearly that list is of four people.  But in a world of business-speak, which is almost as bad as newspeak, if there was such ambiguity in a sentence then the most common solution would be to use brackets, e.g. can you book a table for lunch for the two tech leads (Jane and Simon).  And if you don't even revert to using brackets to avoid the ambiguity then maybe you won't keep your business role for much longerer...

14 July 2010

My First Official New Word: Double-Wicking

Yes I know it sounds obscene, but here's its official meaning / definition:
Double-Wicking - verb (only used in Present Perfect Continuous tense)
To burn the candle at both ends, e.g. I've been double-wicking a lot recently

In a moment of creativity it came to me and I now submit it to the ages as my first official* word.  Believe it or not but I'm hot on your heels Colbert...

* = Well, my first public word.  Like most people there are dozens of words I've created or altered in a unique language known only to me and my (at the time) better half.  You know if anyone ever actually makes a physical, hand-stitched version of 'Your Language' to English dictionary then they should probably be crowned the Most Romantic Man Alive...  Excellent, I now have a title to my collection and another thing to chase Colbert with!