Catalpa Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 Don't you mean you want to be Orac? [;-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 This says it all really.......[;-)]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollocks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Head Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 [quote user="Dick Smith"]Well yes and no. Perhaps not the most pressing thing for us to discuss here, but a very important thing nonetheless, and brought up, and treated, as a joke. However I seriously object to your description of it, and by implication those people who think that a proper use of language is worthwhile. Seriously.[/quote]Dick would you please put that into English I can understand?Thanks, Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Head Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 Not in the slightest Dick, I was a little rude to you a few days back, I was wrong, conceded, apologised and edited accordingly. I simply don't understand much of your 'sous entendu'. I don't really understand why people who are obviously very intelligent and literate debate such small stuff, and it really is small stuff.Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Katie Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 I asked about punctuation and wanted to know. I got the answer. Thank you. However, 'lot's' was a slip. Really very honestly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyC Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 [quote user="Dick Smith"]NO! It isn't <lot's>!Lots is plural.Lot's is something belonging to Lot (possibly a pillar of salt).[/quote]Or, of course, the abbreviated form of "Lot is " or "Lot was" (yes, I know you know that, Dick. It might be news to others.)Why do some people belittle things they don't know or can't do. I wouldn't dream of criticising your carving, Chris, although I can't do it myself. If you're the sort of person who takes a pride in the correct use of language and believe that it matters, you can get a bit cheesed off when others are rude about it. For those of us who are, or were, English teachers this is part of our life's work, same as your carving is to you.Anyway, you teach us how to carve and we'll teach you how to punctuate, there's an offer you can't refuse! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Head Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 If you called my work a load of **** Dick I would want to know why.....you wouldn;t offend me in the slightest, I would desperately want to hear from you what you think I could do to move forward and improve myself. Truth never offended me, I couldn't live or work without truth, I crave the truth and I live my truth every day, on the edge and living the dream...whatever that might be. I so wish I understood more of what clever people like you and Miki are saying but I just dont. My communication is a natural one. I love the power of people but just dont understand the words of folk like you. I want to.Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris pp Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 That'll learn the bleedinn bleeders.Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 So glad I didn't post earlier, I must be one of the worse members ever for dodgey spelling, punctuation and anything else needed to make a piece of writing make sense. I'm hoping this is the reason why hardly anyone replies to my posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Katie Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 No Dick, it isn't a list. Honestly is used as a nouny kind of thing and really and very are used as two adjectives to give it all a bit of umph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 If you really want to, Chris, then there's only one way. Miki and I weren't born with silver spoons (at least I wasn't and from what I know of him he wasn't either). Working class lads given a good basic education which we then used as a basis for a lot of self-learning. I left school with 3 'O' levels...Read a lot, read everything, watch TV documentaries, don't ever assume that you can't understand anything, because you can. Understand anything, I mean. Take every opportunity to expand your knowledge and skills in all areas. (I spent today struggling towards making an Adirondack chair...)In reality most people are defined by barriers they set themselves (I'm teaching now, sorry) and with the right encouragement they can do a LOT more than they think.Last week I sent a group of pupils to a Specialist Schools Trust Young Entrepreneurs day at a local University, Year 9s (14). We were the only inner-city school, the only school without blazers, the only school to send black kids. None of our kids had ever spoken in public before.After a seminar on making a presentation they won not only the Student of the Day, but also the runner-up. Both were black boys, you know, the menace of the streets in South London. The team won, too. I'm pretty pleased with that - that is my work. Getting young people to see their own potential and build on it to move out of the back streets of Wandsworth or the tower blocks of Roehampton to make real and meaningful lives, make a contribution, make themselves happy. And teaching them proper punctuation is just one small part of that process. Just one very small part that I can do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 Katie, two adjectives make it a list. Honest. And now I'm too worn out to care... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Head Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 I think I understand your raison d'etre Dick but still think I dont understand most of your sous entendu.Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyC Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 And I'm sorry to have shifted the thread off topic. But I do think it matters. So does Lynn Truss. Wish I'd thought of writing a bl**** best seller about punctuation. Mutter, mutter, walks off into the night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irnbru Posted June 11, 2006 Author Share Posted June 11, 2006 As someone once said, "It's incredible! It's absolutely incredible! In fact, it's so incredible it's almost unbelievable."At 1537 today, i asked (quite genuinely) how some common understanding of "netiquette" had grown within the anarchy of the web. Now, some 9 hours later, I find I have provoked 4 pages of ....well, tosh really. Entertaining, surely, but tosh nonetheless. And I'm none the wiser about the evolution of netiquette! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Katie Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 [quote user="Dick Smith"]Katie, two adjectives make it a list. Honest. And now I'm too worn out to care...[/quote]Can't win here. I get picked up on things, then I ask where I went wrong and end up being on the receiving end of attitude. Nothing's changed from my schooldays really. And they wonder why I used to get a little bit lippy now and again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Smith Posted June 11, 2006 Share Posted June 11, 2006 What did you expect? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miki Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Here's some more tosh to add to the rest then. Chris, Dick knows of my beginnings, so do a few others. I come from a long line of oldtime costermongers and my step Dad, came up to smoke to escape the mines, only tobe sent to war. No airs no graces, coming from a large council estate chockedfull of community spirit. We were bought up to look neither up nor down onpeople and one little glimpse of any pretensions saw people rib youmercilessly. Now imagine this, I some howgained a place at a Grammarschool. Mum was out of her head with worry where the money was comingfrom, thatnow puts me under pressure to do well, to cover the cost of all the newuniformand worst of all, I have got to ride through the estate (and we livedat thefar end close to the railway lines and about as far as one could cycleto get out of the estate) in a blinking purple uniform with a flippingyellow bobble on the top of the cap and yellow braiding all around thecollarand cuffs on the jacket, whilst all me mates are going off to the localsecondary school at the same time. Oh they never cracked up much withlaughter,oh no…oye…purple people eater, nice cap, are Jimmy Clitheroe & Bunter in yourclass !! Hobluddy ho, still, they got fed up after two years !!So what I am saying, education for me,come at a price, myMum asked me if I would prefer to go with all the other lads to thelocalsecondary school and believe me, the temptation to say “yep, I reckon so” especially afterseeing the uniform I was going to have to wear, was huge. But mySisters threatenedme with all kinds of ugly ways to die if I didn’t go to the new schoolandso, that was me set for school in a strange area and away from me oldmates. Iwill say now, in all my years there. I never really spent much time with anyone from thatschool, differentarea and I guess the difference also being in how one was brought up. Iof course, naturally hung around with the old crowd in theevenings and at weekends. Some 40 years later, those yearsstill get brought up among friends of over 50 years standing. I see many people on here who appear far superior educated thanI. Bizarrely, it appears that I left school with more passes than Dick, yet itis obvious he understands English and of course other subjects a lot more thanI. His vocation has carved (no pun intended)his learning power and as he says, any day you can learn a bit more than youknew the day before. Readingis a powerful tool, learning from what one reads can shape ones overalleducation greatly. I never took my education in to the work environmentafterwards. What I did after school could have been done by any one of myfriends from the secondary school but looking back, sure it put me in goodstead for a life among a very varied mixture of folks.[quote] I spent today struggling towards making an Adirondack chair...[/quote] Now here’s an example, I haven’t got a clue what that means,should I google it and look big or tell you the truth ? Well obvious now what Ihave done ![quote] In reality most people are defined by barriers they set themselves [/quote] That is what is often brought up when with friends wediscuss our past. I look at my mates and at a rough guess, I would say I wasprobably among the bottom 20% of earners, or holder of wealth. But when we talk, they can often look at me for answers, not that I will have the answer but they kind of think I might !So I amnot rich in the normal meaning but maybetruly rich in the way I feel when the lads now give me full credit for goingthrough it all to get educated. Mind you, I often wish perhaps I might now liketo swap lives with people, well, likeyou who have a great gift or friends who went on to the city and retired 5years ago and live almost permanently in the sun. We are all naturally green-eyedsometimes at the life of others but do you know, I have had a few who wouldlike to swap lives with me !! Give ‘em a few days here and they will run back totheir former life !!Friends, family and health, beats a Royal flush (and a bitof money is useful)Et voila, a littlebit of history to show I am basically a simpleton, with yearning hopesof retirement in luxury. Oh please....Just six numbers and the housegets sold, Get the shades, get the car, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tresco Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 [quote user="KathyC"] I don't mean to do Dick's work for him, but that's why the good lord gave us punctuation![/quote][quote user="KathyC"]... I do think it matters. So does Lynn Truss. Wish I'd thought of writing a bl**** best seller about punctuation. Mutter, mutter, walks off into the night.[/quote]Kathy, Your book would have been about as good as hers.[:-))]I find it useful to blame SB for lots of things, but after she sent me a load of apostrophes I have been more apostrophe aware.YIKES: Is there one missing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YCCMB Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Dick, can I ask you a serious question? Do you ever feel a bit like the Lone Ranger at work? I only ask because, having on several occasions spoken to my kids' teachers about their appalling spelling and punctuation, I keep being told (with an only slightly apologetic grin) that it doesn't really matter[:@]. Now I just happen (in case the tone of this post leaves you in any doubt) to think it does. I think it matters a lot. I struggle with the fact that GCSE Maths appears these days to be much more difficult than I ever remember from "O" Level days, and yet it seems perfectly acceptable for kids to get to GCSE with what looks like a writing age of 3..................... It makes me very sad. I've spent a number of years in jobs where I've been responsible for recruiting graduates. Lots of them couldn't spell. It didn't really show them in a good light. Can I borrow an Eeek from you, or is this not an Eeek moment?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 KathyC - has anybody ever pointed out that sentences need subjects (see quotes in Tresco's post above)? Sorry, don't mean it, just having a Dick Smith moment (or sharpening-up my sub-editing training). [:D]With topics like this, who needs that other forum anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davies Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Haven't heard of the Caterham 7 for a while now.Have they been freed? Davies(well, someone may not have heard that one!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Head Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 Nice story Miki, it's funny where life can take us.Dick, every day I work is a new experience to me, I'm one of those who don't have any boundaries or rules, I learn each and every day I carve or make a piece of furniture. London, I'd have to be persuaded! I can't stand towns or cities! I carve poles here and transport them, so yes it could be done, commision paid in wine!Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catalpa Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 [quote user="Dotty Trois"] I'm hoping this is the reason why hardly anyone replies to my posts.[/quote] Dotty, it is more likely to be that you always make considered, balanced, non-controversial (is that a list?) comments. No one ever replies to those. [:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosebud Posted June 12, 2006 Share Posted June 12, 2006 well i thought id put my 2 pence in. 2day nobodee speeks english like b4. now we speek this gr8 new yoofspeek language thingy. when u r young these days u dont need 2 punktuate or use BIG LETTERS u just type it how it sounds no what i mean?this is how u show how clever u r. .....can you get a degree in that?? Netiquette? Also a foreign language to me, but I'm good at languages and willing to learn![:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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