Now Your a Pedant
There was a letter in the Sunday Times yesterday from a Mr Andrew Perry, of Morecambe, complaining that his son had received a card headed Now Your Eighteen outlining the benefits of reaching that age.
Mr Perry was also complaining, quite rightly, that none of his son’s friends, who were all going on to university, could identify what was wrong with it (which, I quickly point out, is that “your” should be “you’re”, which is short for “you are”.)
It wouldn’t happen in this house. If anyone sends Emily such a card in a year’s time, she will tear it into small pieces, rant about it for half an hour and then we will ceremonially burn it.
She’s as much of a spelling-and-punctuation freak as I am. I would blame the parents, but I think she was born that way.
Sometimes spelling and punctuation really doesn’t matter: it’s the communication that’s important. Everyone makes the occasional mistake in emails – whether typo or spelling mistake – and if it doesn’t hamper communication, that’s fine.
Sometimes, however, it matters a lot. One of the local secondary schools sent out a letter to all the parents in the area, trying to persuade us to send our children there. It was riddled with spelling and punctuation mistakes, so I marked it in red ink and sent it back (yes, I know, I know, I’ll be reading the Daily Express next).
Just slightly related to this topic: this weekend, tired of the twelve invisible people who seem to be having a permanent eight-course dinner in this house, I bought a washing-up machine.
Except it isn’t, apparently: it’s called a dishwasher and everyone laughs at me because I call it a washing-up machine.
I’m expect they’re right. I’ll go and put some jeans in the clotheswasher now.
Mr Perry was also complaining, quite rightly, that none of his son’s friends, who were all going on to university, could identify what was wrong with it (which, I quickly point out, is that “your” should be “you’re”, which is short for “you are”.)
It wouldn’t happen in this house. If anyone sends Emily such a card in a year’s time, she will tear it into small pieces, rant about it for half an hour and then we will ceremonially burn it.
She’s as much of a spelling-and-punctuation freak as I am. I would blame the parents, but I think she was born that way.
Sometimes spelling and punctuation really doesn’t matter: it’s the communication that’s important. Everyone makes the occasional mistake in emails – whether typo or spelling mistake – and if it doesn’t hamper communication, that’s fine.
Sometimes, however, it matters a lot. One of the local secondary schools sent out a letter to all the parents in the area, trying to persuade us to send our children there. It was riddled with spelling and punctuation mistakes, so I marked it in red ink and sent it back (yes, I know, I know, I’ll be reading the Daily Express next).
Just slightly related to this topic: this weekend, tired of the twelve invisible people who seem to be having a permanent eight-course dinner in this house, I bought a washing-up machine.
Except it isn’t, apparently: it’s called a dishwasher and everyone laughs at me because I call it a washing-up machine.
I’m expect they’re right. I’ll go and put some jeans in the clotheswasher now.
posted by Daphne at 7:20 pm
3 Comments:
I applaud you. My mother chortles in solidarity. We all love you madly. Yippee! DID YOU GET TO SEE THEIR FACES?!
The problem with washing up machines is they don't come with an accompanying machine that puts the dirty plates, cutlery etc inside them. My mother was always somewhat suspicious of the capabilities of her washing up machine and thought it was harmful to a whole variety of things which would still have to be washed up in the old fashioned way. Thus we could never use it for saucepans, certain cutlery including sharp knives, wooden spoons, silverware, any plates that were particularly dirty. The latter had to be washed by hand because otherwise, she claimed, the food remains would be hardened onto them not washed off although I think this was mainly because she didn't always put the machine on straight away as it had to be completely full which is environmentally sound but when you don't fill it up with, for example, saucepans can take a few days although probably not in your house!
Washing up machines which use 9l to do a full two meals' worth of washing up instead of the 15l my plastic basin uses don't even need to be really full up to be environmentally sound. Yippee!
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