Pedants' Paradise

[Stillhomewardbound]

I don't think I'll be getting my medication from this pharmacy anytime soon. I count at least ten errors in this notice. How on earth do their prescriptions come out?

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't think I'll be getting my medication from this pharmacy anytime soon. I count at least ten errors in this notice. How on earth do their prescriptions come out?

Farmer C could do better than that!

[jean]

It's probably written by a non-native speaker.

[amateur51]

Also a subordinate question: is anybody else irritated by the "set to" expression which seems to have crept into usage. What is diffficult about use of the future tense?

I thought a 'set to' was analagous to a stramash?

[Serial_Apologist]

It's probably written by a non-native speaker.

That comment reminds me of The Worker - anyone remember? - the Maoist newspaper produced by the CPB(M-L) back in the 70s that left it's ubiquitous black print on you after you'd read it? People used to claim it was sent off to Beijing for vetting, then translated back into English!

[jean]

I don't know why it reminds you of that, really.

Ridiculing people who can't spell as though that meant they can't do anything else either always reminds me of my sister, who's dyslectic but a brilliant cook, and how upset she was when someone could see no further than the spelling mistakes she'd made on a menu.

Those errors above aren't native-speaker errors on the whole, as it happens.

[Bryn]

That comment reminds me of The Worker - anyone remember? - the Maoist newspaper produced by the CPB(M-L) back in the 70s that left it's ubiquitous black print on you after you'd read it? People used to claim it was sent off to Beijing for vetting, then translated back into English!

Ah yes, the little wooded enclave populated by Birch and Ash. Surely it would have been Tirana they sent their copy to for pruning?

[Flosshilde]

Biennial is almost entirely confined to art exhibitions, whether in Venice or Liverpool.

Venice has a Bienale, not a Biennial.

[jean]

Well, strictly speaking, it has a Biennale, Liverpool has a Biennial.

But it's the same word, really - Latin biennium, adj. biennalis.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Yes, it is unfair to demean someone for occasional spelling mistakes. I always want to spell 'length' as 'lenght', for example, and I'm often having to correct my 'there' to a 'their', and vice verse. However, this notice is riddled with mistakes, missed clauses and non-sequitors.

Very likely it is written by a native speaker as it has the local estuarine cadence about it, but nonetheless, it's a public notice on an important change in procedure and requires an appropriate and accurate level of expression.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That comment reminds me of The Worker - anyone remember?

Yes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6paqi-oz3iA

[Nick Armstrong]

Q: How do you console someone who has poor grammar skills?

A: There, their, they're

[mangerton]

Q: How do you console someone who has poor grammar skills?

A: There, their, they're

[jean]

Very likely it is written by a native speaker as it has the local estuarine cadence about it...

You mean you can hear a written notice?

it's a public notice on an important change in procedure and requires an appropriate and accurate level of expression.

Yes. But its meaning is clear.

[jean]

One TEMS fewer

I've been wondering about this.

It sounds awkward to me, though I know each edition of The Early Music Show is a discrete entity and therefore countable.

But I find I really want to say One less TEMS. I think I'm going to try to justify it by regarding less there as an adverb.

Someone at R3 might well want to comment What's one EMS more or less? and though I'd deplore the sentiment, I wouldn't worry too much about the grammar.