Sunny mornings needed. A bit of stuff about words and the use of language.

Despite the weathermen predicting heavy rain, today began with blue sky and sunshine. It doesn’t make it any easier to persuade yourself to get out of bed but it makes everyone you meet (when you eventually get up and go out!) more cheerful and positive about things. We need more days which begin with sunshine … even if it gets cloudy later.

Here is a collection nicknames for lazy co-workers, sent to me by a friend who enjoys words as much as I do:

Cordless - only works for two hours.

E.T. - always wants to go home.

Kitkat - always taking a break.

Seaweed - just floats around all day.

Sensor light - only works when someone walks past.

Wheelbarrow - only works when pushed.

Adrian Chiles, writer, tv/radio presenter, has been ranting a bit about mis-used apostrophes, in this particular case seeing a sign for “WALE’S LARGEST VAPE SHOP” and being so outraged that he almost missed the fact that the advertising poster went on to announce that they had the CHEAPEST PRICE’S. It’s one of my frequent bugbears. We did once sneak out late at night to remove an errant apostrophe from a notice outside the pub next door! It’s not impossible to teach the use of apostrophes, even to quite small children. Knowing how punctuation works is, in my opinion, more important than learning about fronted adverbials! However it is quite complicated to teach where to put the apostrophe when the word already ends in S.

I

But the writer of this letter published in response to the item about WALE’S / WALES’S knows how to do it:

 “Re Adrian Chiles’s item, while on holiday in Northumberland last year I visited a delightful cafe that sold various local crafts including handmade “Christma’s card’s”.

Jane Marsh

London”

Another bugbear of mine is the Americanisation of the English language. Granddaughter Number Two regularly used ‘gotten’ instead of ‘got’, which I am fully aware used to be standard English, emigrated to America, probably with those Pilgrim Fathers, and has now made its way back. Despite my knowing this, the use of gotten still grates on my ears. 

Anyway, here is a cartoon by Stephen Collins entitled “‘Can I get a sausage roll?’ and other Americanism you should never hear in Greggs”:

By the way, every time we pass a Greggs (which perfectionists might say really needs an apostrophe) some member of the family will remind us of an American friend who declared herself impressed by the goods sold in G.R. Eggs - so impressed that she even punctuated the name for us! 

Life goes on. Stay safe and well everyone!