Gentle reader; you know my grammatical ways by now - highly knowledgeable about correct applications and strongly in favour of fierce correction of all mistakes (except when I get something wrong, at which point prescriptivism becomes pointless and correction becomes negative reinforcement of meaningless rules / language is ever-changing / people should be encouraged to express themselves how they want blah blah blah.)

Last night, in written conversation with an esteemed colleague, I decided to use “to wikipedia” as a verb; a fairly common occurrence, in much the same way as “to google” has entered the language. But I needed to use it in the past tense, and was somewhat stumped; “wikipediad”?  Looks too much like “Olympiad”, and therefore as if it should signify a worldwide competition for shoddy editing or something. “Wikipedia’d”, then? Surely that’s far worse than any of the apostrophe-based mistake’s you see every day. In the end, I went with “made reference to a popular encyclopaedic website whose editorial and funding practices are somewhat controversial” - but there MUST be a more succinct way of putting it.

Maybe you clever blogosphere types with your computers, jobs, wide range of knowledge and different experiences of life can help me… I’ll put it to a poll.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls (guffaw) has announced today that the much-reviled national tests for 14-year-olds have been abolished.

Why is this annoying? Because children are workshy little bastards who SHOULD be tested at age 14, if only to distract them from their upcoming GCSE in knife-wielding? Because of the steady stream of fucking irritating self-righteous parents phoning in to Radio 5 to share their incredibly important views about how this change will impact gifted little Tarquin and Jemima? Because Mr Balls must have realised that his test(e)s were bollocks, and that he was nuts to have introduced them in the first place?

Well, yes to all three - but mostly because everyone’s referring to them as “Sats tests”. SAT stands for “Statutory Assessment Test” - so “SATs tests” unabbreviates to “Statutory Assessment Tests Tests”. It’s either an “SA Test”, or a “SAT”. Unless you’re Gollum, in which case “SAT-ssss Test-ssss” is acceptable. Sorry if I’m being “precious”…

If there were an Olympics for grammar, sports commentators would surely come last. Or should that just be “would surely last”? No-one can have failed to notice Beijing’s trend for noun-to-verb mass conversion here satirised by Harry Pearson of the Guardian:

“And word coming out of the US camp is that D’Ladedah Tubbs, who all-comered when semi-finalling in the 400 metres, has positived. Until Wada have B-sampled we can’t start scandaling but I’m hearing some of the media in America have already furore-ed and I’m sure we can expect some real controversying in the next 24 hours.”

But the worst example of all is the new verb “to medal”. “I’m confident that I’ll be able to medal…”, and even, heard just now on Radio 5, “Michael Phelps is now the most medalled athlete of all time”. The only thing that’s really getting a meddling is our beloved language…

It’s not often I dispense with my own prattle and simply big up another blog, but for this one, I will. My thanks - and a pint of cider, if she’s not fed up of that “gag” already - go to Rosie for sending me the link.

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/

I simply had no IDEA that there were so many sarcastic signwriters out there…

Just back from an excellent weekend chez Pal Pito, of whom viewers from the glory days of the Sandwich (in the early 20th century) may have a hazy recollection. Luckily, he’s alive and well in the realoplane, and promising to be back here plenty soon.

He did, however, make me cringe with embarrasment when he (justifiably) pulled me up for saying “Can I GET an apple juice?” at Pizza Hut this afternoon. Leaving aside the “can” / “may” question, the whole “get” thing is yet another horrible Americanism which has insidiously crept into our beautiful language. The serving wench would have been well within her rights to have rejoindered: “I don’t know - can you? You tell me. I can only see the top half of your body; you may be paraplegic for all I know” (although obviously she didn’t).

A little window, whether you wanted one or not, into the professional life of a hard-grafting Sandwich. Many of you will know that I sell on eBay for a living; mostly records / CDs, but I’ll chance my arm with any old piece of shite which comes (cheaply) my way. My eBay listings almost invariably contain the word “rare”, although I’ve got into the habit of overkilling it (eg *RARE!!!*) - and Pal has “rarely” (ho ho) missed an opportunity to rib me for it.

One word I won’t use, though, is “collectable”, for the simple reason that it’s meaningless. Pigeon droppings, toenail clippings and those bits you pull off the top of baked bean cans are “collectable”, if you’re so inclined. Many eBay sellers do use the word, and good luck to them - it’s their own time they’re wasting.

But what REALLY gets my easily-roused goat is when people who sell their junk at car boot sales (the source of most of my stock) use it. If their poverty-addled brains perceive that a piece of their tat is worth something (which it almost always isn’t), they’ll invariably hike the price and justify it by saying “S’clecter’s”(*). Obviously “S’clectaBLE” is out of the question, being a THREE-syllable mumble. Grrrr….

And those army guys think they have a tough job…

(* - apostrophe-before-S added for chav-thenticity.)

Talking CCTV has been introduced in Middlesbrough, according to this story from Yahoo. People are told off by the talking cameras; eg shamed into picking up litter they’ve just dropped.

The only problem is that I don’t think this idea goes far enough; they should police more aspects of our lives. A camera should, for example, be able to say “Drop the hamburger, fatso - you’re doing yourself no favours and you’re a burden on the NHS”. Or “take that sign down immediately, you cretinous shopkeeper - plurals don’t take an apostrophe. You’re lowering the tone of the high street.”

In fact, I’d replace local councillors with elected “camera tsars” who can vent public spleen onto any miscreant on behalf of we God-fearing normal folk. Not quite the benevolent dictatorship which we all crave, but a step in the right direction.

An absolute grammatical puker, courtesy of Borns Estate Agent, Sandgate -

“Situated in an elevated conservation area in Sandgate sit’s this three bedroom cottage…”

GAAAAH!

Since at least 3 people have contacted me asking what the hell “Crivvens!” means, I’ll point you in the direction of this link about “minced oaths”. The writer is correct in that we don’t really feel the need to be polite about our expleting any more, and therefore minced oaths are becoming more of a rarity; exceptions that I can think of - ‘king Hell, and “Big F”, which Rik Mayall (who, surprisingly, doesn’t like swearing all that much) uses in place of “fuck” once or twice. Oh, and a lot of people have started using “Feck” post-Father Ted.

By the way, should the plural of “oaf” be “oaves”?

This from the Sky website: “Peters’s Walcott Worry”

Obviously Skysport’s’e’s’ copy-writers are no better grammar-wise than the chavs they serve.