Business Rates raise £29 billion a year in tax - all of which of course in the end has to be passed on to consumers. That is 4.5% of the entire UK tax take.
Amazon have essentially next to no Business Rates due unlike their competitors that they can undercut, in part because they're not taxed as heavily as their competitors!
That and they pay little to no corporation tax by transferring their profits to the Luxembourg parent where they exploit a bunch of loopholes to reduce the rate to something like 2%.
Ed Davey must be the only choice to keep the LDs on their present course.
Swinson written off as a disaster. Yet the LibDem vote increased by 56% in the 2019 election. Didn't translate into seats as national vote tally largely irrelevant on that basis, but its momentum and thats crucial for our recovery climb out of the Clegg pit
Is it though? Is it really? Because "fuck Brexit" is hardly going to be a vote winner in 2024.
Key to winning seats is to pick an area that you are competitive in and fighting on that ground to win it. In 2017 the Lib Dems had 12 seats and were runners up in 37 so those were the seats to be targeting to make progress . . . but instead ended up with 11.
Increasing your share in seats from next-to-nothing to next-to-nothing+2 isn't great.
The only thing working for the Lib Dems is you're now runners up in 90 seats, but the party realistically needs to pick some of those and target the heck out of them. What should have been done when there were just 37 to target.
Essentially the Brexit policy attracted a lot of disaffected remainers without delivering much in the way of seats, while seeing the LDs go backwards in former targets like N Devon and N Cornwall
The LDs now need to double down to an extent by looking for new policies, which are socially liberal but economically centrist to appeal to their new target seats
Where are their new target seats? Given that both N Devon and N Cornwall now have majorities near 15,000....
Given the current demography of its support, I'd suggest those will be in areas with significant educated middle class working age populations where the party hasn't in the past built much of a campaigning infrastructure. Which steers you away from the South West, as you say, and toward the Home Counties and University towns.
....and into competition with Labour.
That's been the case for years. In Tory seats both parties have always had to compete for the non-Tory voters; it's just that seats with enough non-Tory voters to allow Labour and LibDems to compete with each other, without giving the Tories a shout, are few and far between.
But Labour's problem is being pushed too far toward the educated middle classes (and ethnic minorities) and forgetting that under our voting system it needs a larger constituency.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
On Spain, yes there is some internet sneering about the kind of people off on their holidays and thats fine. Its the absurdity of it that makes me laugh - the head of the Valencian regional government pointing out that people travelling in and out of Alicante airport enter a region that is as bereft of the virus as much of the UK. Nobody would have quarantined me had I been to Rochdale or Rotherham to visit family where there is more of the virus.
Anyway, I get it. Public health. So when Mrs RP and the kids get back they have to Not Go Out as they might Spread the Virus. OK. So I get Mrs RP to infect me on night 1 of her lockdown. I'm then free to go to the gym and sweat in the AC - no mask needed as thats safe - and go to the office and then the pub again without masks as safe. I would of course wear one in the pizza shack afterwards as being inside there without one is Not Safe.
Combine the above nonsense with the zero police resources that are used to enforce said lockdowns and its no surprise that people don't take them seriously. Because they aren't intended to be serious. This is a classic dead cat from the government. Look how STRONG we were in reacting to a THREAT. Don't worry about the 20k we killed in care homes.
A you gov poll on the 2nd July showed only 11% of Brits intended holidaying abroad and the possibility of quarantine post their holiday would have played a part in their decision
HMG is attacked for being too slow and now we have the media and others attacking HMG for acting too quickly.
It is clear the scientists told the UK to act immediately on Saturday and that is what they did. It is said Spain's infection rate had risen to 3
The idea this is a dead cat is nonsense. The swift act was co-ordinated across the UK including by Sturgeon and Drakeford in Scotland and Wales
And of course should anyone now travel to mainland Spain it is against FCO advice and uninsurable
I can understand the anger, but foreign travel in this very serious worldwide pandemic was always going to carry risk
It's not anger - kids can cope with 2 weeks at home playing games and my wife is on summer holiday from school. Its derision - *bits* of Spain have the pox just as bits of the UK do. And as I keep pointing out I am going to be perfectly free to get the purported virus from Mrs RP when she gets back and go spread it down the pub, the gym, the office. A quarantine where you can use public transport and others in your household aren't affected and where you can still go out if you need to isn't a quarantine.
It's "stop looking at the 20k dead caused by our actions on care homes look at the cabinet minister confined at home. We're tough"
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
I must have missed that qualification in your previous statements. My apologies.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Have you missed raising taxes for 40 plus for care widely discussed on here yesterday
It was a possible rise in National Insurance to pay for social care for over 40s, something I have long argued for to avoid increasing inheritance tax or imposing a wealth tax or making the family home liable for at home care costs
Incidentally I may be coming across like I hate Amazon, I don't. I have a Prime account and do most of my non-groceries, non-clothes shopping with Amazon and love it. Its convenient and quick and cheap.
But it will remain convenient and quick and cheap even if it gets its fair share of taxes. I on principle don't agree with it being taxed less than its competitors. Business Rates are not fit for the 21st century and should be abolished or heavily reformed. But at 4.5% of all taxes that is not an easy thing to do.
On Spain, yes there is some internet sneering about the kind of people off on their holidays and thats fine. Its the absurdity of it that makes me laugh - the head of the Valencian regional government pointing out that people travelling in and out of Alicante airport enter a region that is as bereft of the virus as much of the UK. Nobody would have quarantined me had I been to Rochdale or Rotherham to visit family where there is more of the virus.
Anyway, I get it. Public health. So when Mrs RP and the kids get back they have to Not Go Out as they might Spread the Virus. OK. So I get Mrs RP to infect me on night 1 of her lockdown. I'm then free to go to the gym and sweat in the AC - no mask needed as thats safe - and go to the office and then the pub again without masks as safe. I would of course wear one in the pizza shack afterwards as being inside there without one is Not Safe.
Combine the above nonsense with the zero police resources that are used to enforce said lockdowns and its no surprise that people don't take them seriously. Because they aren't intended to be serious. This is a classic dead cat from the government. Look how STRONG we were in reacting to a THREAT. Don't worry about the 20k we killed in care homes.
A you gov poll on the 2nd July showed only 11% of Brits intended holidaying abroad and the possibility of quarantine post their holiday would have played a part in their decision
HMG is attacked for being too slow and now we have the media and others attacking HMG for acting too quickly.
It is clear the scientists told the UK to act immediately on Saturday and that is what they did. It is said Spain's infection rate had risen to 3
The idea this is a dead cat is nonsense. The swift act was co-ordinated across the UK including by Sturgeon and Drakeford in Scotland and Wales
And of course should anyone now travel to mainland Spain it is against FCO advice and uninsurable
I can understand the anger, but foreign travel in this very serious worldwide pandemic was always going to carry risk
Any questions being asked in Scotland about why they lifted quarantine rules for Spain only a few days ago, only to do a massive reverse ferret on Friday?
If UK holiday makers have observed the all the rules regarding avoiding infection whilst out in Spain the chance of them returning infected is negligible. There again maybe many haven’t.
Actually no, it's the flight home, as I said below.
When this crisis first broke, infection rates in Spain and Italy were pretty low, and there is no way that all those infected returnees just happened to bump into an infected local. How much 'closer than a metre and longer than fifteen minutes' interaction do tourists have with locals anyway? (edit/SeanT in Thailand excepted)
There will have been one infected person on the plane and the rest of them caught it while they were enjoying their inflight meal.
How do you actually prove that though
Given the length of the incubation and asymptomatic period, very difficult. If I get the virus next week, who is to say how, and whether my short UK holiday was to blame?
There have been a few genetic studies of individual samples to throw a bit of light on how the virus spreads. In the US there has been a major study that combined contact tracing and genetic mapping of virus mutations to build a picture of how the virus spread across the states (there's an animated map on NYT), which shows that internal flights within the US were key. Indeed that things are so bad in the US is probably partly down to the air above the states having remained full of aircraft while in Europe flights were mostly shut down, back in April-May.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
Nope, you can shop in your High Street in the Red Wall or Home Counties without buying a single product from Amazon
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Um, Amazon probably pay their fair share of tax - they process VAT correctly and pay an awful lot of NI
What Amazon are still doing is investing an awful lot which means their profits are being spent on jobs around this country (well paid engineering work in London plus lots of new warehouses around the UK).
Which do you think pays more Business Rates - Amazon, or their High Street competitors?
Amazon at present.
Since all the retailers have a 12 month holiday for Corona.
I think the normal Amazon BR bill is £60-100 million in the UK.
Incidentally I may be coming across like I hate Amazon, I don't. I have a Prime account and do most of my non-groceries, non-clothes shopping with Amazon and love it. Its convenient and quick and cheap.
But it will remain convenient and quick and cheap even if it gets its fair share of taxes. I on principle don't agree with it being taxed less than its competitors. Business Rates are not fit for the 21st century and should be abolished or heavily reformed. But at 4.5% of all taxes that is not an easy thing to do.
Boris Johnson has a big majority and 4 years to do what he likes. If not now, then when?
Ed Davey must be the only choice to keep the LDs on their present course.
Swinson written off as a disaster. Yet the LibDem vote increased by 56% in the 2019 election. Didn't translate into seats as national vote tally largely irrelevant on that basis, but its momentum and thats crucial for our recovery climb out of the Clegg pit
Is it though? Is it really? Because "fuck Brexit" is hardly going to be a vote winner in 2024.
Key to winning seats is to pick an area that you are competitive in and fighting on that ground to win it. In 2017 the Lib Dems had 12 seats and were runners up in 37 so those were the seats to be targeting to make progress . . . but instead ended up with 11.
Increasing your share in seats from next-to-nothing to next-to-nothing+2 isn't great.
The only thing working for the Lib Dems is you're now runners up in 90 seats, but the party realistically needs to pick some of those and target the heck out of them. What should have been done when there were just 37 to target.
Having been involved on the edges of the 2019 campaign it was an utter farce. The list of seats we were supposed to be going to help got sillier and sillier. There absolutely should have been sensible targeting on top targets. Not "right everyone we want you to go to Berwick / York Outer" one weekend and "shit we could lose Tim we want you to go to Westmoreland" the next weekend.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
While we all have our, ahem, views on Big Bad Dom and his proposed reform of the civil service, I can say that there has long been disquiet with the civil service in terms of basic literacy. An MP of my acquaintance said they spent 40% of their time correcting basic errors of the your welcome type.
But how much of that do you think is weakness in basic literacy standards, and how much is the sheer volume of work that civil servants have to churn out, yesterday, of little or no value?
When typing quickly i often have an issue with things like "your welcome" or "there/their". That's not because i have any deficiencies in my literacy (and i will usually notice and correct) but just instinctive.
Wouldn't be surprised if over time your MP's staff started doing it on purpose just to annoy him.
I almost never have such problems when typing quickly. And as you say if any occur they are near-instantly corrected.
These people are working for MPs helping to draft documents often for public consumption of some form or another. If they are not up to it and/or do it deliberately then the sooner they are booted out by Dom the better.
They can just use a tool like Grammarly and never have to worry about spelling, or grammar, ever again.
Grammarly is shit. It’s dreadful. It’s a very expensive way of making most of your written English grammatically incorrect.
I quite like Hemmingway when putting out memos to the company.
The prose won't be great but the meaning will be clear.
Ed Davey must be the only choice to keep the LDs on their present course.
Swinson written off as a disaster. Yet the LibDem vote increased by 56% in the 2019 election. Didn't translate into seats as national vote tally largely irrelevant on that basis, but its momentum and thats crucial for our recovery climb out of the Clegg pit
Is it though? Is it really? Because "fuck Brexit" is hardly going to be a vote winner in 2024.
Key to winning seats is to pick an area that you are competitive in and fighting on that ground to win it. In 2017 the Lib Dems had 12 seats and were runners up in 37 so those were the seats to be targeting to make progress . . . but instead ended up with 11.
Increasing your share in seats from next-to-nothing to next-to-nothing+2 isn't great.
The only thing working for the Lib Dems is you're now runners up in 90 seats, but the party realistically needs to pick some of those and target the heck out of them. What should have been done when there were just 37 to target.
Having been involved on the edges of the 2019 campaign it was an utter farce. The list of seats we were supposed to be going to help got sillier and sillier. There absolutely should have been sensible targeting on top targets. Not "right everyone we want you to go to Berwick / York Outer" one weekend and "shit we could lose Tim we want you to go to Westmoreland" the next weekend.
The Labour targeting I understand to be even stupider. Pulling people away from seats with sub 1000 majorities to try and unseat Johnson and IDS. An utter joke.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
Nope, you can shop in your High Street in the Red Wall or Home Counties without buying a single product from Amazon
Where on the High Street can I buy an electronic book?
Business Rates raise £29 billion a year in tax - all of which of course in the end has to be passed on to consumers. That is 4.5% of the entire UK tax take.
Amazon have essentially next to no Business Rates due unlike their competitors that they can undercut, in part because they're not taxed as heavily as their competitors!
That and they pay little to no corporation tax by transferring their profits to the Luxembourg parent where they exploit a bunch of loopholes to reduce the rate to something like 2%.
Indeed exploiting corporation tax is an issue with all multinationals it seems and gets a lot of attention in the media. But my personal bugbear is even if no CT exploitation or avoidance happened, with Business Rates there is an entire (and major) class of taxation that applies to essentially every business on the High Street to which Amazon is essentially exempt ... And almost nobody talks about this.
That's not avoidance by Amazon and is entirely caused by HMRC. HMRCs taxes are not fit for the 21st century.
Ed Davey must be the only choice to keep the LDs on their present course.
Swinson written off as a disaster. Yet the LibDem vote increased by 56% in the 2019 election. Didn't translate into seats as national vote tally largely irrelevant on that basis, but its momentum and thats crucial for our recovery climb out of the Clegg pit
Is it though? Is it really? Because "fuck Brexit" is hardly going to be a vote winner in 2024.
Key to winning seats is to pick an area that you are competitive in and fighting on that ground to win it. In 2017 the Lib Dems had 12 seats and were runners up in 37 so those were the seats to be targeting to make progress . . . but instead ended up with 11.
Increasing your share in seats from next-to-nothing to next-to-nothing+2 isn't great.
The only thing working for the Lib Dems is you're now runners up in 90 seats, but the party realistically needs to pick some of those and target the heck out of them. What should have been done when there were just 37 to target.
Having been involved on the edges of the 2019 campaign it was an utter farce. The list of seats we were supposed to be going to help got sillier and sillier. There absolutely should have been sensible targeting on top targets. Not "right everyone we want you to go to Berwick / York Outer" one weekend and "shit we could lose Tim we want you to go to Westmoreland" the next weekend.
Yep. Although the party's post-mortem was honest and forthright, it did have to pull a few punches on identifying the individuals responsible for the many completely idiotic decisions taken at HQ, for relatively obvious reasons.
Indeed centralising almost everything to HQ in the first place was a catastrophic mistake, particularly surprising for a party that has always argued against centralisation.
Chief among the idiocy was sending direct mail, letterheaded by a very prominent PB'er, at great expense into utterly and quite obviously no-hope seats like Hornchurch and Warrington North, containing a patently absurd and dishonest message. Whoever did that should have been fired.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Um, Amazon probably pay their fair share of tax - they process VAT correctly and pay an awful lot of NI
What Amazon are still doing is investing an awful lot which means their profits are being spent on jobs around this country (well paid engineering work in London plus lots of new warehouses around the UK).
Incidentally I may be coming across like I hate Amazon, I don't. I have a Prime account and do most of my non-groceries, non-clothes shopping with Amazon and love it. Its convenient and quick and cheap.
But it will remain convenient and quick and cheap even if it gets its fair share of taxes. I on principle don't agree with it being taxed less than its competitors. Business Rates are not fit for the 21st century and should be abolished or heavily reformed. But at 4.5% of all taxes that is not an easy thing to do.
Boris Johnson has a big majority and 4 years to do what he likes. If not now, then when?
There are also zoning issues that need to be addressed in town centres.
Currently national planning policy are that gyms, for example, are a town centre activity, which forces them into retail or office space sometimes.
We had a hell of a job getting planning to be in a redundant industrial unit, and there are a *lot* of gyms operating unlawfully from similar - which means they are not well regulated.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Um, Amazon probably pay their fair share of tax - they process VAT correctly and pay an awful lot of NI
What Amazon are still doing is investing an awful lot which means their profits are being spent on jobs around this country (well paid engineering work in London plus lots of new warehouses around the UK).
Which do you think pays more Business Rates - Amazon, or their High Street competitors?
Amazon at present.
Since all the retailers have a 12 month holiday for Corona.
I think the normal Amazon BR bill is £60-100 million in the UK.
Dixons Carphone alone pays over £200m annually normally. So they alone pay an order of magnitude more than Amazon, is that appropriate?
Ed Davey must be the only choice to keep the LDs on their present course.
Swinson written off as a disaster. Yet the LibDem vote increased by 56% in the 2019 election. Didn't translate into seats as national vote tally largely irrelevant on that basis, but its momentum and thats crucial for our recovery climb out of the Clegg pit
Is it though? Is it really? Because "fuck Brexit" is hardly going to be a vote winner in 2024.
Key to winning seats is to pick an area that you are competitive in and fighting on that ground to win it. In 2017 the Lib Dems had 12 seats and were runners up in 37 so those were the seats to be targeting to make progress . . . but instead ended up with 11.
Increasing your share in seats from next-to-nothing to next-to-nothing+2 isn't great.
The only thing working for the Lib Dems is you're now runners up in 90 seats, but the party realistically needs to pick some of those and target the heck out of them. What should have been done when there were just 37 to target.
Having been involved on the edges of the 2019 campaign it was an utter farce. The list of seats we were supposed to be going to help got sillier and sillier. There absolutely should have been sensible targeting on top targets. Not "right everyone we want you to go to Berwick / York Outer" one weekend and "shit we could lose Tim we want you to go to Westmoreland" the next weekend.
The Labour targeting I understand to be even stupider. Pulling people away from seats with sub 1000 majorities to try and unseat Johnson and IDS. An utter joke.
And Labour pulled people away from target seats to try and make sure defectors like Umunna and Berger didn't succeed against the Tories.
I haven’t lurked for a few days (new born in the house!) so may have missed prior discussion. But what was the consensus on the NY Times UFO story and where the congressional process is headed?
On your story, with so many bigger stories going on including Brexit, a worldwide pandemic, an imploding government and the decisive Test, we haven’t really discussed that.
Thanks! Other than Fox, no one else has picked up the story much. But there’s quite strong bipartisan language, perhaps the book might be opened soon and the insinuation is that there’s something to show. Puts rain at Old Trafford today into perspective in any case...
Should we expect any play in Old Trafford today do we think?
Alexa currently says we should expect thunderstorms and 13.9mm of rain in Manchester today.
Nah. Windies to be polished off by lunchtime on day 5
Forecasts have been all over the place. We are clearly in a very changeable pattern.
For once, I have a little bit of sympathy with the forecasters, but not too much. They will continue to be the butt of jokes until they start publishing regular and easily accessible results, just like most other tipsters do.
The Met Office site could quite easily be re-purposed as a betting exchange. But don't forget that poor Admiral FitzRoy was driven to suicide by the ribaldry that greeted his frequently wayward forecasts. Tread softly for you tread upon his grave.
Weather forecasting is a difficult and worthy endeavour. My beef is that results are not published, not at least in a readily accessible form.
I suspect that the reason for this reticence is that the smooth assurance that forecasters generally display would be undermined by, say, a graphic showing that yesterday's forecast was only 33% correct.
My occasional research on the subject suggests that UK forecasts are now about 80% accurate which sounds OK and is certainly much better than you might have expected ten or more years ago. Methods have improved a lot recently. You have to remember though that in many places in the UK if you simply guessed it would be dry today, you'd be right about 70% of the time. Apply a little common sense (and some seaweed?!) and you might easily get up to 75%.
You can see why some people might think the extra five to ten per cent accuracy wasn't worth all the bother. I wouldn't be one of them, but I do want them to show their results, and their workings. I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Until they are more open about their success rates, I will continue to rank them with the astrologers that one still finds on the pages of poor publications.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
I haven’t lurked for a few days (new born in the house!) so may have missed prior discussion. But what was the consensus on the NY Times UFO story and where the congressional process is headed?
On your story, with so many bigger stories going on including Brexit, a worldwide pandemic, an imploding government and the decisive Test, we haven’t really discussed that.
Thanks! Other than Fox, no one else has picked up the story much. But there’s quite strong bipartisan language, perhaps the book might be opened soon and the insinuation is that there’s something to show. Puts rain at Old Trafford today into perspective in any case...
Should we expect any play in Old Trafford today do we think?
Alexa currently says we should expect thunderstorms and 13.9mm of rain in Manchester today.
Nah. Windies to be polished off by lunchtime on day 5
Forecasts have been all over the place. We are clearly in a very changeable pattern.
For once, I have a little bit of sympathy with the forecasters, but not too much. They will continue to be the butt of jokes until they start publishing regular and easily accessible results, just like most other tipsters do.
The Met Office site could quite easily be re-purposed as a betting exchange. But don't forget that poor Admiral FitzRoy was driven to suicide by the ribaldry that greeted his frequently wayward forecasts. Tread softly for you tread upon his grave.
Weather forecasting is a difficult and worthy endeavour. My beef is that results are not published, not at least in a readily accessible form.
I suspect that the reason for this reticence is that the smooth assurance that forecasters generally display would be undermined by, say, a graphic showing that yesterday's forecast was only 33% correct.
My occasional research on the subject suggests that UK forecasts are now about 80% accurate which sounds OK and is certainly much better than you might have expected ten or more years ago. Methods have improved a lot recently. You have to remember though that in many places in the UK if you simply guessed it would be dry today, you'd be right about 70% of the time. Apply a little common sense (and some seaweed?!) and you might easily get up to 75%.
You can see why some people might think the extra five to ten per cent accuracy wasn't worth all the bother. I wouldn't be one of them, but I do want them to show their results, and their workings. I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Until they are more open about their success rates, I will continue to rank them with the astrologers that one still finds on the pages of poor publications.
The weather today is definitely optimised for Pisceans!
Ed Davey must be the only choice to keep the LDs on their present course.
Swinson written off as a disaster. Yet the LibDem vote increased by 56% in the 2019 election. Didn't translate into seats as national vote tally largely irrelevant on that basis, but its momentum and thats crucial for our recovery climb out of the Clegg pit
Is it though? Is it really? Because "fuck Brexit" is hardly going to be a vote winner in 2024.
Key to winning seats is to pick an area that you are competitive in and fighting on that ground to win it. In 2017 the Lib Dems had 12 seats and were runners up in 37 so those were the seats to be targeting to make progress . . . but instead ended up with 11.
Increasing your share in seats from next-to-nothing to next-to-nothing+2 isn't great.
The only thing working for the Lib Dems is you're now runners up in 90 seats, but the party realistically needs to pick some of those and target the heck out of them. What should have been done when there were just 37 to target.
Having been involved on the edges of the 2019 campaign it was an utter farce. The list of seats we were supposed to be going to help got sillier and sillier. There absolutely should have been sensible targeting on top targets. Not "right everyone we want you to go to Berwick / York Outer" one weekend and "shit we could lose Tim we want you to go to Westmoreland" the next weekend.
That must have been verbal, because my experience was the opposite in that last respect - the party's online "where to go help" website for members was directing me to Portsmouth South, or from London to Cambridge, right up until polling day. Those seats might have been in play had the campaign panned out differently, but by the final days continuing to send help there was idiotic; both Winchester and South (or was it South East) Cambs came fairly close, and we should have directed help AWAY from seats like Portsmouth and Cambridge.
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
I have come across two English authors whose overuse of exclamation marks seriously damages the flow of their prose.
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
Business Rates raise £29 billion a year in tax - all of which of course in the end has to be passed on to consumers. That is 4.5% of the entire UK tax take.
Amazon have essentially next to no Business Rates due unlike their competitors that they can undercut, in part because they're not taxed as heavily as their competitors!
That and they pay little to no corporation tax by transferring their profits to the Luxembourg parent where they exploit a bunch of loopholes to reduce the rate to something like 2%.
Indeed exploiting corporation tax is an issue with all multinationals it seems and gets a lot of attention in the media. But my personal bugbear is even if no CT exploitation or avoidance happened, with Business Rates there is an entire (and major) class of taxation that applies to essentially every business on the High Street to which Amazon is essentially exempt ... And almost nobody talks about this.
That's not avoidance by Amazon and is entirely caused by HMRC. HMRCs taxes are not fit for the 21st century.
Does HMRC set the taxes, Mr Thompson? I thought that was the Government. So it´s not really surprising is it?
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
I have come across two English authors whose overuse of exclamation marks seriously damages the flow of their prose.
One is R. F. Delderfield.
The other is Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie also possibly overused the phrase "ejaculated" when referring to someone's speech. This caused great amusement to my teenagers a while ago when listening to an audio book in the car on a long journey.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I also have the same issue. I am not really sure why.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I have exactly the same, can't see the typo for love nor money till after I hit post
Ed Davey must be the only choice to keep the LDs on their present course.
Swinson written off as a disaster. Yet the LibDem vote increased by 56% in the 2019 election. Didn't translate into seats as national vote tally largely irrelevant on that basis, but its momentum and thats crucial for our recovery climb out of the Clegg pit
Is it though? Is it really? Because "fuck Brexit" is hardly going to be a vote winner in 2024.
Key to winning seats is to pick an area that you are competitive in and fighting on that ground to win it. In 2017 the Lib Dems had 12 seats and were runners up in 37 so those were the seats to be targeting to make progress . . . but instead ended up with 11.
Increasing your share in seats from next-to-nothing to next-to-nothing+2 isn't great.
The only thing working for the Lib Dems is you're now runners up in 90 seats, but the party realistically needs to pick some of those and target the heck out of them. What should have been done when there were just 37 to target.
Having been involved on the edges of the 2019 campaign it was an utter farce. The list of seats we were supposed to be going to help got sillier and sillier. There absolutely should have been sensible targeting on top targets. Not "right everyone we want you to go to Berwick / York Outer" one weekend and "shit we could lose Tim we want you to go to Westmoreland" the next weekend.
The Labour targeting I understand to be even stupider. Pulling people away from seats with sub 1000 majorities to try and unseat Johnson and IDS. An utter joke.
And to block the chances of the uppity jew traitor in north London
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
Nope, you can shop in your High Street in the Red Wall or Home Counties without buying a single product from Amazon
Do you really hate the Red Wall and Home Counties so much? What next? Take away their digital channels (and Channel 4 while we're at it) and leave them only with BBC1 & BBC2 and ITV?
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
I am a conservative who supports traditional shops and local high streets, you are a libertarian who could not care less.
Fine but high streets should at least be able to compete on a level playing field with online retailers and if the latter do not pay business rates unlike the former then they should have to pay an online tax instead
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I have exactly the same, can't see the typo for love nor money till after I hit post
Ditto. Your eye reads what you intended to write rather than what's on the screen.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
Nope, you can shop in your High Street in the Red Wall or Home Counties without buying a single product from Amazon
Where on the High Street can I buy an electronic book?
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
Nope, you can shop in your High Street in the Red Wall or Home Counties without buying a single product from Amazon
Do you really hate the Red Wall and Home Counties so much? What next? Take away their digital channels (and Channel 4 while we're at it) and leave them only with BBC1 & BBC2 and ITV?
Why do you hate them so?
The Red Wall and Home Counties have traditional high streets that need to be protected and preserved
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
We shouldn't try to force people into them but nor should we exorbitantly tax those that do more than those that shop online which is our present status quo. Do you agree with that?
If the high street goes bust then let it go bust. But it should do so on a level playing field not due to excess taxes that it's competitors don't pay.
Re the cricket, the weather forecast has changed yet again. Now looks like we might get a smidgeon of play this evening but tomorrow suddenly looking a lot better and a good two sessions seems likely. That should be plenty for England to bowl out the rest of the Womens Institute.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
Mathematicians need to be exempt from that: N! has a very specific meaning.
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
I have come across two English authors whose overuse of exclamation marks seriously damages the flow of their prose.
One is R. F. Delderfield.
The other is Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie also possibly overused the phrase "ejaculated" when referring to someone's speech. This caused great amusement to my teenagers a while ago when listening to an audio book in the car on a long journey.
W. E. Johns is the one for overuse of ejaculations.
Ginger ejaculated a lot when he was up, umm, airborne with Biggles apparently.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I have exactly the same, can't see the typo for love nor money till after I hit post
Ditto. Your eye reads what you intended to write rather than what's on the screen.
Business Rates raise £29 billion a year in tax - all of which of course in the end has to be passed on to consumers. That is 4.5% of the entire UK tax take.
Amazon have essentially next to no Business Rates due unlike their competitors that they can undercut, in part because they're not taxed as heavily as their competitors!
That and they pay little to no corporation tax by transferring their profits to the Luxembourg parent where they exploit a bunch of loopholes to reduce the rate to something like 2%.
Indeed exploiting corporation tax is an issue with all multinationals it seems and gets a lot of attention in the media. But my personal bugbear is even if no CT exploitation or avoidance happened, with Business Rates there is an entire (and major) class of taxation that applies to essentially every business on the High Street to which Amazon is essentially exempt ... And almost nobody talks about this.
That's not avoidance by Amazon and is entirely caused by HMRC. HMRCs taxes are not fit for the 21st century.
Does HMRC set the taxes, Mr Thompson? I thought that was the Government. So it´s not really surprising is it?
The problem is deeper - a chunk of the economy is predicated on the idea that High Street shops are really, really valuable. As shops.
Rents & taxes are based on this. It is no longer true.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
I am a conservative who supports traditional shops and local high streets, you are a libertarian who could not care less.
Fine but high streets should at least be able to compete on a level playing field with online retailers and if the latter do not pay business rates unlike the former then they should have to pay an online tax instead
If they aren't paying business rates that is down to your government, I am aware of nothing that stops them charging business rates. Why should sensible online shoppers be penalised by your higher taxes because of your nostalgia, This is what you are wanting its a typical I want this and I want everyone else to pay for it, I thought you were a conservative not a socialist.
The high street like print media and broadcast tv needs to reinvent itself for the new century not whine for subsidies like all are doing to keep an outmoded, and outdated concept going which most people couldn't give a toss about.
Business Rates raise £29 billion a year in tax - all of which of course in the end has to be passed on to consumers. That is 4.5% of the entire UK tax take.
Amazon have essentially next to no Business Rates due unlike their competitors that they can undercut, in part because they're not taxed as heavily as their competitors!
That and they pay little to no corporation tax by transferring their profits to the Luxembourg parent where they exploit a bunch of loopholes to reduce the rate to something like 2%.
Indeed exploiting corporation tax is an issue with all multinationals it seems and gets a lot of attention in the media. But my personal bugbear is even if no CT exploitation or avoidance happened, with Business Rates there is an entire (and major) class of taxation that applies to essentially every business on the High Street to which Amazon is essentially exempt ... And almost nobody talks about this.
That's not avoidance by Amazon and is entirely caused by HMRC. HMRCs taxes are not fit for the 21st century.
HMRC is not responsible for Business rates Philip, they are administered by local government. Nonetheless, I agree with your central point, that they are iniquitous. The main problem with them is that they bear zero relationship to the profits that a company makes. A local corporation tax would be a better solution.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
Nope, you can shop in your High Street in the Red Wall or Home Counties without buying a single product from Amazon
Do you really hate the Red Wall and Home Counties so much? What next? Take away their digital channels (and Channel 4 while we're at it) and leave them only with BBC1 & BBC2 and ITV?
Why do you hate them so?
The Red Wall and Home Counties have traditional high streets that need to be protected and preserved
Sounds a bit nanny state to me. They _will_ go to shop at Dixons and won't buy anything online.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
We shouldn't try to force people into them but nor should we exorbitantly tax those that do more than those that shop online which is our present status quo. Do you agree with that?
If the high street goes bust then let it go bust. But it should do so on a level playing field not due to excess taxes that it's competitors don't pay.
The future for high streets in towns is either as social gathering points with mostly hospitality and catering businesses plus unavoidably personal services (hairdressing and the like), with only a small amount of ancillary retail on the side. Or as conversion to residential, as almost all villages have already experienced.
Given that the former is preferable to the latter, it would be better if both rents and property taxes fell in such places. The first won't happen without very strong planning intervention to prevent conversion to residential, otherwise property owners will simply cash in. The second also needs government intervention, and the identification of an alternative tax base to make up the revenue.
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
I have come across two English authors whose overuse of exclamation marks seriously damages the flow of their prose.
One is R. F. Delderfield.
The other is Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie also possibly overused the phrase "ejaculated" when referring to someone's speech. This caused great amusement to my teenagers a while ago when listening to an audio book in the car on a long journey.
W. E. Johns is the one for overuse of ejaculations.
Ginger ejaculated a lot when he was up, umm, airborne with Biggles apparently.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I have exactly the same, can't see the typo for love nor money till after I hit post
Ditto. Your eye reads what you intended to write rather than what's on the screen.
Noted with thanks. That is very reassuring.
I find much the same, the mistakes instantly show up when I read the post after clicking the "post" button.
Business Rates raise £29 billion a year in tax - all of which of course in the end has to be passed on to consumers. That is 4.5% of the entire UK tax take.
Amazon have essentially next to no Business Rates due unlike their competitors that they can undercut, in part because they're not taxed as heavily as their competitors!
That and they pay little to no corporation tax by transferring their profits to the Luxembourg parent where they exploit a bunch of loopholes to reduce the rate to something like 2%.
Indeed exploiting corporation tax is an issue with all multinationals it seems and gets a lot of attention in the media. But my personal bugbear is even if no CT exploitation or avoidance happened, with Business Rates there is an entire (and major) class of taxation that applies to essentially every business on the High Street to which Amazon is essentially exempt ... And almost nobody talks about this.
That's not avoidance by Amazon and is entirely caused by HMRC. HMRCs taxes are not fit for the 21st century.
HMRC is not responsible for Business rates Philip, they are administered by local government. Nonetheless, I agree with your central point, that they are iniquitous. The main problem with them is that they bear zero relationship to the profits that a company makes. A local corporation tax would be a better solution.
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
Mathematicians need to be exempt from that: N! has a very specific meaning.
Never buy anything at a bargain price of ONLY £10! unless you want to pay £33,628,800 for it.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
Nope, you can shop in your High Street in the Red Wall or Home Counties without buying a single product from Amazon
Do you really hate the Red Wall and Home Counties so much? What next? Take away their digital channels (and Channel 4 while we're at it) and leave them only with BBC1 & BBC2 and ITV?
Why do you hate them so?
The Red Wall and Home Counties have traditional high streets that need to be protected and preserved
Sounds a bit nanny state to me. They _will_ go to shop at Dixons and won't buy anything online.
What happened to free market Conservatism?
This lot don't have an ideology, they're just forever in an election campaign.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
I am a conservative who supports traditional shops and local high streets, you are a libertarian who could not care less.
Fine but high streets should at least be able to compete on a level playing field with online retailers and if the latter do not pay business rates unlike the former then they should have to pay an online tax instead
If they aren't paying business rates that is down to your government, I am aware of nothing that stops them charging business rates. Why should sensible online shoppers be penalised by your higher taxes because of your nostalgia, This is what you are wanting its a typical I want this and I want everyone else to pay for it, I thought you were a conservative not a socialist.
The high street like print media and broadcast tv needs to reinvent itself for the new century not whine for subsidies like all are doing to keep an outmoded, and outdated concept going which most people couldn't give a toss about.
Do you even know what business rates are of how they are set? From the tone of your post it certainly seems like you don't.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
We shouldn't try to force people into them but nor should we exorbitantly tax those that do more than those that shop online which is our present status quo. Do you agree with that?
If the high street goes bust then let it go bust. But it should do so on a level playing field not due to excess taxes that it's competitors don't pay.
Where have I argued they shouldn't pay the same tax? As far as I know they do. What online shops shouldn't have to do is pay extra tax because they are online and not bricks and mortar. No one forces people to set up a shop in the high st rather than online. I am sure other shops that do both pay the same business rates on their warehouses as online places like amazon do.
Personally I don't see why you aren't arguing the problem is the excessive business rates being charged rather than arguing we should add extra tax onto online
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
I have come across two English authors whose overuse of exclamation marks seriously damages the flow of their prose.
One is R. F. Delderfield.
The other is Agatha Christie.
Agatha Christie also possibly overused the phrase "ejaculated" when referring to someone's speech. This caused great amusement to my teenagers a while ago when listening to an audio book in the car on a long journey.
She's a pretty moderate writer, so it's about what I would expect. In one respect however she was way ahead of her times. She was a brilliant self-publicist. Despite ample evidence to the contrary she managed to convince a lot of people she was '...the Queen of Mystery'.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
I am a conservative who supports traditional shops and local high streets, you are a libertarian who could not care less.
Fine but high streets should at least be able to compete on a level playing field with online retailers and if the latter do not pay business rates unlike the former then they should have to pay an online tax instead
If they aren't paying business rates that is down to your government, I am aware of nothing that stops them charging business rates. Why should sensible online shoppers be penalised by your higher taxes because of your nostalgia, This is what you are wanting its a typical I want this and I want everyone else to pay for it, I thought you were a conservative not a socialist.
The high street like print media and broadcast tv needs to reinvent itself for the new century not whine for subsidies like all are doing to keep an outmoded, and outdated concept going which most people couldn't give a toss about.
Do you even know what business rates are of how they are set? From the tone of your post it certainly seems like you don't.
I don't care how they are set, do amazon pay less business rates on a warehouse than tesco's? I doubt it. Equivalent rates for equivalent things. Bricks and mortar shops choose to be so, they knew being on the high st would cost an arm and a leg in business rates.
Your argument should be business rates are too high
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
I am a conservative who supports traditional shops and local high streets, you are a libertarian who could not care less.
Fine but high streets should at least be able to compete on a level playing field with online retailers and if the latter do not pay business rates unlike the former then they should have to pay an online tax instead
If they aren't paying business rates that is down to your government, I am aware of nothing that stops them charging business rates. Why should sensible online shoppers be penalised by your higher taxes because of your nostalgia, This is what you are wanting its a typical I want this and I want everyone else to pay for it, I thought you were a conservative not a socialist.
The high street like print media and broadcast tv needs to reinvent itself for the new century not whine for subsidies like all are doing to keep an outmoded, and outdated concept going which most people couldn't give a toss about.
Do you even know what business rates are of how they are set? From the tone of your post it certainly seems like you don't.
I don't care how they are set, do amazon pay less business rates on a warehouse than tesco's? I doubt it. Equivalent rates for equivalent things. Bricks and mortar shops choose to be so, they knew being on the high st would cost an arm and a leg in business rates.
Your argument should be business rates are too high
To my knowledge Tesco don't avoid taxes on anything like the scale Amazon do. It's not a level playing field if one company has their hands tied behind their back.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
b.
Its the right thing to do.
Of course. Especially given their dominant, near-monopolistic position.
= a tax rise of the type that @HYUFD said would not occur under the Cons.
Tax rises on the Red Wall or the Home Counties no, bringing tax paid by online retailers like Amazon in line with high street businesses is an entirely different matter
[increasing] tax paid by online retailers like Amazon = tax rises for the Red Wall and the Home Counties.
Nope, you can shop in your High Street in the Red Wall or Home Counties without buying a single product from Amazon
Do you really hate the Red Wall and Home Counties so much? What next? Take away their digital channels (and Channel 4 while we're at it) and leave them only with BBC1 & BBC2 and ITV?
Why do you hate them so?
The Red Wall and Home Counties have traditional high streets that need to be protected and preserved
Now the part of the Red Wall I know is Teesside so let's look at the town centres:-
Boro - being destroyed by the closure of Department stores Stockton - destroyed 20 years ago by the development corporation opening Teesside Park out of town shopping centre Darlington - slowly dying as it has for 20+ years
Hartlepool - destroyed in the 1960-70's as a hideous indoor centre replaced the high street Redcar - I don't know where to begin...
Outside of Boro and Darlo - the high streets have already been destroyed.
Business Rates raise £29 billion a year in tax - all of which of course in the end has to be passed on to consumers. That is 4.5% of the entire UK tax take.
Amazon have essentially next to no Business Rates due unlike their competitors that they can undercut, in part because they're not taxed as heavily as their competitors!
That and they pay little to no corporation tax by transferring their profits to the Luxembourg parent where they exploit a bunch of loopholes to reduce the rate to something like 2%.
Indeed exploiting corporation tax is an issue with all multinationals it seems and gets a lot of attention in the media. But my personal bugbear is even if no CT exploitation or avoidance happened, with Business Rates there is an entire (and major) class of taxation that applies to essentially every business on the High Street to which Amazon is essentially exempt ... And almost nobody talks about this.
That's not avoidance by Amazon and is entirely caused by HMRC. HMRCs taxes are not fit for the 21st century.
HMRC is not responsible for Business rates Philip, they are administered by local government. Nonetheless, I agree with your central point, that they are iniquitous. The main problem with them is that they bear zero relationship to the profits that a company makes. A local corporation tax would be a better solution.
Administered, but not governed nor set.
That "exempt" comment is not quite right.
Business Rates is a tax on business premises, and Amazon have a model which is more efficient by dint of not needing retail premises.
So it can equally validly be argued that the out of date element is high street premises, and why should Amazon be penalised for their greater efficiency?
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
We shouldn't try to force people into them but nor should we exorbitantly tax those that do more than those that shop online which is our present status quo. Do you agree with that?
If the high street goes bust then let it go bust. But it should do so on a level playing field not due to excess taxes that it's competitors don't pay.
Where have I argued they shouldn't pay the same tax? As far as I know they do. What online shops shouldn't have to do is pay extra tax because they are online and not bricks and mortar. No one forces people to set up a shop in the high st rather than online. I am sure other shops that do both pay the same business rates on their warehouses as online places like amazon do.
Personally I don't see why you aren't arguing the problem is the excessive business rates being charged rather than arguing we should add extra tax onto online
I'm arguing both. Business rates should be cut and a level playing field should exist between physical and online. Considering this is 4.5% of the entire tax take annually simple abolition isn't an option so either abolish and replace with a tax fit for purpose for the 21st century ... Or put an equivalent tax on online sales using the funds to reduces taxes on rates.
Nigel thanks for the correction it's not HMRC. I simply used the word HMRC as a metaphor for "the taxman" but you're right they're not responsible for this one. Still needs fixing though.
How much longer are the tories going to allow Johnson to play with the trainset?
He shuts down gyms and swimming pools for months and puts his citizens under house arrest - and then urges them to lose weight.
He delivers knock out blow after knock out blow to the high street, via lockdowns, forced business shutdowns and most egregiously compulsory face masks, and then tries to bring in a digital sales tax on competitors to prevent a joblessness tsunami his own enormous errors are to a great extent causing.
People can return to work, but only on his terms. You have to wear the 'Johnson wasn't wrong on Corona' badge - the face mask.
Re: proofreading. If you can, get someone else to do it for you. You see want you meant to write, they see what you actually wrote.
And on the whole only spotting the mistakes when it is too late, I remember someone bemoaning that in a book I read when I was at school, so it is pretty common.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I also have the same issue. I am not really sure why.
I blame people's brains, as most people merely glance at stuff. For a while at my last client, I used to get shown virtually every proposal going out the door from one department as I could instantly pick up font differences which would otherwise sneak in.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I have exactly the same, can't see the typo for love nor money till after I hit post
Ditto. Your eye reads what you intended to write rather than what's on the screen.
Noted with thanks. That is very reassuring.
I find much the same, the mistakes instantly show up when I read the post after clicking the "post" button.
I bet this will be introduced in a couple of years just as I turn 40 too. Student grants were abolished and tuition fees introduced just as I started university so I had to pay fees while students who'd started previously didn't. I know full well pensions by the time we retire are going to be crap too. Now this . . . I can see it happening!
They should definitely make it 50 or 55. Our generation seems to have become the most put upon, unable to buy property because our parents' generation pulled the ladder up behind them, huge childcare costs and longer living parents resulting in huge care costs.
We definitely have become the very definition of the "squeezed middle" politicians love talking about. I'm lucky to have a career that has affordede a fairly comfortable life and the chance to own my own home but loads of my friends are t so fortunate.
Our generation also inherits far more on average than any previous generation did and also far more of use went to university
It remains disputed how much ‘of use’ we are...
I'm of the view that the 50% uni target was a big mistake and far less of our lot should be going to university.
I agree with @MaxPB's sentiment though, our lot are getting screwed. We don't vote Tory, they offer us nothing.
Far FEWER
Funny you should mention this, I was watching a video on speech today and saying far less is perfectly correct.
Who was saying that? Probably just one person´s opinion, and my opinion is probably just as good as his.
Yes, that's literally the point. The idea that there is a distinction between less and fewer applying to countable and uncountable nouns was invented by a style guide writer out of thin air - they wrote that they found it nicer to themselves.
If you look at textual analysis of the English language as actually used across centuries there is no such split, people use less and fewer interchangeably.
Anyone pushing prescriptivist bollocks on this is being a total smug utterly wrong wanker.
The worst kind of people are people who put two spaces after a full stop because “they were taught that way”. So what? It’s crap and unnecessary in a digital age. Thank god HTML removes it by default.
Research has shown that two spaces after the full stop increases reading speed of the text. I write for the reader so I use two spaces. Even in tweets.
What research? All research I’ve read suggests that is only true for mono-space typefaces and not for modern typefaces where the software already increases the gap for a space after a full-stop.
Suspect there will be a different result for sans-serif and serif typefaces too.
Personally double spaces before a full stop don't happen in my circle; if it did they would be shot.
Who would do double spaces before a full stop ?
That would be very odd .
Got to encapsulate that punctuation with blank space , to really help the readability .
A space before question and exclamation marks used to be common, and imo should be again.
My 1932 Imperial Model 50 typewriter has no exclamation mark key!
I remember those. I think for an exclamation mark you typed a full stop, went back a space and then typed an apostrophe.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
Mathematicians need to be exempt from that: N! has a very specific meaning.
And in predicate logic where it is called a shriek.
How much longer are the tories going to allow Johnson to play with the trainset?
He shuts down gyms and swimming pools for months and puts his citizens under house arrest - and then urges them to lose weight.
He delivers knock out blow after knock out blow to the high street, via lockdowns, forced business shutdowns and most egregiously compulsory face masks, and then tries to bring in a digital sales tax on competitors to prevent a joblessness tsunami his own enormous errors are to a great extent causing.
People can return to work, but only on his terms. You have to wear the 'Johnson wasn't wrong on Corona' badge - the face mask.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
That. of course, comes down to the steady loss of knowledge of how to use the apostrophe - 'should of' being a homonym for 'should've'. Such linguistic innovations are, regrettably or not, inevitable. Though there is a degree of entertainment to be had from attempting to halt the inexorable march of evolution.
Re: proofreading. If you can, get someone else to do it for you. You see want you meant to write, they see what you actually wrote.
And on the whole only spotting the mistakes when it is too late, I remember someone bemoaning that in a book I read when I was at school, so it is pretty common.
Re: proofreading. If you can, get someone else to do it for you. You see want you meant to write, they see what you actually wrote.
And on the whole only spotting the mistakes when it is too late, I remember someone bemoaning that in a book I read when I was at school, so it is pretty common.
I once worked in a (small) department where that proofreading practice was applied rigorously. It worked a treat, and absolutely nobody was ashamed of their typos. We just all recognised that a fresh set of eyes spotted them much more easily.
Ed Davey must be the only choice to keep the LDs on their present course.
Swinson written off as a disaster. Yet the LibDem vote increased by 56% in the 2019 election. Didn't translate into seats as national vote tally largely irrelevant on that basis, but its momentum and thats crucial for our recovery climb out of the Clegg pit
Is it though? Is it really? Because "fuck Brexit" is hardly going to be a vote winner in 2024.
Key to winning seats is to pick an area that you are competitive in and fighting on that ground to win it. In 2017 the Lib Dems had 12 seats and were runners up in 37 so those were the seats to be targeting to make progress . . . but instead ended up with 11.
Increasing your share in seats from next-to-nothing to next-to-nothing+2 isn't great.
The only thing working for the Lib Dems is you're now runners up in 90 seats, but the party realistically needs to pick some of those and target the heck out of them. What should have been done when there were just 37 to target.
Having been involved on the edges of the 2019 campaign it was an utter farce. The list of seats we were supposed to be going to help got sillier and sillier. There absolutely should have been sensible targeting on top targets. Not "right everyone we want you to go to Berwick / York Outer" one weekend and "shit we could lose Tim we want you to go to Westmoreland" the next weekend.
The Labour targeting I understand to be even stupider. Pulling people away from seats with sub 1000 majorities to try and unseat Johnson and IDS. An utter joke.
And Labour pulled people away from target seats to try and make sure defectors like Umunna and Berger didn't succeed against the Tories.
Tbh, that's probably the correct party management strategy. Showing would be defectors that they won't win without Labour is a net gain for Labour.
How much longer are the tories going to allow Johnson to play with the trainset?
He shuts down gyms and swimming pools for months and puts his citizens under house arrest - and then urges them to lose weight.
He delivers knock out blow after knock out blow to the high street, via lockdowns, forced business shutdowns and most egregiously compulsory face masks, and then tries to bring in a digital sales tax on competitors to prevent a joblessness tsunami his own enormous errors are to a great extent causing.
People can return to work, but only on his terms. You have to wear the 'Johnson wasn't wrong on Corona' badge - the face mask.
Your stupid reference to mask wearing ruins what could have been a good post.
""Our busiest time of the year is from April to September when we take possibly more than 50% of our annual takings so for us it's been a massive hit on our business," said Jayne Goodings, owner of Lemon Tree Nails and Beauty Salon, in Cowbridge." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53531126
Possibly more than half the year's takings in 6 months ... No Shit, Sherlock.
On the fewer v less debate: when you write something it is so that you can communicate your ideas as well as possible (unless you are a lawyer). “Eight items or less” conveys the same idea as “Eight items or fewer” and in one fewer character, so why the argument? Well for a significant fraction of your readership the first version will cause them to wince a little. They are now thinking about your grammar, not your ideas. This is not helpful.
Over time English evolves as it is used, and the distinction will become less (and here fewer is certainly wrong) important. Incidentally that is why quoting uses from the ninth century doesn’t really help here; it’s how people use it now that is important. But while there are still those of us around who will wince then you are more likely to get a sympathetic hearing by avoiding that construction.
I think that was the point the video I linked to previously, was making.
Many of the things we say now were wrong a few hundred years ago (or more) but as you say language adapts and changes.
I don't know if it's a generational thing but I certainly don't wince when I see "less" instead of fewer and I don't know anyone else who does either.
Do you think the OED will ever state:
"LOSE" - alt "LOOSE"...?
It might. There was a recent report that people are losing the ability to spell as they rely on software handling it for them. Combine that trend with the descriptive (as opposed to prescriptive) approach to language, and yes, loose/lose will be in the OED.
“Should of” for “should have” (from the sound of “should’ve”) is one I think I am fighting a losing battle with. I’m conscious that I’m one of the few on here that can do anything at all about this by flagging up these points in my pupils’ work. Some would end up with more written by me than they did if I went for everything they got wrong. Not just pupils either. We have a school policy of getting someone else to check our reports before they are sent out and I’ve had a few discussions about what I think are basic bits of grammar with some of my younger colleagues.
It sounds old-fogyish, but I am really shocked at the poor standard of spelling and grammar from Government officials. I can cope with this up to a point but evidently the habit of proof-reading is disappearing, and that's just laziness. It is also inefficient because it often means a subsequent clarification is necessary.
Just because someone has been to university, even a good one, does not mean that they will have good grammar or spelling. The assumption is that you have been taught that sort of thing before getting there and it would look pretty bad to have remedial English lessons when you would rather be punting on the Cam.
I get that, but what the hell is wrong with proof-reading? It actually saves time.
What irritates me are the number of spelling (not grammar) mistakes made on the ticker on Sky News and BBC. As an ex-teacher they jump out at me and get worse in my mind as I realise that nobody at the station proof reads them!
Standards are evidently higher on PB.com.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
I have exactly the same, can't see the typo for love nor money till after I hit post
Ditto. Your eye reads what you intended to write rather than what's on the screen.
Noted with thanks. That is very reassuring.
I find much the same, the mistakes instantly show up when I read the post after clicking the "post" button.
60% of confectionary sales (were) are at the point of sale, that’s why there is always a fight to get best placement. This is because they are impulse purchases. Whilst banning the practice may be good for weight loss it could cost an awful lot of jobs.
@HYUFD I remember the halcyon days when you were laughing at anyone who suggested that there might be tax rises.
Good times.
Ensuring the likes of Amazon pay their fair share of tax to protect the high street is hardly the same as raising income tax or imposing a wealth tax on the Home counties
Do you think that after a tax rise on Amazon, their prices will a) stay the same; or b) rise to reflect the tax rise?
If it pushes more consumers to shop locally and boost the revenues of high street shops and reduce spending on Amazon due to price rises at Amazon all to the good
It won't and no one sane wants a return to the days if you wanted some electrical appliance you had a choice between curries and dixons. The high street for the majority of people is somewhere you get your hair cut or a coffee or are passing through on the way to somewhere else.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
I am a conservative who supports traditional shops and local high streets, you are a libertarian who could not care less.
Fine but high streets should at least be able to compete on a level playing field with online retailers and if the latter do not pay business rates unlike the former then they should have to pay an online tax instead
If they aren't paying business rates that is down to your government, I am aware of nothing that stops them charging business rates. Why should sensible online shoppers be penalised by your higher taxes because of your nostalgia, This is what you are wanting its a typical I want this and I want everyone else to pay for it, I thought you were a conservative not a socialist.
The high street like print media and broadcast tv needs to reinvent itself for the new century not whine for subsidies like all are doing to keep an outmoded, and outdated concept going which most people couldn't give a toss about.
I am a conservative I am not a free market liberal and I believe traditional high streets should be preserved and online retailers should pay the same rate of tax whether by expanding business rates to include retail online or by a new online tax
Comments
But Labour's problem is being pushed too far toward the educated middle classes (and ethnic minorities) and forgetting that under our voting system it needs a larger constituency.
It's "stop looking at the 20k dead caused by our actions on care homes look at the cabinet minister confined at home. We're tough"
But it will remain convenient and quick and cheap even if it gets its fair share of taxes. I on principle don't agree with it being taxed less than its competitors. Business Rates are not fit for the 21st century and should be abolished or heavily reformed. But at 4.5% of all taxes that is not an easy thing to do.
Since all the retailers have a 12 month holiday for Corona.
I think the normal Amazon BR bill is £60-100 million in the UK.
The prose won't be great but the meaning will be clear.
That's not avoidance by Amazon and is entirely caused by HMRC. HMRCs taxes are not fit for the 21st century.
Indeed centralising almost everything to HQ in the first place was a catastrophic mistake, particularly surprising for a party that has always argued against centralisation.
Chief among the idiocy was sending direct mail, letterheaded by a very prominent PB'er, at great expense into utterly and quite obviously no-hope seats like Hornchurch and Warrington North, containing a patently absurd and dishonest message. Whoever did that should have been fired.
Currently national planning policy are that gyms, for example, are a town centre activity, which forces them into retail or office space sometimes.
We had a hell of a job getting planning to be in a redundant industrial unit, and there are a *lot* of gyms operating unlawfully from similar - which means they are not well regulated.
I suspect that the reason for this reticence is that the smooth assurance that forecasters generally display would be undermined by, say, a graphic showing that yesterday's forecast was only 33% correct.
My occasional research on the subject suggests that UK forecasts are now about 80% accurate which sounds OK and is certainly much better than you might have expected ten or more years ago. Methods have improved a lot recently. You have to remember though that in many places in the UK if you simply guessed it would be dry today, you'd be right about 70% of the time. Apply a little common sense (and some seaweed?!) and you might easily get up to 75%.
You can see why some people might think the extra five to ten per cent accuracy wasn't worth all the bother. I wouldn't be one of them, but I do want them to show their results, and their workings. I don't think I'm being unreasonable. Until they are more open about their success rates, I will continue to rank them with the astrologers that one still finds on the pages of poor publications.
Traditional high streets are the buggy whip makers of the 21st century, if people wanted them they would be using them . They aren't so they go bust and we should stop trying to force people into them in the old mould and even worse spending tax payers money are trying to keep them running as of old whether that be by direct grant or stealth taxes.
High streets were always crap for choice and synonymous with poor service. I order a fridge on line I will be given an hour window when it will arrive. In the old days I was lucky to be told morning or afternoon.
The great thriller writer Elmore Leonard once said that exclamation marks should not be used more than once every 100,000 words. He was not wrong!!!!???!!!
One is R. F. Delderfield.
The other is Agatha Christie.
I have the impression that most posters do in fact proof read before hitting the button. I certainly do, although that may not be self-evident. For some reason I find it hard to spot typos in the draft postings, but once the post is published, they become much more visible to me. (I edit then if I have time.)
Do others have the same problem as me, or is there something wrong with my eye?
Why do you hate them so?
Fine but high streets should at least be able to compete on a level playing field with online retailers and if the latter do not pay business rates unlike the former then they should have to pay an online tax instead
You just haven't figured it out yet.
If the high street goes bust then let it go bust. But it should do so on a level playing field not due to excess taxes that it's competitors don't pay.
https://twitter.com/borisjohnson/status/1287649130655997959?s=21
Ginger ejaculated a lot when he was up, umm, airborne with Biggles apparently.
Rents & taxes are based on this. It is no longer true.
The high street like print media and broadcast tv needs to reinvent itself for the new century not whine for subsidies like all are doing to keep an outmoded, and outdated concept going which most people couldn't give a toss about.
What happened to free market Conservatism?
Given that the former is preferable to the latter, it would be better if both rents and property taxes fell in such places. The first won't happen without very strong planning intervention to prevent conversion to residential, otherwise property owners will simply cash in. The second also needs government intervention, and the identification of an alternative tax base to make up the revenue.
Which is why occasionally they get a good policy.
Personally I don't see why you aren't arguing the problem is the excessive business rates being charged rather than arguing we should add extra tax onto online
Your argument should be business rates are too high
Boro - being destroyed by the closure of Department stores
Stockton - destroyed 20 years ago by the development corporation opening Teesside Park out of town shopping centre
Darlington - slowly dying as it has for 20+ years
Hartlepool - destroyed in the 1960-70's as a hideous indoor centre replaced the high street
Redcar - I don't know where to begin...
Outside of Boro and Darlo - the high streets have already been destroyed.
Business Rates is a tax on business premises, and Amazon have a model which is more efficient by dint of not needing retail premises.
So it can equally validly be argued that the out of date element is high street premises, and why should Amazon be penalised for their greater efficiency?
been sent for proof reading.
Nigel thanks for the correction it's not HMRC. I simply used the word HMRC as a metaphor for "the taxman" but you're right they're not responsible for this one. Still needs fixing though.
He shuts down gyms and swimming pools for months and puts his citizens under house arrest - and then urges them to lose weight.
He delivers knock out blow after knock out blow to the high street, via lockdowns, forced business shutdowns and most egregiously compulsory face masks, and then tries to bring in a digital sales tax on competitors to prevent a joblessness tsunami his own enormous errors are to a great extent causing.
People can return to work, but only on his terms. You have to wear the 'Johnson wasn't wrong on Corona' badge - the face mask.
And on the whole only spotting the mistakes when it is too late, I remember someone bemoaning that in a book I read when I was at school, so it is pretty common.
Such linguistic innovations are, regrettably or not, inevitable. Though there is a degree of entertainment to be had from attempting to halt the inexorable march of evolution.
""Our busiest time of the year is from April to September when we take possibly more than 50% of our annual takings so for us it's been a massive hit on our business," said Jayne Goodings, owner of Lemon Tree Nails and Beauty Salon, in Cowbridge."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53531126
Possibly more than half the year's takings in 6 months ... No Shit, Sherlock.
Wonderful truism.