For your delectation this week:
I was reading about grammar this week on the BBC Magazine site – did you know that poor grasp of grammar and spelling can cost you dates via online dating sites? I have to say that erroneous apostrophes drive me up the wall, but I’m less bothered about the less/fewer argument. Maybe there’s scope for a whole new online dating community based around people’s grammatical preferences…
There was a Canadian astronaut touched down at Prestwick International Airport on Tuesday. Should have gone to Specsavers…
What do the phrases ‘Hiking the Appalachian Trail’, ‘Discussing Uganda’, ‘Final user’, ‘Wide stance’, ‘Watching badgers’ and ‘Slipping my moorings’ have in common? Answers on a postcard…
In the last month, I’ve had over 1,500 e-mails to my work address, not counting automatically generated system notifications from the tools I use. In my home e-mail I’ve had a little under 2,000. At 2 minutes to process each e-mail I think that means I’ve spent 4.9 days in the last month just reading e-mails. Assuming I politely replied to each one, and that that also took 2 minutes, I’ve spent 9.8 days in total going squared eyed over e-mails, maybe I need to get out more!
Last Friday I walked out of a meeting at work and glanced out the window, only to see a truly enormous ship moving up the Clyde. How do I know it was enormous? Well between my office and the river is a very large 2 storey shopping centre. The ship dwarfed it o.O Not something you see every day…
I once saw a t-shirt that read, "I am the grammarian about whom your mother warned you." Grammar's important. Its, it's, there, their, they're, our, are, borrowed, lent, take, bring…. all those things drive me up the wall. I'm even more embarassed when I find a typo that I've made in a comment or on my blog. Oh, the humiliation…
my favorite ever t-shirt to follow what CitricSugar mentions – 'Dyslexics Untie'…took me a bit to figure it out which is why I love it. And no, I'm not making fun of dyslexia at all for the older I get, the more I seem to use it. 🙂
so, how about this? i probably haven't commented on your blog (or read ANY blog) in months and months. so i'm up in the air on my way to portland and i decided to read and *gasp* comment. only, right then i hit the wifi button on my laptop and turn off the wifi and have to spend 10 minutes getting it back on and then coming back to comment. i thought you might want to know. and there goes another two minutes….. 🙂
Even more random than normal.
Random but fun,what a big ship !!!
Your specsavers comment made me smile. I have to say, I have been following said astronaut while he has been on the ISS – his tweets and pictures have been amazing
Wonderful random!
Great random, as ever!
Perfectly random!
Great randomness but I'm afraid I did see those stonking great cruisers every day when I lived in Curacao for a year.x
I plead guilty to apostrophe killing….
PS… don't worry about responding to this comment.That'll save you a couple of minutes !
The email thing is ridiculously scary!! I am particularly irritated by people writing for example, your my best friend rather than you're my best friend.
I'm with you on the grammar costing people dates… but maybe spending 4+ days reading emails are costing you more!
And I saw a bumper sticker in my neighbourhood that said "If you dont like chicken twistees your a dickhead". I've started carrying a red permanent marker around with me now.
I'm guilty of rushing my comments and not worrying about apostrophes… I'll be more careful around you. That ginormous boat sound very impressive!! I wonder how loud it's horn was?
I did that BBC quiz too and I'm an apostrophe nazi and an English graduate. I only got 7 out of 10 still, I'd never even HEARD of a Gerund!
That is a whole lot of email! And you are amazing for replying to them all!
Forgot what I was going to say as the final photo gave me a flashback from my former life.
Yes, on the grammar and online dating sites. On equal par is the inability to capitalise anything or put a space between the full stop and the next sentence. Or even worse, no full stop at all so you just have to guess where one stops and starts.
Love the specsavers comment.
In hommage to your email comment, all my catchup reading comments are included below 🙂
Love the bloggers festival quilts, and the Madrona story.
Interesting blog on the quilt block design.
Intrigued by the new quilt – looking forward to seeing what you're up to.
Hope Carl gets let off for good behaviour soon
Do you ever read "let's eat grandpa" with the tag line about how punctuation saves lives. That always makes me laugh. I should snag her for the Name Game. So here in Portland downtown you can have commemorative bricks installed. Our son and DIL have one with our deceased grandson's name. Anyway…while we were looking for it a couple nights ago I saw one that said "your so cool". Um, really. You spent money for this brick and used the incorrect word?
I agree with the grammar/spelling issue. It influences the blogs I read and how I perceive a Facebook friend! I know, terribly judgemental of me.