Pedants' Paradise

[AuntDaisy]

In one sense, every performance could be considered a premiere (city/town, hall, orchestra, conductor, day of the week, month, year, audience, all or some taken together). If you have that sort of mind.

So, if it was the first time that, say, a Canadian PM had been at the performance, would it be the premiere premier première?

[french frank]

So, if it was the first time that, say, a Canadian PM had been at the performance, would it be the premiere premier première?

Unless the PM was a woman?

[AuntDaisy]

Unless the PM was a woman?

I knew there'd a be a catch. Well done.

[french frank]

I knew there'd a be a catch. Well done.

Actually pedantry aside I think she's still a premier.

[LMcD]

To avoid confusion, perhaps the occasion to which Ms Alker referred could henceforth be called the 'initial first premiere (anywhere).'

[Serial_Apologist]

Unless the PM was a woman?

The answer might be to consult a primer.

[kernelbogey]

I provoked a learned discussion on Breakfast from the Phoenix Wharf Studios in Truro a year or three back by having claimed - inaccurately, as it turned out - in a text to RadioThree that the British Premiere of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito had taken place at the Polytechnic Hall in Falmouth in the 1930s, produced by the pioneering Cornish musicians Maisie and Evelyn Radford, and not at Covent Garden. Producers and their acolytes busied themselves at Broadcasting House checking this out as Petroc continued to hold forth on this and that. I believe the compromise they reached in the end was that the Falmouth production was the non-London Premiere of Clemenza (or possibly the west-of-Tamar premiere ).

[LMcD]

I provoked a learned discussion on Breakfast from the Phoenix Wharf Studios in Truro a year or three back by having claimed - inaccurately, as it turned out - in a text to RadioThree that the British Premiere of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito had taken place at the Polytechnic Hall in Falmouth in the 1930s, produced by the pioneering Cornish musicians Maisie and Evelyn Radford, and not at Covent Garden. Producers and their acolytes busied themselves at Broadcasting House checking this out as Petroc continued to hold forth on this and that. I believe the compromise they reached in the end was that the Falmouth production was the non-London Premiere of Clemenza (or possibly the west-of-Tamar premiere ).

... unless, of course, there was an earlier pirated performance in Penzance.

[Serial_Apologist]

Chosen options. Today Sunak's possible "chosen option" of holding a general election in May was discussed. Surely a chosen option is just an option, in other words tautological, An unchosen option could not be an option. Either just say Sunak has an option or a choice to hold an election in May. Simples!

(Apologies if this one has been raised before. I'm feeling "on a bit of a roll" today, having just had my computer server re-newed on a cheaper tariff)!

[Serial_Apologist]

"Her tight grip on the books means it's hard to make big, expensive promises that might go down with some voters - or at the very least, show that they're different to the Conservatives".

- Laura Kuenssberg on Labour Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, (my emphasis).

Freudian slip?

[kernelbogey]

Chosen options. Today Sunak's possible "chosen option" of holding a general election in May was discussed. Surely a chosen option is just an option, in other words tautological, An unchosen option could not be an option. Either just say Sunak has an option or a choice to hold an election in May.

The options exist prior to a decision: Sunak had May or September (and possibly other dates) as options until he made a decision. Once he had chosen one, and eliminated the others, that option became the chosen option. No?

[Pulcinella]

The options exist prior to a decision: Sunak had May or September (and possibly other dates) as options until he made a decision. Once he had chosen one, and eliminated the others, that option became the chosen option. No?

Indeed; you can't have a chosen option until you've chosen it.

[french frank]

Indeed; you can't have a chosen option until you've chosen it.

And it becomes a decision.

[Serial_Apologist]

The options exist prior to a decision: Sunak had May or September (and possibly other dates) as options until he made a decision. Once he had chosen one, and eliminated the others, that option became the chosen option. No?

Well no, I don't see it that way. Options don't exist "in the ether", but only in relation to decisions one way or another as to which, out of the given ones, is, or are, optional, I would have thought.

[french frank]

Well no, I don't see it that way. Options don't exist "in the ether", but only in relation to decisions one way or another as to which, out of the given ones, is, or are, optional, I would have thought.

Pedantry gawn mad.