For Remainers Only

Good Morning Maizie, I didn't see your post before I posted. Off to read it. Strangely, the hairs on the back of my head are standing up. It looks very worrying from your quote.

From today’s Times:
Matthew Paris
People’s apostrophe
Never mind economic ruin, who will forgive Brexit for its assaults on the English language? The rendering of “Brexit” as a verb (“We Brexit on October 31”) was bad enough — but now this. In his letter to Brussels last week (the signed one) Boris Johnson misplaced an apostrophe. On headed Downing Street notepaper no less, Mr Johnson referred to “our long history in the continent our people’s share”. If this is what Brexit is doing to the prime minister’s grammar, what is it doing to his brain
???

I noticed that on the People’s Vote site MawB also - how should it be?

Read both articles a little more carefully.

WW it does seem perverse that the Conservative and Unionist party is not protecting the Union and it's good to see it laid out like that.

If I look at the people on my study forum they don't care. Ireland, they believe should vote for reunification. Scotland can go if it wants to and they don't really mention Wales. They believe we pay for Scotland, don't like the Irish any more than they like Muslims and are very rude about the Welsh. They are basically English Nationalists and that drives their Brexit vote.

One post sums it up Time to cut the Northern Ireland & Scotland millstones from round England's neck. Wales voted 'Leave' so Wales can stay.

They are almost without exception elderly (older demographic than GN), white men and women although the women tend to be "know our place" types who agree with the men they admire and generally "don't like to talk about politics". I admire one man and one woman who do speak out but sadly it is often with an apology.

These are the people Johnson is frightened of. If they don't vote Tory they will vote Brexit or not at all. This may be why they seem so careless of our other countries. After all, they just want power for the elite.

gg3 the frightening thing is the rise of such hard right nationalism, not really seen in any great numbers since the 1930s

DoraMarr, it's interesting your own family is split about Brexit. I say this because when I look at my Faceboook page and read the entries of friends of friends and friends and friends of friends and relations all are of one mind i.e. remainers , liberals, and non-religionists. This pattern includes people who are geographically far apart and don't meet each other in the flesh or who have little else in common including income level.

Is there some factor common to 'split' families and friend groups that is not common to remainers social groupings?

I suppose it's always around but you need a political group willing to use it. Sadly we seem to have one.

I wonder if that article will make any changes Maizie.

Not only do we have lazy politicians who have been happy to blame the EU for their own faults but we also seem to have lazy journalism. What happened to the old fashioned investigative journalist? I'd hate to think Peter Oborne is the only one.

It seems to me that the TV hosts have created a form of journalism where they play the "other" political view all the time, rather than questioning the political view put to them.

Yes, Great post GGmk3. Spot on.

Hi Jura. Which one? I have been busy on here this morning because I have to stop now and go out, but lovely to have some good conversations with everyone.

Pantglas2 -just an “s” without an apostrophe it’s a plural not a possessive.
Hiley edukated Boris and Cummings should know better.
# disgustedtunbridgewells

Thank you MawB - can you give me examples of plural and possessive punctuation- apologies as English is my second language and grammar sometimes baffles me!

Perhaps Boris was the victim of auto-correct, MawB

Straight Banana's is wrong, Pantglas as Bananas is the plural of Banana. It is known as The Greengrocers' apostrophe (Greengrocers' being plural and possessive)!
Or it could be known henceforth as Boris's apostrophe.

(I hope that's right.)

The apostrophe, in earlier English orthography, was used to indicate the omission of a letter, or letters. E.g ’don't' is short for 'do not', the apostrophe shows that 'o' has been omitted from 'not'. In older English a 'possessive' noun was spelled differently, e.g 'boy's' (as in 'belonging to the boys') was probably 'boyis', the apostrophe indicates the missing letter.

Sorry if this is a bit awkward and long winded. I'm typing on my phone, which I hate doing!

I think Boris has more on his mind than an errant apostrophe
At the moment, but if anyone wants to email Number 10 about it, am sure they will apologise.

GGMK3 Thank you for your post earlier. It reminded me of Turkey and the imprisonment of 10s of thousands of journalists, lawyer and teachers etc - anyone who might possibly be opposed to Erdogan. I'm not sure whether they are still in prison but don't have time at the moment to look.

GGM3 Your post 09.22 today. I too have often wondered why people with very little wealth vote for the Tories and have concluded that they believe they have "arrived" and it is a symbol of their superiority.

A good example is a former neighbour - working class (and I'm not denigrating workers) who left school at 16 and studied at night school to get OND and HND. Always worked for BT. He did very well and, after taking early retirement he set up some call centres for BT.

Children went to uni and had private healthcare. His wife thought people should only have what they could pay for. That is until their younger son developed leukemia. He was treated at first by a private health care company but eventually he was "thrown" back onto the NHS who looked after him until he died.

This same neighbour objected to the use of leftovers. So no Monday food. One day his wife had a piece of bread pudding that I'd made, which she enjoyed and she told me that he wouldn't allow it in his house because that is what poor people do.

An aside - if anyone likes bread pudding there is a lovely recipe in the Guardian using dessicated coconut.

Dinahmo, are you saying some choose their political affiliation because of the party's image?

As a socialist I admit I do so to some extent. I'm not interested in identifying as gentry so I eat bead pudding, and so forth. Lower middle class gentrification sort must be dying out, as popular culture among the young does not value it, and indeed has even given up making fun of it.

MaizieD, regarding older orthography Jane Austen uses the apostrophe where we have given it up.

Explanation of why the ERG are now backing Johnson's deal when Mays better deal was a no-go.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/23/erg-brexit-deal-boris-johnson-financial-interests

There was a phase, Dinahmo, when very upmarket (and expensive) restaurants use to serve the puddings of our childhood. I loved bread and butter pudding. I wonder if it works as well with wheat-free bread? I think you may need the gluten for it to stick together. What I can still eat - and it's very much "Monday" food - is Bubble and Squeak as long as I use "allowable veg" and I'm not likely to have anything else in the house How could you not want that! Shades of childhood.

Someone will put me right but don't the French call food made with left-overs rechauffe? I may be missing an "l" in that so call out to French speakers.

Joking apart, I wonder if he had a very poor childhood? Some things are set then and he may need to feel he has "made it" but you will have to provide the good stuff for his wife I think.

Good article *Daisymae" and I like Phil Burton-Cartledge's style. I find it really interesting to read where he says "Contrary to popular belief, the Tories have never been the party of business as a whole." I feel vindicated for saying, earlier in the thread that the Tories are not the party of small business.

What is sad is that those who want what the ERG want do not realise this:

Therefore the goal the ERG seeks – of a deregulated and effectively deindustrialised UK – looks completely irrational from the perspective of the health of British capitalism as a whole. The EU remains the UK’s largest export market, as well as the largest provider of imports. For most sections of business, new barriers to these flows of goods and capital will hit earnings and therefore profits. This is less the case in terms of the ERG’s sectional interests. They are prepared and happy to sacrifice the general business interest for their narrower concerns. A deskilled, low-wage workforce with few rights, and the UK a playground for footloose corporations to shake their tail at the EU’s regulatory regime from 21 miles across the Channel, would suit them perfectly.

Correct the about the French word gg3 can’t help with the spelling, but we know what you mean.

It’s only the aspirational who worry about left overs and their use.

Sign of a good cook who can use left over food imaginatively.

Gracesgran, don't even try bread and butter pud with gluten free bread, it just turns into a sticky, tasteless mess.

I thought it might BoB but I am glad to be saved the experiment. Thank you.