Tag: Grammar
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Wordsworths
It’s a rum old thing, and one that confounds linguists, but there’s an inherent paradox in language. When we communicate a message, the logic of the sentence will often have little bearing on how it will be interpreted. Audiences bring their fears, preferences, and very often their psychoses to the table, and then home in…
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Not the Point
I have long been aggravated by comma abuse in writing, and that goes for both the scattergunners and the stinges. However, rules are not straightforward, and when you have a flow between linguistic registers sometimes within the same piece, commas are infinitely tricky and controversial. Even that last sentence was, for several reasons. That one,…
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The Wheels on the Bus
While playground politics trundle on, let’s revert to an old favourite and arguably where the present penchant for political misdirection started to grow arms and legs. You’ve got it – the big, red, Brexit bus and those now infamous words: We send the EU £350m a week / let’s fund our NHS instead When Vote…
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You Don’t Say!
The sleepy town of Nailsea in North Somerset has twice made the news in the last week or so. Firstly, some wag affixed sticky eyes onto a statue of former Wurzels frontman Adge Cutler. Vandal-eyes-ed, as surprisingly nobody said. And now, an anonymous urbane guerrilla has printed out five A4 pages reading ‘It’s ok to…
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Let’s Eat, Grandma…
While we appear to be teetering on the edge of World War III (or at least that’s what you might be led to believe from certain online sources), I have been grappling with a far greater foe. English grammar. Now, I’ve always been somewhat a stickler for grammatical rules. And I’ve previously written in an…
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