Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Contender for the Donald-Rumsfeld Award
Beijing is the birthplace of Maoism and it's where Chairman Mao comes from as well
(Giles Wemmbley-Hogg)
Thursday, June 29, 2006
'The military'
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Trial by Combat
A court has rejected a 60-year-old man’s attempt to invoke the ancient right to trial by combat, rather than pay a £25 fine for a minor motoring offence.
Leon Humphreys remained adamant yesterday that his right to fight a champion nominated by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) was still valid under European human rights legislation. He said it would have been a “reasonable” way to settle the matter.
Magistrates sitting at Bury St Edmunds on Friday had disagreed and instead of accepting his offer to take on a clerk from Swansea with “samurai swords, Ghurka knives or heavy hammers”, fined him £200 with £100 costs.
Humphreys, an unemployed mechanic, was taken to court after refusing to pay the original £25 fixed penalty for failing to notify the DVLA that his Suzuki motorcycle was off the road.
After entering a not guilty plea, he threw down his unconventional challenge. Humphreys, from Bury St Edmunds, said: “I was willing to fight a champion put up by the DVLA, but it would have been a fight to the death.”
Nouns used as Adjectives
lady driverand
lady drivers.This basic rule is frequently infringed today in the phrase:
women priests.This should be:
woman priests.Well, actually, it should in most of its occurrences be:
woman presbyters.One often has a choice between a noun used as an adjective and a noun in the possessive case. Thus one may say either:
a 30-minute driveor
30 minutes' drivebut not
a 30-minutes drive.
Inverted Commas and Names
My name is Daniel HillThe reason why this would be false is that we could then conclude that I was my name, which is false. Instead, we (well, I) should say:
Here the inverted commas ensure that the name is quoted rather than merely used.
My name is 'Daniel Hill'.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
One word with opposite meanings
'behest' vs 'bequest'
`that' and `who'
`that' for all defining clauses whether qualifying persons or things, & `who' for persons but `which' for things in all non-defining.
I try to follow this advice, but I haven't found anyone else other than Fowler that [sic] does.
Monday, June 05, 2006
Nautical Expressions
Sunday, May 21, 2006
misuse of 'claim'
If you have any other examples of misused words please feel free to post them as comments.
Daniel Hill