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What happened to English grammar?

(314 Posts)
Greatnan Tue 06-Aug-13 07:15:56

Headline in The Daily Mail:
The death of the man who sunk the Belgrano: Falklands Navy hero Sir John 'Sandy' Woodward dies aged 81

Greatnan Wed 07-Aug-13 17:25:50

Janthea - I did not 'get my knickers in a twist' - I simply pointed out a grammatical error, which annoyed me.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 14:36:25

grin

Sel Wed 07-Aug-13 14:34:19

Ah. Well I have done a bit of wheeler dearlering in my time...wrong appendages though grin

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 14:26:36

No. I think it meant Del-boy! grin Sorry.

Sel Wed 07-Aug-13 14:01:24

j08 hmmmm. As in boy or Delia? Neither applicable but I don't mind a bit of a change. Delilah..

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 12:39:33

hmm

Very helpful post.

janthea Wed 07-Aug-13 12:38:05

Wow!! I don't look at Gransnet for a day and come back to a lot of fuss about nothing. And before anyone starts up again, I'm not referring to the Belgrano et al, but the grammar reference. I would have thought we all had better things to do than get our knickers in a twist over trivia. Let's hope everyone has kissed and made up by now!

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 12:27:12

I'm sorry my Kindle Fire insists on calling you Del. grin

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 12:25:50

shock It did actually say that Del! Rubbish journalism all round!

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 12:23:28

You're right Elegran. You would have thought the world would have grown up by now. sad

Sel Wed 07-Aug-13 12:02:26

Actually I thought the problem with the sentence was describing Sir John Woodward as being of the Falklands Navy . Oh dear.

grumppa Wed 07-Aug-13 11:44:10

No I don't like playing wars j08, but I do lapse into irony occasionally.

Elegran Wed 07-Aug-13 11:35:54

Every generation does it, Jings. WW1 was the "war to end wars" but there has been war going on in some part of the globe ever since. Each time, both sides believe that they are justified, and they are only defending themselves against something.

My mother was born just at the start of WW1, I was born a few months before WW2, my brother just before the Korean war, and when each of my children and grandchildren was born there was fighting going on somewhere. I think we have all looked at our children and hoped that they would be spared.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 11:18:23

Oh God, were n' t they all heroes, poor sods. I remember going and standing by my one year old son's cot the night it kicked off and praying that he would never have to get involved with anything like that. I hope and pray the same thing about the grandsons now.

Bags Wed 07-Aug-13 11:07:37

You can give me the wooden spoon back now, petallus smile

Bags Wed 07-Aug-13 11:07:01

I don't regard him as a hero. He was just doing his job as he thought best. There's no conscription in this country so people choose to enter the armed forces in order, presumably, to do the jobs armed forces require them to do. Some of those jobs may end up being heroic but no more so than, say, a surgeon's job would – especially surgeons who work for an outfit like, for instance, Médecins sans Frontières, and clean up the mess left by, among others, armed forces various.

Ariadne Wed 07-Aug-13 10:31:15

If he was a hero, then his memory deserves that he be reported in the best possible English.

petallus Wed 07-Aug-13 10:00:41

It was calling the 'the man who sunk the Belgrano' a hero!

Greatnan Wed 07-Aug-13 09:48:29

You certainly haven't caused any upset between any of my friends and myself, jingle, but it is nice of you to be concerned. smile

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:43:10

Did anyone celebrate it petallus. God, I hope not.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:42:16

Oh dear. I hope this thread, and my contribution to it, hasn't caused upset between RL friends. To be honest, I was worrying about this in the small hours.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:40:45

And my first post on this thread expressed my feelings.

Greatnan Wed 07-Aug-13 09:40:31

I was rather amazed myself, jingle, at the ridiculous attack on my sensitivity - not by you.

Greatnan Wed 07-Aug-13 09:39:21

My OP was about a grammatical error that a journalist should not have made. Nothing else.

j08 Wed 07-Aug-13 09:37:23

No personal feelings involved here Greatnan. I was simply "gobsmacked".