I'm a programmer, so I have net access at work.

>Everyone seems so unfeasibly articulate, it's like and episode of Dawson's Creek. I presume some of you are writers, journalists, etc...???
>

Yes. Some of us are, me included.

>I'm a programmer, so I have net access at work.

I'm an information systems consultant (level 3.1) which is the same as a programmer but with a longer job title.

Oh, and I also have net access at work.

Information Officer/System Admin
it's all paper pushing. My net access at work is strictly monitored so I usually ahve to go round the fucking houses and use pc-anywhere t oconnect to my house and use the web via that. (bless cable modems)

Ahh, some respones, so I am no longer too shy to say:

I, too, am a programmer - C++. Quite new to the game myself. Great high speed net access, probably monitored but had no problems so far.

Highly resourced, independently targeted, free range troubleshooter. Ahem. Okay, programmer.

Freelance llustrator and musician. Also do a bit of writing on the side when asked. I have lulls between work, and an ADSL line for sending artwork over the net, so spend my life here.

I've put some new curtains up over there by the NME thread. Do you like them?

>I've put some new curtains up over there by the NME thread. Do you like them?

Bit garish.

i write down funny things my mind thinks and the bbc get actors to say them and give me money

Marine Biologist

>Marine Biologist

Don't lie you're writing a sitcom, aren't you?

Librarian

Business Student at Exeter University enjoying 4 months of holiday, and free internet access at home.

I kill bats.

I'm a full time dreamer

Freelance Forum Contributor

currently unpaid, but looking for an Arts council grant.

>I'm a full time dreamer

Well, can you put your hands on your head? Oh no.

I retrieve lobsters from Anthea Turners arse.

I retrieve Anthea Turner from lobsters' arses.

I listen to the World Service for money until this Friday. Thereafter I shall listen to Radio 4 for no money.

Currently, Work Experience Boy at a Charity Shop/Furniture Warehouse. Until October, when I go back to being Dole Scrounger again.

I work for a local newspaper.

I used to be on television.

I produce holiday brochures. Picture selection, copy editing, proof-reading, a little writing and generally making sure everything runs smoothly.

Go me!

Wags, wankers and computer programmers it seems. End of thread?

>Wags, wankers and computer programmers it seems. End of thread?

I fall into the second category, incidentally. But there's no money in it.

I too used to be on television. Now I'm on the radio. One day I hope to be on the cooker.

(Blimey I feel left out not being a C++ programmer whatever that is.)

I help you all get much better. Through the medium of typing, granted. But in a hospital.

I'm a comedy writer.

I've written with Andrew (above).

I used to sub-edit a dull but worthy computer magazine so I've heard of C++, even if I don't fully understand it.

I work for Norwich Union

i'm a student, part time musician (if that's possible), former 'local' journalist and corporate cock sucker for la gap.

Media whores the lot of you.

May sunshine make your teeth rot.

I work in a biscuit factory using a wrapping machine. I have C For Dummies volume 1 and volume 2. I'm not a C programmer but I did enjoy reading all Dan Gookin's Star Trek jokes. Here's one of the many stimulating quizzes to be found in C For Dummies:

As happens so often, Captain Kirk suddenly finds himself facing an evil twin double. How can you tell which one is which?

A. The "evil" Captain Kirk is the strong one, and his shirt isn't torn.

B. The "evil" Captain Kirk is mentally thwarted and breaks down sobbing.

C. The "evil" Captain Kirk doesn't eat food and loathes Mr. Spock.

D. The "evil" Captain Kirk wears eyeliner.


Of course I shan't always be a biscuit wrapper. They're closing the factory.

>Of course I shan't always be a biscuit wrapper. They're closing the factory.

Noooooooooooooooooooo! That's my social life gone ;)

<Noooooooooooooooooooo! That's my social life gone ;)

I had a social life; then they made me take this job at the biscuit factory. I've been cheering myself up with Joe Orton's novels. I think Head To Toe is marvellous.

I read articles about mediaeval knitting, listen to Egyptian folk music, watch Peter Sellers' films and make yeast get excited. Only I don't get paid for any of the above.

>I read articles about mediaeval knitting, listen to Egyptian folk music, watch Peter Sellers' films and make yeast get excited. Only I don't get paid for any of the above.

Aren't you a proofreader? If so, what does "mediaeval" mean?

Ha ha ha! I am the best at proofreading! Spookily, this month's 'Coach News' spells 'medieval' the same way you just did three times in one article. Cuh.

>Aren't you a proofreader? If so, what does "mediaeval" mean?
>
>Ha ha ha! I am the best at proofreading! Spookily, this month's 'Coach News' spells 'medieval' the same way you just did three times in one article. Cuh.

I stand my ground. That is a perfectly valid variation, it looks nicer, smells better and is full of nourishing vitamins 'AAccccchhh' and 'Fffffffff'. According to 'World of Welsh Wood'.

"I've been cheering myself up with Joe Orton's novels. I think Head To Toe is marvellous."

But weren't they all co-written with Kenneth Halliwell?

And KH thought it would be a good idea to be influenced by Ronald Firbank. I have read some Firbank novels, they were... surprisingly dull. Must have been a thing of its time.

I haven't read "Head To Toe", but I understand it is a journey through the insides of the Trojan Horse. That's the same idea in Nathanael West's surrealist first novel "The Dream Life Of Balso Snell", which is great. I haven't read HTT, the similarity is probably unintentional, but I strongly recommend all Nat West's novels. Especially "Balso Snell" and "Miss Lonelyhearts". And "A Cool Million". And "The Day Of The Locust". Oh, that's all of them.

My reading list thread will never die.

>I stand my ground. That is a perfectly valid variation, it looks nicer, smells better and is full of nourishing vitamins 'AAccccchhh' and 'Fffffffff'. According to 'World of Welsh Wood'.
>

I stand corrected. YOU are the best proofreader. Still, you live and learn, eh? Besides, 'medieval' is best because it is shorter. So we're both right, but I'm more right.

Like 'color' is shorter than 'colour'? Fuck, you're wrong.

>Like 'color' is shorter than 'colour'? Fuck, you're wrong.

Don't start me on how Americanisms can actually be more "correct" than the British counterparts because they're older than the variants we use now... I don't think anyone wants to be bored by that.

Anyway, it seems that "medieval" and "mediaeval" are both correct in British Standard English, so it is up to the writer's discretion. And, as one takes up less space, one less key-press and less time to write, surely the shorter version is best? Thus I win.

Not logic of which Aristotle would boast, really.

Why you so mean, Adams?

I'm a waster, but not in a cool way.

That's twice I've been called mean in two days. It's the pressures of the NHS. Promise. Nothing personal.

Can I blame The Office for this, too?

Fair enough.

I know this is quite O/T, but I think you might have been right about The Office. Tonight's episode was a mirth-free zone. I laugh more when at work in a real office, and there's something not right about that.

I'm the funniest thing in my office. And even with this blight we manage to out-humour that piss.

>Don't start me on how Americanisms can actually be more "correct" than the British counterparts because they're older than the variants we use now...

It isn't to do with "age", is it? I've read that it was purely a decision of Webster, when he compiled his dictionary, to go with these spellings. (He had his reasons but I've forgotten them.)

Dictionary compilers used to have this privilege. The fact that we're supposed to run shrieking from a split infinitive is down to Johnson's pathological hatred for the things - he proscribed them on purely aesthetic grounds, there's no good grammatical reason not to use them. (It's like saying "you can't put any adjectives between 'a' and 'house'".)

So you proof read dictionaries?

And you're a programmer?

Proof-reading dictionaries must be the very worst of all jobs. Unless, like me, you have an unhealthy interest in the word wolf and all turns of phrase involving it.

Oh, and sorry. To somebody.

> But weren't they all co-written with Kenneth Halliwell?

Not "Head To Toe". And he later adapted parts of it for his unused Beatles script.


> I haven't read "Head To Toe", but I understand it is a journey through the insides of the Trojan Horse.

And again, no. This is great, Jon! You've invented a new genre - "Wildly Speculative Reviews". Let's see, I haven't read Conrad's "The Secret Agent"... but I understand it is an epic poem about jelly.

Your go.

The split infinitive rule was borrowed from latin. The formalisation of the "rules" of English has happened gradually, some of it good, some of it silly. One good example from the recovery of English after the Norman period was the realisation that two nos make a yes. If you look at any Middle English text such as Malory (not recommended as a way to pass the time), double or even triple negatives are often used simply to emphasise the negativity of something. As in "I never not nor did see a dragon so peculiar in all my born days, apart from that pink one."

NB. I do not (normally) lecture in the history of English.

>>Don't start me on how Americanisms can actually be more "correct" than the British counterparts because they're older than the variants we use now...
>
>It isn't to do with "age", is it? I've read that it was purely a decision of Webster, when he compiled his dictionary, to go with these spellings. (He had his reasons but I've forgotten them.)

This is true, but some of the forms favoured by Webster can be traced back further than the forms we use in British English today. I too have forgotten Webster's reasons, which is irritating because it is only about a year since I studied the origin of American English.

>Dictionary compilers used to have this privilege. The fact that we're supposed to run shrieking from a split infinitive is down to Johnson's pathological hatred for the things - he proscribed them on purely aesthetic grounds, there's no good grammatical reason not to use them. (It's like saying "you can't put any adjectives between 'a' and 'house'".)

This is true also. Most prescriptive grammar rules have little practical use. Surely as long as a message is sufficiently conveyed, then there is no reason why these rules should not be broken. C'mon kids, let's make an effort to gaily split infinitives! Rules should be broken, that's what they're there for! (Ha! A sentence ending in a preposition!)

>The split infinitive rule was borrowed from latin.

I knew this as well, but forgot to mention it. It's because Latin was seen as prestigious and the language of the learned, so grammarians decided that English should be shoehorned into the same rules, despite the fact that it clearly didn't fit. It doesn't stop idiots today bemoaning the "incorrect" use of language though, despite the fact they are clearly know-nothings who want to preserve pointless traditions. Bet they're all fox-hunting royalists too.

I'm a Classicist, and I find this deeply upsetting. Bastards.

I blame the demise of the gerund myself.

>I blame the demise of the gerund myself.

Tits to the gerund! Sentences ending in prepositions are where it's at!

.......And the horse in upon which you rode.

> NB. I do not (normally) lecture in the history of English.

Nevertheless, as I seem to have inadvertently stumbled across your specialist subject, can you tell me why we're not supposed to say "bored of", when the exact same construction is perfectly acceptable with "tired", "full", "sick" etc?

NO real reason. Although there's less reason not to when somebody might notice and hold it against you.

Why do people wear suits to interviews? Far less comfortable than jogging botoms.

I'm currently reading 'Pride and Prejudice' for my EngLit course. It's supposed to be a briliant social satire, but I'm on Chapter 33, and there hasn't been a single joke about Railtrack or Tony Blairs. The 11 o'Clock show had more satire in it.

Oh, and in answer to the original question, I'm a part-time student, would-be writer and occasional Frontier Physciatrist. However, I worked at Norwicn Union 1990-2000.

And what's wrong with the word 'Wolf'?

>Why do people wear suits to interviews? Far less comfortable than jogging botoms.

But I don't think this analogy applies here. We're not talking about unrelated items of apparel. "Bored of" is an identical construction to "tired of" - they're exactly the same cut.

The analogy is better rendered, "Why do people wear grey suits to interviews but not black ones?" This highlights the full pointlessness of the distinction, as opposed to the sentence you chose to make an example of.

of which you chose to make an example......please.......

And bored and tired are not the same. Tired is an adjective. Bored is a perfect participle. Transitives and Intransitives, i.e. you can bore somebody, but you can;s tire somebody. Something to do with that.

Or rather, a perfect participle used adjectivally.

> bored and tired are not the same. Tired is an adjective. Bored is a perfect participle. Transitives and Intransitives, i.e. you can bore somebody, but you can;s tire somebody. Something to do with that.


Is the wrong answer. They're both transitive verbs, both adjectival participles are formed in the same way ("This has tired me..." "This has bored me..."), which lands us neatly back where we were in the first place, only now for some reason wearing jogging bottoms. You know, the really thick ones that, if you wrap them round your arm and then try and reach down a drain to reach a grapefruit which has fallen onto a ledge, are too narrow to get it up off through with.

Joe Orton wrote Head To Toe and Between Us Girls on his own. Halliwell (with some assistance from Orton) wrote The Silver Bucket, Lord Cumcumber,The Mechanical Womb, The Last Days Of Sodom, The Boy Hairdresser (a novel in verse), and The Boy Hairdresser (a novel)

Head To Toe is set on the body of a giant a 100 miles tall.

You youngsters think you can come round here with your expensive educations and your impressive sounding job and tell people like me who toil away in bloody factories that we know nowt and that we should listen to you. I'll tell your something for nowt, something your posh schools and polite parents didn't tell you. My CV may not have loads of fancy bloody job titles decorating it, and it may not be laid out all hoity toity like yours, and it may be riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors but at least it's own honest account of my failure.

Well said, and anyway, Tom and Mogwin are both doing the same thing - trying to fit formalisms onto (or 'on to' if you prefer) a language that grew organically and so isn't necessarily able to squeeze into any simple system.

Incidentally, that "why do people wear suits to interviews?" reminded me of Mr Equator and his pals. Yes, something to do with comedy! Michael Palin would probably tell you that sketch was an attack on middle class attitudes, conformity and politeness, etc. But really it sends up what happens when you abandon all manners and conventions - it's a complete mess in which everything becomes equivalent and everyone gets exhausted.

Hence, the reason people wear suits to interviews is because it beats having to think of something really shockingly different to wear every morning, and who (apart from a pretentious teenager) gives a fuck about such things anyway?

Also, suits are quite comfy if they fit well.

>I kill bats.

I would like to point out that this is illegal in the UK.

Thank you.

>I would like to point out that this is illegal in the UK.

...being as I am an amateur bat expert.
I am also an International Tourism student and very good, but bored receptionist.

Just thought I'd drift back to the topic.

Carry on.

Re: Orton - there was some talk about making Head to Toe in animated form. I think it is a fantastic book, but then I think anything Orton did was fantastic (including the Erpngham Camp).

I work for a theatre company but I still work in an office

All very interesting, but a simple plea from me. Could people please start using "should have" instead of "should of"

It isn't a question of interpretation, or developing language, or classical influences - "should of" is just fucking wrong! The wrong fucking word!!! "Have" is not a variant of "of". So think on.

Thank you.

I've been running a Telecoms consultancy for 2 years and now that I have saved up enough money I am quitting & trying to start a production company.

My pet hate is people who spell "lose" as "loose".

>I produce holiday brochures. Picture selection, copy editing, proof-reading, a little writing and generally making sure everything runs smoothly.

Sounds a bit like my job except I get to print pictures of hedgehogs, librarians, monkeys, rare Sanskrit manuscripts, librarians in drag, buildings and - er - more librarians.

Oh, and I get sarky with people who want to use our library yet have no clue about anything; rummage in the archives for dirt/funny pictures/information about erstwhile students; make people swear arcane oaths in many tongues; and go to university when I have to, too.

>I too used to be on television. Now I'm on the radio. One day I hope to be on the cooker.

Kitchen table, maybe. Cookers are too uncomfortable and you might forget to make sure the rings are off. Oh, you didn't mean....

>>I read articles about mediaeval knitting, listen to Egyptian folk music, watch Peter Sellers' films and make yeast get excited. Only I don't get paid for any of the above.
>
>Aren't you a proofreader? If so, what does "mediaeval" mean?
>
>Ha ha ha! I am the best at proofreading! Spookily, this month's 'Coach News' spells 'medieval' the same way you just did three times in one article. Cuh.

Coach News? Sounds fascinating. I'd spell "mediaeval" the same way (although in printing it I would use properly ligatured letters, not just a and e put close to each other in an attempt to look correct). There's no reason to drop the ae just because the Americans do. Humph. You'll be asking for "hematomas" next.

>Anyway, it seems that "medieval" and "mediaeval" are both correct in British Standard English, so it is up to the writer's discretion. And, as one takes up less space, one less key-press and less time to write, surely the shorter version is best? Thus I win.

You'll never get my job though. Shame, cos I was feeling like giving it to the highest bidder.

>>Don't start me on how Americanisms can actually be more "correct" than the British counterparts because they're older than the variants we use now...
>
>It isn't to do with "age", is it? I've read that it was purely a decision of Webster, when he compiled his dictionary, to go with these spellings. (He had his reasons but I've forgotten them.)

Webster is certainly to blame for the widespread-ness (ouch) of the "or" instead of "our" phenomenon. And a few other individualisms he just had a hankering to introduce. Grammatically American English is probably nearer to the English we used to speak 400 years ago, but that's not necessarily a) a good thing or b) the same argument anyway.

>Dictionary compilers used to have this privilege. The fact that we're supposed to run shrieking from a split infinitive is down to Johnson's pathological hatred for the things - he proscribed them on purely aesthetic grounds, there's no good grammatical reason not to use them. (It's like saying "you can't put any adjectives between 'a' and 'house'".)

It's also to do with derivations from Latin - you can't break infinitives in Latin because they're one word "and that's a rule right there".

(Am I the only one watching Tucker on Nickelodeon through the haze every Saturday morning? And what have Cartoon Network done with Sheep in the Big City, possibly this year's best show??)

>> NB. I do not (normally) lecture in the history of English.
>
>Nevertheless, as I seem to have inadvertently stumbled across your specialist subject, can you tell me why we're not supposed to say "bored of", when the exact same construction is perfectly acceptable with "tired", "full", "sick" etc?

Because you are the person *being* bored, not *becoming* bored. X bores you, you are bored _by_ X. You can get tired all by yourself with no intervention (I hope). Boredom is inflicted upon you _by an outside source_, therefore you are bored by/with something. A boor bores the easily bored. To be bored when there is nothing to do and say "I am bored" on its own is not really correct; you are bored _with_ the lack of things to do.

"Bored of" is acceptable in constructs like "Bored of Tunbridge Wells" (as in "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells" where "of" means "from".)

Can you tell that I recently had this discussion elsewhere?

>It's also to do with derivations from Latin - you can't break infinitives in Latin because they're one word "and that's a rule right there".

Am I right in thinking there's nothing wrong with using "-ise" or "-ize" and that it's nothing to do with Americanizing things (but more to do with Greek/Latin options)?

Cheerio

>But I don't think this analogy applies here. We're not talking about unrelated items of apparel. "Bored of" is an identical construction to "tired of" - they're exactly the same cut.

Nooooooo they're not. I am tired of this argument, it bores me.

The Princess of Wales used to bore me. She never tired me (because that's a nonsense sentence in context).

>The Princess of Wales used to bore me. She never tired me (because that's a nonsense sentence in context).

She used to fucking tire me out

I don't know but I know I do it anyway.

>Am I right in thinking there's nothing wrong with using "-ise" or "-ize" and that it's nothing to do with Americanizing things (but more to do with Greek/Latin options)?
>
>Cheerio

Something along these lines. I once attended a lecture given by Morse creator Colin Dexter; pissed, miserable and furious about the falling standards of written English. He insisted that the '-ize' ending was in fact the correct variation, something he confirmed on the dedication page of one of his novels (The Remorseful Day, I think.) He wrote (and I'm paraphrasing) "I make no apology for the use of the Oxford 'z'". Does any walking dictionary know what he means?

The OED, I presume. Read Bill Bryson's 'The mother Tongue'.

And anyway, Mogwai, 'tired' in the usage you gave *is* , i.e. to become weary, intransitive. Otherwise it means to make weary, which is not the same usage. And 'bored' is transitive.

So it would be correct to say that I am bored BY this thread and tired OF it, then?

Very much so, in fact.

A joke? in this thread?

I was, until recently, an English teacher. I now work for Hansard at the House of Commons.

The 'ize' /'ise' thing is one of my bugbears too. Both are permissible; 'ize' is older and favoured by traditionalists. It is not exclusively American. I use it because I think it looks nice.

Please stop talking about grammar - I think I might cry.

>I was, until recently, an English teacher. I now work for Hansard at the House of Commons.

More importantly, Al is also a God in certain forum-led religions.