Letter to local rag.

"Simon Mason" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

My response to bloke moaning about getting a parking
ticket outside a church.

I can't understand why Mr Richards got so uptight about
receiving a

parking

Quoted message said:

ticket on a Sunday (Mail 17 MAR 04). Since when do the
laws of the land

only

Quoted message said:

apply 6 days a week? In 25 years of driving I have yet to
receive a single parking fine in this country, the simple
reason being that I never park illegally. I will find
somewhere legal to park and walk the extra

distance,

Quoted message said:

no great hardship.

(he then moans about pedestrianisation of city centre)

As for the time when Whitefriargate was open to two way
traffic, that was in the days when very few people owned
a car. Nowadays the streets are literally choked up with
them and people want to be able to walk around a city
centre without having to pick their way around hundreds
of noisy

motor

Quoted message said:

vehicles and they want to breathe in something
approximating fresh air.

If he pops over to Holland on the ferry and walks around
any of their

towns

Quoted message said:

he will see something that we should aspire to, not to the
USA model of drive through everythings and being thought
of as eccentric if you

actually

Quoted message said:

walk and cycle around. He might note the average waistline
of a Dutch

person

Quoted message said:

versus an American as well and think about the folly of
pandering to the motor car.

--
Simon Mason

Nice one. All the salient points, but succinct as well, so
they should print it without editing.

"burt" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Nice one. All the salient points, but succinct as well, so
they should print it without editing.

You're joking :-) The oafs at our local rag always mess
about with my letters. For a start, when I write anti-
religion letters, I use the word "god" and they change it
to "God", which is annoying. I once wrote "10000 BCE" and
they changed it to "thousand of years before Jesus walked
the earth"!

They start paragraphs with "And," which I never do. I wrote
"none of these is likely to" and they put "none of these are
likely to", I wrote "the news media are" and they changed it
to "the media is". They've got degrees and I didn't even get
O level English! Idiots.

--
Simon Mason Anlaby East Yorkshire. 53°44'N 0°26'W
simonmason.karoo.netsimonmason.karoo.netOpen ↗

Simon Mason said:

You're joking :-) The oafs at our local rag always mess
about with my letters. For a start, when I write anti-
religion letters, I use the word "god" and they change it
to "God", which is annoying. I once wrote "10000 BCE" and
they changed it to "thousand of years before Jesus walked
the earth"!

Hey, even letters have to conform to house style - God with
capital G is standard, and BCE is *never* used. They could
have changed BCE to BC, which would be house style, but the
change they made shows that they obviously had some
sensitivity to your point of view. I'm a sub by profession -
a very experienced one at that - so I think I know what I'm
talking about here. (And by the way, I wouldn't have called
your letter particularly succinct - it's about 70 words too
long. Always aim for 150 words max.)

Quoted message said:

They start paragraphs with "And," which I never do. I
wrote "none of these is likely to" and they put "none of
these are likely to", I wrote "the

news

Quoted message said:

media are" and they changed it to "the media is". They've
got degrees and

I

Quoted message said:

didn't even get O level English! Idiots.

Starting a paragraph with "And" may not be strictly
grammatical but it would have been done to make the copy
flow better, which is more important than grammatical
correctness. None is/are is largely a matter of preference -
and may also be a matter of house style - but I agree that
in this case it probably shouldn't have been changed.
Putting media in the singular is a schoolboy error and makes
my skin crawl.

Anyway, how do you know they have degrees? I certainly
wouldn't count on it. I've met many a local press sub who
went into the job as an apprentice school leaver.

d.

"david kenning" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Simon Mason said:

You're joking :-) The oafs at our local rag always mess
about with my letters. For a start, when I write anti-
religion letters, I use the word "god" and they change
it to "God", which is annoying. I once wrote "10000
BCE" and they changed it to "thousand of years before
Jesus walked the earth"!

Hey, even letters have to conform to house style - God
with capital G is standard, and BCE is *never* used.
They could have changed BCE to BC, which would be house
style, but the change they made shows that they
obviously had some sensitivity to your point of view.
I'm a sub by profession - a very experienced one at that
- so I think I know what I'm talking about here. (And by
the way, I wouldn't have called your letter particularly
succinct - it's about 70 words too long. Always aim for
150 words max.)

Quoted message said:

They start paragraphs with "And," which I never do. I
wrote "none of these is likely to" and they put "none of
these are likely to", I wrote "the

news

Quoted message said:

media are" and they changed it to "the media is".
They've got degrees and

I

Quoted message said:

didn't even get O level English! Idiots.

Starting a paragraph with "And" may not be strictly
grammatical but it would have been done to make the copy
flow better, which is more important than grammatical
correctness. None is/are is largely a matter of preference
- and may also be a matter of house style - but I agree
that in this case it probably shouldn't have been changed.
Putting media in the singular is a schoolboy error and
makes my skin crawl.

Anyway, how do you know they have degrees? I certainly
wouldn't count on it. I've met many a local press sub who
went into the job as an apprentice school leaver.

I take your points Dave and I suppose they've got to make
it readable, but capitalising God infers that I accept god
as a deity and the use of BC infers I believe in Christ.
This is a slight on my character as anyone reading it would
assume that I believe in this stuff. In fact, the only
atheistic letter I've ever managed to get in was this:

"Mrs Girling is "absolutely certain" God did not
create animals to be eaten. Then why did He make
carnivorous animals?

In addition, why would He create dinosaurs, knowing full
well that an asteroid was going to wipe them out soon after
He had finished?

As an atheist, I cannot believe people still believe in
these old superstitions."

See how they changed he/she (which I put)to He? People will
assume I did it :-)

Simon

Simon Mason said:

I take your points Dave and I suppose they've got to make
it readable, but capitalising God infers that I accept
god as a deity and the use of BC infers I believe in
Christ.

I disagree on both points.

Using capital G when you write God no more implies that he
exists than using capital S and H implies that you think
Sherlock Holmes is real.

BCE is just jargon.

Quoted message said:

This is a slight on my character as anyone reading it
would assume that I believe in this stuff.

Notwithstanding that the views you expressed in your letter
suggest rather the opposite?

d.

"david kenning" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Simon Mason said:

I take your points Dave and I suppose they've got to
make it readable, but capitalising God infers that I
accept god as a deity and the use of BC infers I
believe in Christ.

I disagree on both points.

Using capital G when you write God no more implies that he
exists than using capital S and H implies that you think
Sherlock Holmes is real.

BCE is just jargon.

Quoted message said:

This is a slight on my character as anyone reading it
would assume that I believe in this stuff.

Notwithstanding that the views you expressed in your
letter suggest rather the opposite?

Well that's the point. Why would an atheist put He instead
of he in such a letter? It make the whole letter
incongruous. When I was brought up a Roman Catholic, I was
taught that there were gods (small
g) in other religions, but only one real God, which you can
tell is the "real" one by the use of capital letters in
His name (see - you've got me at it now ;-)

The capital G suggest that I acknowledge this doctrine and
I objected to the letter editor changing my deliberate use
of the lower case to upper case which gives off the
impression that I accept the idea of only one true God.

The use of CE (common era) removes the reference to Christ
in the date in the same way as Coordinated Universal Time
removes the reference to Greenwich in GMT (sort of!)

Anyway, what's this got to do with bikes :-)

Simon M.

Quoted message said:

Anyway, what's this got to do with bikes :-)

Simon M.

Jesus was a famous cyclist - you've never heard the
expression "Christ on a bike"?

d.

"david kenning" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jesus was a famous cyclist

Not that famous. Made an undistinguished appearance in
the 2003 Tour and was thrown off the team at the end of
last year.

procycling.comnews main.aspOpen ↗

Tony

On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 10:46:31 +0000 (UTC), "david kenning"
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Jesus was a famous cyclist

Whereas Moses was a fan of classic British motorbikes.

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. chapmancentral.co.ukchapmancentral.co.ukOpen ↗

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University

Simon Mason said:

I wrote "none of these is likely to" and they put "none of
these are likely to",

'none is' vs 'none are' from the AUE FAQ:

"With mass nouns, you have to use the singular. ("None of
the wheat is..."😉 With count nouns, you can use either the
singular or the plural. ("None of the books is..." or "None
of the books are..."😉 Usually, the plural sounds more
natural, unless you're trying to emphasize the idea of "not
one", or if the words that follow work better in the
singular."

Yours is a count noun so the plural is acceptable. You may
have been aiming for the emphasis while they might have been
going for naturalness.

Quoted message said:

I wrote "the news media are" and they changed it to "the
media is".

You see both used quite commonly even within the same
document. Media like data is seen as both a singular and a
plural depending on context.

Quoted message said:

They've got degrees

How do you know?

Quoted message said:

and I didn't even get O level English! Idiots.

Colin
--

Simon Mason said:

The use of CE (common era) removes the reference to Christ

in the date in the same way as Coordinated Universal Time
removes the reference to Greenwich in GMT (sort of!)

The term 'common era' only removes explicit reference to Jesus - it still necessarily refers to the supposed birthdate of Jesus by its definition. And in any case, 'common' era is only 'common' to those countries that use the Gregorian calendar, which may be the predominant standard throughout the world but is by no means universally accepted.

d.

Guy said:

Whereas Moses was a fan of classic British motorbikes.

And Mohammed, of course, rides a Segway, while the Dalai Lama swears by his Street Machine.

d.

"Colin Blackburn" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Simon Mason said:

I wrote "none of these is likely to" and they put "none
of these are likely to",

'none is' vs 'none are' from the AUE FAQ:

"With mass nouns, you have to use the singular. ("None of
the wheat is..."😉 With count nouns, you can use either the
singular or the plural. ("None of the books is..." or
"None of the books are..."😉 Usually, the plural sounds
more natural, unless you're trying to emphasize the idea
of "not one", or if the words that follow work better in
the singular."

Yours is a count noun so the plural is acceptable. You may
have been aiming for the emphasis while they might have
been going for naturalness.

Quoted message said:

I wrote "the news media are" and they changed it to "the
media is".

You see both used quite commonly even within the same
document. Media like data is seen as both a singular and a
plural depending on context.

I often see so and so "peddled his bike", but it doesn't
make it right. I once heard someone on the BBC say "all
stratas of society" and they often say "one pence".

Quoted message said:

They've got degrees

How do you know?

Because a columnist in the same paper was fuming that the
same editor had changed her copy so that it full of
inaccuracies that she hadn't made. I can see her point; I
don't mind them putting their *own name* to their writings,
but when they change yours, people assume you've written it
as it appears in the newspaper. I don't want people to go
around thinking I'm a born again Catholic or don't know
basic grammar and Latin plurals. :-)

Simon M.

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 12:04:03 GMT, davek
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Whereas Moses was a fan of classic British motorbikes.

Quoted message said:

And Mohammed, of course, rides a Segway, while the Dalai
Lama swears by his Street Machine.

OK, not heard them ones. How you make that out?

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. chapmancentral.co.ukchapmancentral.co.ukOpen ↗

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University

Guy:

Quoted message said:

OK, not heard them ones. How you make that out?

Well, the Segway is clearly a modern, forward thinking person's choice of transport, yet somehow looks strangely medieval, while the recumbent is the preferred vehicle for those who occupy a position outside the mainstream of society and frankly don't care what other people think they look like, yet still want to get from A to B in the most effective manner possible.

Simple really.

d.

On Wed, 17 Mar 2004 11:18:17 -0000, "Simon Mason"
<[email hidden]> wrote:

🙂My response to bloke moaning about getting a parking
:ticket outside a )church. ) )(he then moans about
:pedestrianisation of city centre) ) ) As for the time when
:Whitefriargate was open to two way traffic, that was )in
:the days when very few people owned a car. Nowadays the
:streets are )literally choked up with them and people want
:to be able to walk around a )city centre without having to
:pick their way around hundreds of noisy motor )vehicles and
:they want to breathe in something approximating fresh air.

Birmingham City Centre is more or less motor vehicle free.

It's now got Bl**dy peds all over the place impeding my
progress ! Big vehicles kept the peds at bay !
--
Comm again, Mike.

On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 19:45:43 GMT, in
<[email hidden]>,

(pmailkeey) said:

Birmingham City Centre is more or less motor vehicle free.

We are obviously running different versions of Birmingham!
Well actually the bit Bham that I walk around most is around
Steelhouse lane, Corporation St, and Dale End. Corporation
street seems to be busier with traffic since the closure of
High St and New St.

--
DISCLAIMER: My email box is private property.Email which
appears in my inbox is mine to do what I like with. Anything
which is sent to me (whether intended or not) may, if I so
desire, form a legal and binding contract.

On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 14:50:20 GMT, davek
<[email hidden]> wrote in message
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Simple really.

Not as simple as Moses and the motorbike: "And Moses came
down the mountain on his Triumph"

Actually that's all made up, but it sounds plausible ;-)

--
Guy
===
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after
posting. chapmancentral.co.ukchapmancentral.co.ukOpen ↗

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at
Washington University

On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 19:51:18 +0000, Richard Bates
<[email hidden]> wrote:

🙂On Tue, 23 Mar 2004 19:45:43 GMT, in
🙂<[email hidden]>,
🙂[email hidden] (pmailkeey) wrote: )
🙂>Birmingham City Centre is more or less motor vehicle
:free. ) )We are obviously running different versions of
:Birmingham!

Well spotted ! Complete bollocks what I said. I did of
course mean "Birmingham village" ! High St/New St.

Or dare I be sarcastic, and comment "well I've never seen
any cars in the Rotunda" !

Well
🙂actually the bit Bham that I walk around most is around
:Steelhouse )lane, Corporation St, and Dale End. Corporation
:street seems to be )busier with traffic since the closure
:of High St and New St. )

None of those are exactly hiving with cars. Even Colmore Row
seems reasonaby quiet. Wait till we get the trams in !
--
Comm again, Mike.