Welfare &c.

[vinteuil]

Been thinking about this. Herd is perfectly permissible for a lot of sheep. After all, you hear about a sheep-herder (or shepherd for short) but I've never heard of a sheep-flocker!

The OED notes a distinction in the usage of flock and herd -

Flock A number of domestic animals (chiefly, and now exclusively, of sheep and goats) kept together under the charge of one or more persons. Often used vaguely in the plural for (a person's) possessions in sheep; especially in flocks and herds = sheep and cattle.

Herd - As contrasted with flock, especially in the phrase herds and flocks, herd is restricted to cattle or bovine domestic animals.

1587 Golding De Mornay i. 5 But the tame ... do naturally liue in flocks and heardes.
1596 Bp. W Barlow Three Sermons i. 16 Heards and flocks of cattle and sheepe perish.
1611 Bible Leviticus xxvii 32 Concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock.
1740 C. Pitt Æneid III Our flocks to slaughter, and our herds destroy
1873 C Robinson N.S. Wales 29 Multitudinous as our flocks and herds have become.

[ahinton]

The OED notes a distinction in the usage of flock and herd -

Flock A number of domestic animals (chiefly, and now exclusively, of sheep and goats) kept together under the charge of one or more persons. Often used vaguely in the plural for (a person's) possessions in sheep; especially in flocks and herds = sheep and cattle.

Herd - As contrasted with flock, especially in the phrase herds and flocks, herd is restricted to cattle or bovine domestic animals.

1587 Golding De Mornay i. 5 But the tame ... do naturally liue in flocks and heardes.
1596 Bp. W Barlow Three Sermons i. 16 Heards and flocks of cattle and sheepe perish.
1611 Bible Leviticus xxvii 32 Concerning the tithe of the herd, or of the flock.
1740 C. Pitt Æneid III Our flocks to slaughter, and our herds destroy
1873 C Robinson N.S. Wales 29 Multitudinous as our flocks and herds have become.

Thank you for this. The fact that both herds and flocks are now potentially susceptible to the Schmallenberg virus might, however, indirectly bring about a somewhat greater sense of interchangeability between the two terms...

http://www.defra.gov.uk/animal-diseases/a-z/schmallenberg-virus/

But we digress, for it is human not farm animal welfare that we're supposedly discussing here!....

[amateur51]

Been thinking about this. Herd is perfectly permissible for a lot of sheep. After all, you hear about a sheep-herder (or shepherd for short) but I've never heard of a sheep-flocker!

No, RM - why sheep?

[ahinton]

No, RM - why sheep?

"Why either"? I try not to bother to ask myself, given that the current proposals for welfare "reform" in UK hardly involve flocks or herds...

[eighthobstruction]

The topic, the topic. my kingdom for the topic! Oh, sorry - wrong thread; should of been in the one about where it costs Leicester park a car (does that need an exclamation mark, do you think?)...

Aaah but tis a thread of gossamer wieghed by wool, as pendulum, a sheep to gravity and momentum!!!....!!!....!

[ahinton]

Aaah but tis a thread of gossamer wieghed by wool, as pendulum, a sheep to gravity and momentum!!!....!!!....!

Indeed, but, as the discussion, though weighty, need not also be woolly and as it is a subject of gravity that should be amenable to no pendulous vacillations of view, some might feel inclined to wish that certain disrupters thereof and distractors therefrom would gossamer else...

I've got me coat...

[JFLL]

I was not equating disagreement as such with an imputation of pig-headedness

Then why even mention it if you had no context in which to justify dong so?

There you go again – ‘Why even mention it?’. A statement unacceptable to you should not even be mentioned. It was in reply to you. That was the context.

Ah, I see the error of my ways now; thank you, therefore, taking me to task by drawing due attention to the evident fact that, in order to indicate any possible humorous inflection, the insertion of an exclamation mark is mandatory. One more lesson learned...

Good. I’m glad you’re learning lessons about how to indicate tone unambiguously.

In your view and if you say so, perhaps. My question "why use any word where none is necessary?" is an example, good or otherwise, of nothing at all other than a very simple question.

The disingenuous card.

The topic, the topic. my kingdom for the topic! Oh, sorry - wrong thread; should of been in the one about where it costs Leicester park a car (does that need an exclamation mark, do you think?)...

The irrelevance card. Say something which calls for a reply and then, when you get one which takes us further from the topic, complain that the reply is taking us further from the topic. Finally, one becomes a 'disrupter' and 'distractor' of 'a subject of gravity that should be amenable to no pendulous vacillations of view'. Pshaw!

[eighthobstruction]

#95 Very good and quick too....

Watching Jeremy Hunt (who I generally dislike) on media last night I thought he came over rather well....

In a similar way Grayling (now no longer DWP) used to disguise thuggish ways very well when talking of Atos, ESA , PIPs, JC+ and Universal Benefit....no interviewer could get a rise out of him.

The latest DWP ministerial team(except IDS) are relatively unknown quantities without high profile (and that is probably just how they might like it)....the lack of much response to Margaret Hodge last week was typical....

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/about-dwp/ministers/

[ahinton]

There you go again – ‘Why even mention it?’. A statement unacceptable to you should not even be mentioned. It was in reply to you. That was the context.

The boot is on the other foot, I fear. I simply asked you why you mentioned it but you have evidently assumed my meaning to be that you shouldn't (albeit only in my own opinion) have done so; once again, interpreting of anyone's statements remain your prerogative, but that does not denote that such interpretations are always correct.

I wrote (and you quote me as having written)
Ah, I see the error of my ways now; thank you, therefore, taking me to task by drawing due attention to the evident fact that, in order to indicate any possible humorous inflection, the insertion of an exclamation mark is mandatory. One more lesson learned...
and you responded

Good. I’m glad you’re learning lessons about how to indicate tone unambiguously.

You really don't get it, do you?! - that's to say either the tone of my response or indeed the sheer fatuity of the notion that exclamation marks are mandatory in all such circumstances. Ah, well; never mind. Not my problem, I guess.

The disingenuous card.

So, to you, it is "disingenuous" to point out, politely, that my question was an "example" of nothing at all other than a very simple question? I might wonder why if I could be bothered or if I thought that you'd explain.

The irrelevance card. Say something which calls for a reply and then, when you get one which takes us further from the topic, complain that the reply is taking us further from the topic.

Whether or not my observation was a complaint per se may be open to interpretation but I certainly did state that it had taken us further from the topic, quite simply because it had done so; I don;t see what's wrong with that, frankly.

Finally, one becomes a 'disrupter' and 'distractor' of 'a subject of gravity that should be amenable to no pendulous vacillations of view'.

So? A direct response to another poster's words, at the close of which I once again committed the heinous act of omitting anything remotely resembling an exclamation mark? (which prompts me to wonder if there's a three-strikes-and-you're out rule about the careless and wilful omission of mandatory exclamation marks on this forum - perhaps I'd be wise to check) - yet you illustrate the problem that you apparently have with it merely by writing

Pshaw!

to which I can only ask if this denotes a relative of George Bernard of that ilk. Not to worry; at least you added that vital exclamation mark! I don't get the stuff about card-playing, however but, since you presumably do (as you've made two references thereto), you seem not to have dealt yourself a particularly good hand here.

I was going to suggest (at the risk of appearing tautologous or repetitive or both) that this has taken us yet further from the topic but I realise that to do so would reveal my failure to notice that it is in fact "Welfare, &c.", of which this clearly falls into the "%c." category; it doesn't justify it, however (at least not in my view), so do let's return to discussion of the government's new welfare proposals, which is what I think was originally intended as the principal thrust of the topic.

(Yawwwwwwn)...

[ahinton]

#95 Very good and quick too....

Thank you - a view not perhaps quite universally shared in these parts, however...

Oh, sorry; I forgot to add an !

Done it now!

[JFLL]

(Yawwwwwwn)...

At last we agree.

[JFLL]

Thank you - a view not perhaps quite universally shared in these parts, however...

Oh, sorry; I forgot to add an !

Done it now!

Who's a clever boy, then?

[ahinton]

Who's a clever boy, then?

I really haven't the faintest idea; have you? More importantly, does it matter and would anyone care?

[handsomefortune]

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/graduate-wins-appeal-over-unpaid-103149658.html

well done, and congratulations are in order!

[ahinton]

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/gra...103149658.html

well done, and congratulations are in order!

Indeed; what an extraordinary judicial own goal for the more benighted elements of the current British Government!