This thread was sparked off by something in The Guardian, the house magazine of Britons who believe correct grammar or spelling is the mark of a repressed childhood.

Written and subedited by people who've made misprints an art form (which is why it's mostly known as The Grauniad)

Drawing any conclusion from the bastard language it passes off as English is like judging American oratory on the base of Dubbya's speeches. Or judging the charisma of American politicians by Mr Kerry.

Non, Mathieu. But nice try (and thanks for playing.)

The answer to "When is a period not a period, and also romantically going out with another punctuation mark?" is actually...

When it's accommodating. :)

It's definitely "were" and it's definitely "which"; but was is acceptable.

We don't use periods at all- we use full stops- and the apostrophe is a mystery to all under the age of 45

I too thought this were/was a travel forum!

I was interested in the English/USA distinction between 'which' and 'that' however. Mr Gates'(or should thae be "Gates's"?) MSWord grammar correction has the very annoying habit of constantly telling me that 'that' is preferable to 'which' - which I don't agree with of course. At least now I know why!! I think that the guy with the gin bottle had the right idea - I intend to boldly drink the night away whilst making travel plans. Hic!! -and apologies for the split infinitive...

Ahhh Capo, you're at it again !
(More please) We're already at 80 posts and nary a song riff from you yet... :)
The rain in Spain...

Sheila I'm under that age and I remember full stops and apostrophes. (But I'll admit it's from an edcuation by regimented and repressed priests and nuns who tortured us sadistically with English grammar.) What about 'curly brackets' and 'dashes'? & even though commonly used, how many nowadays know that it's name is 'ampersand' ?

Sorry. 64 posts.

Mathieu, with apologies to Fleetwood Mac and "Don't Stop"...

If you're writing and want to write well,
If you dislike long sentences from hell,
Open your eyes and look at the dot,
You?ll see things in a whole different lot.

Full Stop, thinking about an ending,
Full Stop, it?ll soon be here,
It?ll sharp, sharpen-up your writing,
Run-ons are gone, run-ons are gone.

For Capo:
"A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation.",,,,Mistinguet
( She was the Madonna of her day, a long time lover of the much younger Maurice Chevalier as well as a royalty of Spain. She popularized in 1920, the song, Mon Homme (my man)

""People are increasingly writing on the internet as if it was a spoken rather than a written medium, with all the mistakes which arise through doing that," ...

Shouldn't that be "as if it **were** a..."?"

I should be surprised if it weren't.

kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point. That's basic spelling that every woman ought to know. ~Mistinguett (Jeanne Bourgeois),


Is not a kiss the very autograph of love? ~Henry Finck


A kiss, when all is said, what is it?
A rosy dot placed on the "i" in loving;
'Tis a secret told to the mouth instead of to the ear.
~Edmond Rostand

Merci, Mimi. Nice quotes. I love the line "'Tis a secret told to the mouth instead of to the ear." especially since the Place Edmond Rostand is so near one of my favorite romantic places in Paris, the Medici Fountain.

Speaking as one who certainly slept through whatever discussion of the subjunctive mood may have occurred in my high school English class (but probably didn't) ... Lanceolot, you don't have to apologise for a split infinitive. That "rule" was invented by musty pedants engaged in shoehorning English into the rules of Latin, then considered the exemplar of languages. You don't split an infinitive in Latin, right? That's because you can't - the infinitive is indicated by the ending, not the presence of a "to". "To boldly go", as opposed to "to go boldly", is fine. Likewise "thou shalt not end a sentence with a preposition!" Why not, exactly? ThinGorjus has it right -"correct" English usage is no more than a consensus view at any point in time. If a group of words clearly conveys the intended meaning and is felicitous to the ear it's well on the way to "correctness".

In this country we have our fair share of pedantic Anglophiles who regularly bemoan the appearance of "Americanisms", often blithely unaware of the fact that they've probably employed at least one long-established American usage in the course of making their complaint.

Which brings me to a far more pressing matter: the fact that the past tense of "dive" is "dived" in British English and (it seems) "dove" in American English; and the past tense of "spit", is "spat" in British and "spit" in American. Why is this so? Are the American forms antique English usages that (which) never fell out of favour in America, like "fall" for "autumn", and "gotten"?

I can't miss the opportunity for a bit of pedantry of my own, though - Ira, if you meant to quote "Hamlet", what Laertes says in Act V, Sc. II is "A touch, a touch, I do confess". (If you didn't, my apologies!)

Sorry about that pretentious Latinism "felicitous" - can I change it to "pleasing"? (Oh dear, can anyone think of a shorter word for "pretentious"?)

Nice work, Neal. I love the word <i>felicitas</i> and all its meanings.

I think a robust vocabulary is almost always justified and I wish more people fell in love with words. I rarely find words pretentious. Now, writing styles are another thing. Shall I mention any names?

Sorry, it's Neil. I neglected to double-check.

Hi flanneruk,

&gt;This thread was sparked off by something in The Guardian, the house magazine of Britons who believe correct grammar or spelling is the mark of a repressed childhood. &lt;

But in this article they were trying to correct bad grammar.

Very good, capo.

.... telling me that 'that' is preferable to 'which' - which I don't agree with of course. &lt;

Why not Lancelot?

Hi Neil,

Good post.

&gt;.. if you meant to quote &quot;Hamlet&quot;, what Laertes says in Act V, Sc. II is &quot;A touch, a touch, I do confess&quot;. (If you didn't, my apologies!)&lt;

No need to apologize.

I was quoting Sherlock Holmes's misquote of Laertes. (Valley of Fear, Part 1, Chap 1)

Re apostrophes --

Lanceolot: Typically, even if the noun ends in an &quot;s,&quot; the possessive is indicated by an apostrophe followed by an &quot;s&quot; unless the name is a classical name. Still, I probably should look up the precise usage. So Archimedes' Principle. Gates's software.

Mathieu, looks like you need to review your use of apostrophes. It's &quot;its name&quot; (not &quot;it's name&quot;). :-)