[beardy56]

Can't remember the web site now but I clicked through to amend the cookies and all the advertising cookies had a tick box next to them. Could I amend any of these, NO!!. At this point there was no option but to accept all the cookies and as I had already clicked into the site I had accepted to have cookies.

What is the point of having an option to amend cookies that doesn't let you amend anything. Probably just there to meet the current legal requirements.

 

[Gripping Pneus]

Cornwall for me Gus spent many a happy holiday there especially out of season staying at our friends place just above Praa Sands and my memories are of walking along the coast top in a high wind seeing the sea below us crashing onto the rocks now at the age of 75 I doubt if I will ever see it again , and I suppose like everything else in life it will have changed, I doubt like most things now not for the better.

Don't be a plonker Peter - get down here! Slot car racing every other Wednesday evening at Praa Sands community hall, right where you describe having stayed. That's the only thing that has changed - there is now slot racing in the area. Nothing else has changed because that would cost money. The pub is still there and does excellent Sunday lunches.

 

[Trisha]

Started today by inadvertently squirting shampoo into my left eye, and dropping a bar of soap in the bath - eventually retrieved with vociferous use of the most foul language.

I'm now commanded to place an unwanted double bed into the rear of a small Volkswagen - an impossible feat for even the most mindless optimist.

And they wonder why we get grumpy. Ab irato!

 

[PETER GUNN]

Good lord a Cornish Man , and slot cars in Cornwall, is there still a pub down there with a veranda overlooking the sands , spent many a happy time on that veranda with a cold beer watching the missus and our friends enjoying sand in places i had better not mention here , in those days there was no speed limit along that top road , Jan our friend had a Ford Corsair and i had a Cortina 1600 E and we used to open them up coming down the hill along that stretch of road hitting the brakes just before a garage on the left hand side , is the Coach and Horses still there as you leave Newtown heading towards Penzance spent 26 consecutive years down there on holidays, ah great memories of kinder days .

 

[Gripping Pneus]

PM sent! This is certainly not a grumpy enough topic for here!

 

[Wobble]

Everything used to irritate me

 

[Henk]

People not reading anymore

I had some Pioneer cars on Ebay. After a couple of days I noticed that I mixed up some pictures so I altered the auction text and added an additional picture. Regretfully I was not able to remove or change the wrong picture because it was the main picture of the auction.

Since both cars, Dodge Lady Luck and Ace of Spades, are collectibles I assumed that my change would be noticed and the buyers would be aware of my mistake. Everything was right, the auction text clearly stating the right product number and description. Pictures from the backside clearly stating the right product number and description, the additional picture clearly showing the right car, altered text clearly describing the mistake.

So I sold the cars and shipped them.

Then I got a message from a buyer that he got the Lady Luck car and that was not the car in the first picture. So I got a message about the P025 Lady Luck with a picture of the P025 Lady Luck staying it was not the right car ...

It was stupid to assume that people read before they put in an offer. Now the buyer wants to sent the car back and get the other one (Ace of Spades). I wrote him that I will gladly take the car back, but the Ace of Spades was sold as well so I cannot swap the cars.

The buyer of the Ace of Spades didn't sent me a message yet so I guess he knew what hew was getting ...

As we say here in the Netherlands: „Reading is an art".

 

[Trisha]

To return to Gordonzz first post on this thread, I listened to Hannah Rankin, speaking on BBC Radio 3's prog Private Passions today.

Ms Rankin is an accomplished musician, and a professional boxer who, in conversation with Michael Berkeley, not only started her sentences with "So", but ended them thus as well...

I switched the wireless off, being unable to tolerate this assassination of English. Yoof, eh!

 

[gus3049]

So what's wrong with it then?

I long ago stopped getting irate about the destruction of our language. At some stage, you have to accept that it changes and develops in ways that us stick in the muds don't always appreciate.

All except missing apostrophes of course!

 

[Trisha]

The English language develops very, very slowly. Evidence for this is provided by the definitive Oxford English Dictionary, that includes an average of 2-4 new words annually.

What spreads rapidly is illiteracy. Most concerning is that practitioners of bad English don't even know why their dicta is wrong.

 

[gus3049]

Well yes but....the language as she is spoke is merely as it was set down by a committee at some time and has then been modified constantly ever since. There is no right or wrong, just what we consider to be correct. This is influenced by all kind of things, peer pressure amongst others.

The fact that I agree with you doesn't mean anything other than the time we came into this world and the influences we suffered.

 

[Ade]

Hi

is it not, isn't it, or innit,take your pick, your choice says which decades you spent as a youth , the first interpretation is long gone though..

 

[Ecurie Martini]

I had the advantage (or disadvantage, depending on your view of today's world) of being in primary school at a time when grammar, diction, sentence and paragraph structure and elocution were taught as distinct subjects.

It is my belief that Shaw's Pygmalion (and its musical offspring, My Fair Lady) are correct. Judgments are made on one's manner of speech as much or perhaps more than other factors creating an initial impression.

This is a knife that can cut both ways. It was not uncommon in this country a few years ago for some Southern politicians to mask shrewd minds behind an exaggerated Southern drawl. Today one is more likely to hear aspiring office candidates sliding into a patois that they feel will establish a connection to certain segments of the voting public.

We have some issues in this country that are exacerbated by the failure of our schools to address the perpetuation of what I shall call "street slang." (Certain popular music genres do nothing to help the situation)

I know that my reaction to poor language skills (especially over the telephone when I have no other information to use in assessment) is decidedly negative.

Pedant I am and pedant I shall always be.

 

[mickey thumbs]

On a tangentially related note, I cringe when I see a young person holding a writing instrument. Fingers tightly scrunched around the distal end, wrist flexed fully. Ouch! Fortunately keyboards and touch screens relieve them of the need to attempt this act for the most part. When I came through school, we were required to master cursive with a pencil before graduating to a pen with a nib- no ballpoints allowed. When I see them struggle with such a basic task, I wonder what other basic knowledge and skills are deemed no longer relevant.

 

[Ecurie Martini]

On a tangentially related note, I cringe when I see a young person holding a writing instrument. Fingers tightly scrunched around the distal end, wrist flexed fully. Ouch! Fortunately keyboards and touch screens relieve them of the need to attempt this act for the most part. When I came through school, we were required to master cursive with a pencil before graduating to a pen with a nib- no ballpoints allowed. When I see them struggle with such a basic task, I wonder what other basic knowledge and skills are deemed no longer relevant.

Precisely - in addition to the curriculum items above, "Palmer Method" penmanship was a regular class. Now, in those far off times, ball point pens were an expensive novelty so they were not an issue but we were restricted to straight pens and desk-mounted inkwells, no fountain pens allowed! One of my regrets is that hand problems have reduced my hard learned script to an illegible scrawl so I am completely dependent on a keyboard or, currently, a voice-to-text program for written communication.

 

[gus3049]

I had the advantage (or disadvantage, depending on your view of today's world) of being in primary school at a time when grammar, diction, sentence and paragraph structure and elocution were taught as distinct subjects.

Pedant I am and pedant I shall always be.

Me too on both points but even I can see that my views are those of my generation and not carved in stone for ever.

On a tangentially related note, I cringe when I see a young person holding a writing instrument. Fingers tightly scrunched around the distal end, wrist flexed fully. Ouch! Fortunately keyboards and touch screens relieve them of the need to attempt this act for the most part. When I came through school, we were required to master cursive with a pencil before graduating to a pen with a nib- no ballpoints allowed. When I see them struggle with such a basic task, I wonder what other basic knowledge and skills are deemed no longer relevant.

Future generations - should they get the chance to survive us - will no doubt have prehensile thumbs but perhaps the mobile will be built in rather than people having to use the other hand to hold the phone.

In the supermarket checkout (is that English?) I seem to be the only person using my forefinger to key in the pin number rather than the thumb. I already feel obsolete.

PS. Just registered your forum name

Oops!

 

[PETER GUNN]

How often now do any of us use a signature , at one time when i received a package or a parcel i had to sign for it so my signature was legible , but today in this computerised bubble we live in, they shove a hand held device in front of you with a plastic stick attached which won't sign on the little screen, so the next word of wisdom is, thst's ok mate just use your finger and the screen only picks up half of your now scribble , or the other word of wisdom is that's ok mate just scribble something .

Then later you get a message by E mail which tells me my parcel has been delivered and it was signed by and there is this scribble which i can't read as my signature , perhaps Yogi Bear could.

 

[Henk]

I think it was Socrates who already complained of the modern youth and that they would achieve nothing.

Nothing much changed

 

[Ecurie Martini]

Me too on both points but even I can see that my views are those of my generation and not carved in stone for ever.

Oh, I have seen it coming. Following a lunchtime conversation, a young assistant looked at me and said: "You talk like a book reads"

 

[Henk]

On the positive side, this young assistant still knows what a book is