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2 lines
2.9 KiB
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Executable File
style notes nov gmt nov dear colleagues one of the joys of writing is the excitement of knowing the right order into which to put not merely words but clauses we must all have been delighted to read that wisps of hair from charles darwins beard are to go on public display years after he was born in a national history museum exhibition one bemused reader wrote in asking whether the museum had a midwifery department and he was probably not alone in his curiosity we are continuing to make bizarre spelling errors that can be prevented merely by simple concentration in some cases and limited reliance on the spellchecker who is simin cowell who are the toires answer her majestys loyal opposition can one really commit an act of stealing oneself what is definately how do you persude somebody else to do something such as spell properly also the correct spelling of straightened circumstances is actually straitened circumstances though few are willing to admit this grammar remains problematical myself is a reflexive pronoun we had a headline that read gus poyet tottenham were right to sack myself and juande ramos only poyet could sack himself and he didnt it is interesting that poyet did not use this illiteracy we did we noted the other day that someone drunk himself to death he probably was a drunk but that is another matter altogether similarly the vessel sunk when it sank talking of vessels they or people metaphorically do not hove into view they heave into view noone ever hoves he she or it heaves hove is the past participle and a town on the sussex coast there has been the odd difficulty with facts a nineyear old boy wrote in to remind us that greenwich is on the zero degree line of longitude not latitude some of you may want to bear in mind for next november that there is no such day as remembrance day there is armistice day november and remembrance sunday the sunday nearest november not all of south america is tropical though some of our writers assume it is ryanair is an irish and not a british airline with some apparent facts the application of common sense can help it is hard to imagine there being migrant workers in manchester there are in fact however radical some scandinavian monarchies are there is noone called prince mary of denmark we are becoming again a little too fond of the hackneyed phrase with the odd furious row turning up in our pages recently and even erupting the readers always prefer freshly minted terms of expression in a similar vein can we please restrict the use of the verb vow to religious or spiritual contexts politicians do not vow to create jobs they promise assert or even just say it and while on politics the word policymaker is a nasty americanism if we must say it we hyphenate it finally a reminder that a disinterested person is not one who has no interest in a subject that is an uninterested person a disinterested person is completely neutral in the matter with best wishes simon heffer associate editor the daily telegraph
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