Archie-Lee Andrew Hurst was savaged to death by a rottweiler dog. His
parents left the following messages on a social networking site in his
memory. I reproduce them unedited.

From his mother, aged 17: "RIP my lil angel mummy knows your still
here love u always and foreva x x x x x x."

From his father, aged 20: "Never gona 4get ya lil man, RIP 4eva n
always, miss ya so much, ur mummy sez i can ave ur iggle piggle, so
gna keep him in car wi me xxxxx."

This child was growing up with neither parent able to write, and both
educated in the comprehensive era. Doubtless, if anyone draws
attention to this nearly total illiteracy in the mainstream media,
teachers will rush to deny the truth and then cover it up with
recycled waffle.

Ken Johnson

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 13:14:08 -0800 (PST), Ken Johnson
 wrote:

>Archie-Lee Andrew Hurst was savaged to death by a rottweiler dog. His
>parents left the following messages on a social networking site in his
>memory. I reproduce them unedited.

Are you sure?

>From his mother, aged 17: "RIP my lil angel mummy knows your still
>here love u always and foreva x x x x x x."

I believe it was actually "lil angle".

On 30 Dec, 21:25, Robert Patrick Green  wrote:

> I believe it was actually "lil angle".

I took the risk of copying from the BBC report, but I have no
difficulty in believing that a 17 year old comes out of comprehensive
school unable to tell the difference between "angle" and "angel."

Ken Johnson

Ken Johnson  wrote:

> This child was growing up with neither parent able
> to write, and both educated in the comprehensive
> era. Doubtless, if anyone draws attention to this
> nearly total illiteracy in the mainstream media,
> teachers will rush to deny the truth and then
> cover it up with recycled waffle.

Ken, that stuff isn't misspelled from lack of
education. It is deliberately spelled that way, in
dialect and in l33t, as emotional, affectionately
written copy addressed to a child.

It's no more "illiterate" than the terse spellings
of command names in Unix, and exists for the same
reason, as a shorthand for slow typists, here when
"phone texting" or using IRC chat channels.

Your inability to read it as anything but an
*affirmation of your political agenda* is _your_
problem, not the problem of the writers.

You _really_ need to extract that broomstick and get
on with finding a life somewhere outside the demesne
of constant carping about everything you see
happening around you.

If you hate living in Scotland and crowded,
cooperative-by-necessity, "high taxes to make dense
populations work smoothly" western civilization so
much it sours your cud every hour of every day, the
Seyshelles are still right where you left them,
except washed a bit cleaner by the 2004 tsunami.

xanthian.

Ken Johnson  did eloquently scribble:
> On 30 Dec, 21:25, Robert Patrick Green  wrote:

>> I believe it was actually "lil angle".

> I took the risk of copying from the BBC report, but I have no
> difficulty in believing that a 17 year old comes out of comprehensive
> school unable to tell the difference between "angle" and "angel."

Comprehensive education has been in force now for 40 years. More.
Which means everyone posting here likely ALSO had a comprehensive education.

So don't blame the system entirely. Some kids, I imagine, just refuse to be
taught. 
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|Andrew Halliwell BSc(hons)| "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't |
|            in            |  suck is probably the day they start making     |
|     Computer science     |  vacuum cleaners" - Ernst Jan Plugge            |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 30 Dec, 21:50, Kent Paul Dolan  wrote:

> Ken, that stuff isn't misspelled from lack of
> education. It is deliberately spelled that way, in
> dialect and in l33t, as emotional, affectionately
> written copy addressed to a child.

Kent, I have long respected your wise writing on the net. I went over
it several times in my head, trying to believe that you are right, but
it didn't work. I see no reason to believe that the parents could
actually read and write perfectly well but chose to write in the
mangled semiotics of SMS text -- to feign illiteracy, in other words
-- for artistic reasons. I believe the facts are what they appear to
be: the two writers were only able to write even the simplest of
sentiments in an illiterate, tangled, ill formed mess of letters and
digits.

Andrew Halliwell wrote

> Comprehensive education has been in force now
< for 40 years. More. Which means everyone posting
> here likely ALSO had a comprehensive education.
>
> So don't blame the system entirely.

You make my point for me. The means provided by the state for
educating children is failing, hand over fist, in countless cases,
including this one. Everyone including you makes excuses for it, and
nobody seems to give tuppence that literacy standards are poorer now
than in 1890. Of course I blame the bloody idle teachers (and as a
parent I have had a bellyfull of them). How can teachers possibly
expect blame to fall on anyone but them when kids who have spent more
than ten years in the local bog-standard comprehensive school cannot
write the simplest English?

Ken Johnson

On Dec 30, 5:46 pm, Ken Johnson  wrote:
> On 30 Dec, 21:50, Kent Paul Dolan  wrote:
>
> > Ken, that stuff isn't misspelled from lack of
> > education. It is deliberately spelled that way, in
> > dialect and in l33t, as emotional, affectionately
> > written copy addressed to a child.
>
> Kent, I have long respected your wise writing on the net. I went over
> it several times in my head, trying to believe that you are right, but
> it didn't work. I see no reason to believe that the parents could
> actually read and write perfectly well but chose to write in the
> mangled semiotics of SMS text -- to feign illiteracy, in other words
> -- for artistic reasons. I believe the facts are what they appear to
> be: the two writers were only able to write even the simplest of
> sentiments in an illiterate, tangled, ill formed mess of letters and
> digits.
>
> Andrew Halliwell wrote
>
> > Comprehensive education has been in force now
>
> < for 40 years. More. Which means everyone posting
>
> > here likely ALSO had a comprehensive education.
>
> > So don't blame the system entirely.
>
> You make my point for me. The means provided by the state for
> educating children is failing, hand over fist, in countless cases,
> including this one. Everyone including you makes excuses for it, and
> nobody seems to give tuppence that literacy standards are poorer now
> than in 1890. Of course I blame the bloody idle teachers (and as a
> parent I have had a bellyfull of them). How can teachers possibly
> expect blame to fall on anyone but them when kids who have spent more
> than ten years in the local bog-standard comprehensive school cannot
> write the simplest English?
>
> Ken Johnson

The product of public education is bound to degrade over time as this
generation's failures become the standard by which the next generation
is measured. Anyone who hopes to rise above the milieu in which he is
raised must become an autodidact.

Nothing bizarre about this. Followups set. Fishbarrelblammo.

xf  wrote:

> The product of public education is bound to
> degrade over time as this generation's failures
> become the standard by which the next generation
> is measured.

Were that reasoning correct, education would have
been going downhill since the first life form
replicated, and there would thus be _no_ education.

Your thesis fails because it leads to nonsense.

> Anyone who hopes to rise above the milieu in which
> he is raised must become an autodidact.

No, just more attentive to classroom teaching than
to the distractions there and in the rest of life.

Apparently you were too distracted to attend to the
teaching of logical reasoning, and so come to us
spouting agenda rather than sense.

xanthian.

Ken Johnson  wrote:

> Kent, I have long respected your wise writing on
> the net. I went over it several times in my head,
> trying to believe that you are right, but it
> didn't work.

That is because you are so hag-ridden by an agenda
of hatred for the civilization around you that you
have long lost the capacity for rational thought,
not because writing in a comfortable mode when
addressing a child is an unworkable idea. I exchange
email with my nearly 12 year old child regularly,
and I _always_ write using speech patterns
appropriate to the situation, nothing at all
resembling what I write to Usenet. That's what
parents do.

> I see no reason to believe that the parents could
> actually read and write perfectly well but chose
> to write in the mangled semiotics of SMS text --
> to feign illiteracy, in other words -- for
> artistic reasons.

That _you_ see no reason is an argument from
incredulity, and so carries no weight at all in
reasoned discourse.

There is nothing "illiterate" about their writing,
and thus no feigning of illiteracy, you just wanted
them to be writing in the English you learned in
school, but they were not.

They were simply writing in a separate language
created for texting and IRC, a language you are
incapable of reading without pain, much like the
pain you would suffer trying to understand any
street patois if you aren't a member of the ethnic
group that created that _nearly comprehensible_
tongue partially derived from your own.

You'd have had fewer problems if they were writing
in Swahili, but they were not; they were writing in
l33t, a new language whose parent language is a
language you know.

Language evolves vastly even in a single human
lifetime. Whole new languages have sprung up rapidly
at cultural boundaries surely since before the
recording of history began. Many of the words I use
daily did not exist even 30 years ago, much less the
64 years ago when I began to learn my native tongue.
My ten year old self would be totally baffled by
much of what I write today.

Language evolves.

Cope.

Complaining against it is like trying to stop the
tide by bellowing back at the waves. You end up
for your efforts with a hoarse throat and wet shoes,
but the tide follows its course despite you.

Why waste your time complaining about what is
inevitable? Find a new hobby.

xanthian.

Feh.  It they don't want to pay attention in school, so be it.  A
service economy still needs bodies to grind, same as any.

On Dec 30, 2:14 pm, Ken Johnson  wrote:
> Archie-Lee Andrew Hurst was savaged to death by a rottweiler dog. His
> parents left the following messages on a social networking site in his
> memory. I reproduce them unedited.
>
> From his mother, aged 17: "RIP my lil angel mummy knows your still
> here love u always and foreva x x x x x x."
>
> From his father, aged 20: "Never gona 4get ya lil man, RIP 4eva n
> always, miss ya so much, ur mummy sez i can ave ur iggle piggle, so
> gna keep him in car wi me xxxxx."
>
> This child was growing up with neither parent able to write, and both
> educated in the comprehensive era. Doubtless, if anyone draws
> attention to this nearly total illiteracy in the mainstream media,
> teachers will rush to deny the truth and then cover it up with
> recycled waffle.
>
> Ken Johnson

Why are you saying things like "I reproduce them unedited," like some
chain letter forwarding fool?

On Dec 30, 2:30 pm, Ken Johnson  wrote:
> On 30 Dec, 21:25, Robert Patrick Green  wrote:
>
> > I believe it was actually "lil angle".
>
> I took the risk of copying from the BBC report, but I have no
> difficulty in believing that a 17 year old comes out of comprehensive
> school unable to tell the difference between "angle" and "angel."
>
> Ken Johnson


comes out of one your British fac

On 31 Dec 2007, 13:30, Modest Stillness and Humility
 wrote:

> Why are you saying things like "I reproduce them unedited," like some
> chain letter forwarding fool?- Hide quoted text -


You can't say anything like "I reproduce them unedited." Either you
say "I reproduce them unedited," or you say something that isn't "I
reproduce them unedited." There isn't anything like "I reproduce them
unedited" that I could say, even if I wanted to.

I take it you're a teacher.

Ken Johnson

On Dec 31, 8:08 pm, Ken Johnson  wrote:
> On 31 Dec 2007, 13:30, Modest Stillness and Humility
>
>  wrote:
> > Why are you saying things like "I reproduce them unedited," like some
> > chain letter forwarding fool?- Hide quoted text -
>
> You can't say anything like "I reproduce them unedited." Either you
> say "I reproduce them unedited," or you say something that isn't "I
> reproduce them unedited." There isn't anything like "I reproduce them
> unedited" that I could say, even if I wanted to.
>
> I take it you're a teacher.
>
> Ken Johnson

Your first statement is false.  Your second statement is true.  Your
third statement is false.

Your fourth statement is irrelevant.

On Dec 31, 8:08 pm, Ken Johnson  wrote:
> On 31 Dec 2007, 13:30, Modest Stillness and Humility
>
>  wrote:
> > Why are you saying things like "I reproduce them unedited," like some
> > chain letter forwarding fool?- Hide quoted text -
>
> You can't say anything like "I reproduce them unedited." Either you
> say "I reproduce them unedited," or you say something that isn't "I
> reproduce them unedited." There isn't anything like "I reproduce them
> unedited" that I could say, even if I wanted to.
>
> I take it you're a teacher.
>
> Ken Johnson

Sometimes I teach. Usually I pull knowledge from human heads.

"Ken Johnson" wrote:
> Archie-Lee Andrew Hurst was savaged to death by a rottweiler dog. His
> parents left the following messages on a social networking site in his
> memory. I reproduce them unedited.
>
> From his mother, aged 17: "RIP my lil angel mummy knows your still
> here love u always and foreva x x x x x x."
>
> From his father, aged 20: "Never gona 4get ya lil man, RIP 4eva n
> always, miss ya so much, ur mummy sez i can ave ur iggle piggle, so
> gna keep him in car wi me xxxxx."
>
> This child was growing up with neither parent able to write, and both
> educated in the comprehensive era. Doubtless, if anyone draws
> attention to this nearly total illiteracy in the mainstream media,
> teachers will rush to deny the truth and then cover it up with
> recycled waffle.
>
> Ken Johnson

I suspect that the mother and father wrote what they did in relation to the 
grief-stricken situation facing them, and that their standard of literacy 
cannot be judged solely on what they typed for a social networking site in 
the aftermath of their child's death. If they were writing in different 
circumstances (for example, completing an application form in order to claim 
some form of benefit) then perhaps they wouldn't write in this mobile phone 
or keyboard-based style. Whether they would be able to write properly is 
anyone's guess.

Regarding standards of literacy, I taught at a university for 12 years 
(until last August) and in my experience many students were unable to 
produce satisfactory written work. Even word-processed assignments would be 
full of spelling and grammatical errors. The study skills department was 
unable to cope with the numbers of students who required remedial help with 
numeracy and literacy. The marking criteria prevented poor literacy being 
taken into account. I have also taught briefly at an FE college where the 
situation was even worse. When academics and employers have drawn this to 
the attention of the government the response has been to deny that there is 
a problem.

"News Groups"  wrote:

> in my experience many students were unable to
> produce satisfactory written work.

Yes, that is my experience too. In my brief,
unsatisfactory stint as a graduate student teaching
a freshman undergraduate class, I was astonished
that my class created an inverted bell curve: there
were no middle grades. Half the class were competent
with their native tongue, the other half could not
read it, could not write it, and could not
understand spoken instructions given them using it,
even during office hours I kept and one on one.

Trying to teach a class half of whom were fully
incapable of being educated was one of the stresses
that left me in a mental hospital for four months
starting before that semester had ended. To say that
I'm high strung rather understates the issue. This
experience was in the US. I'm firmly convinced that
somewere an ethnicity whose children _want_ to learn
is standing by patiently waiting to take over
civilization from its current torchbearers, when
"western civilization" collapses of its own
ineptitude at rearing a full next generation of
fully functional human beings. I'm only hoping that
waiting ethnicity is of species Homo sapiens.

What is noteworthy, though, is that there was a half
of the class who were _entirely_ competent in their
native tongue, a strong indication that the
education system in some places at least was fully
functional, that the problem was instead elsewhere.

All that still doesn't make the writing about which
Ken Johnson complained illiterate use of English,
however. It was instead fully literate, and quite
poetic, use of l33t.

xantian.

Kent Paul Dolan  did eloquently scribble:
> "News Groups"  wrote:

>> in my experience many students were unable to
>> produce satisfactory written work.

> Yes, that is my experience too. In my brief,
> unsatisfactory stint as a graduate student teaching
> a freshman undergraduate class, I was astonished
> that my class created an inverted bell curve: there
> were no middle grades. Half the class were competent
> with their native tongue, the other half could not
> read it, could not write it, and could not
> understand spoken instructions given them using it,
> even during office hours I kept and one on one.

Then how the HECK did they get onto the course?
A-Levels are only the first part of selection. Most universities have
interviews. And with them, tests, checks on portfolios of work or
written/problem solving tasks.
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|Andrew Halliwell BSc(hons)| "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't |
|            in            |  suck is probably the day they start making     |
|     Computer science     |  vacuum cleaners" - Ernst Jan Plugge            |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't usually comment on articles cross-posted from other groups
but couldn't resist this one. See below! 

In article
,
   Kent Paul Dolan  wrote lot of stuff criticising
 poor mastery of the use of the written language by others, which I
have snipped, leaving the following, about which I feel I have to
comment:

> Trying to teach a class half of whom were fully incapable of being
> educated 

'A class', in this sentence, is a noun in the singular form, so
 
......'half of whom were ...' 
      should be 
.....'half of which was ...' 

[Snip intervening material]

To improve your work, correct the following:
> What is noteworthy, though, is that there was a half of the class
> who were _entirely_ competent in their native tongue....


Also:

> To say that I'm high strung ...

Should be 'I'm highly strung...'

> I'm firmly convinced that...

You got it right here! That shows you can do it sometimes. Have a
progress point and try not to be inconsistent!


So, what makes you fit to comment on others' use of the English
language when you don't get it right yourself? I'm not sure your
judgement has any validity when you obviously don't recognise the
faults in your own writing!

Happy New Year!

-- 
Gertie. 

Award-winning bog cleaner, Latin scholar and beer festival organiser.
Veni, vidi, Vici iiabui et cervaca, or summat like that 
reply-to address works but not to html mail, hotmail or aol addresses


Black holes are where God divided by zero.

In article ,
    wrote:


> Then how the HECK did they get onto the course? 

[Snip]

That is an interesting question.

Faced with trying to improve, year after year, the written work of
children who have been taught by teachers born and bred in the same
town, I am now shocked by the standard of English, both written and
spoken, by the latest new recruit to our staff, also from the same
town. 

I wonder how on earth she was allowed to get through her 4 yr teacher
training? 

A recent example of writing she presented to her class included
misuse of apostrophes, incorrect spellings of there, their, etc, lack
of capital letters on names and missing sentence punctuation.

I despair!

-- 
Gertie. 

Award-winning bog cleaner, Latin scholar and beer festival organiser.
Veni, vidi, Vici iiabui et cervaca, or summat like that 
reply-to address works but not to html mail, hotmail or aol addresses


I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.

spike1@freenet.co.uk wrote:
>Then how the HECK did they get onto the course?
>A-Levels are only the first part of selection. Most universities have
>interviews. And with them, tests, checks on portfolios of work or
>written/problem solving tasks.

not in the USA. some colleges and universities have "open
admissions", which means everyone is entitled to attend if
they can pay the tuition (or get a scholarship or grant or
loan of some sort). not all states or municipalities even
have minimum standards for graduating from high school.
it's entirely possible for someone to attend school for
12 to 18 years and never acquire basic skills in English
and/or mathematics, let alone any subjects like history,
geography, or science.

wrote:
> Then how the HECK did they get onto the course?
> A-Levels are only the first part of selection. Most universities have
> interviews. And with them, tests, checks on portfolios of work or
> written/problem solving tasks.

Not being adequately literate or numerate isn't seen as criteria that 
academics should use to refuse entry to university; that would be regarded 
as being discriminatory. The view is that such deficits can be rectified by 
undergraduates undertaking remedial work. But that didn't seem to happen. To 
be realistic, if students with poor literacy and/or numeracy were excluded 
from university there would be many courses running with very small classes; 
that is not a financially viable proposition.

On 1 Jan, 10:48, "gertie@grumbles"  wrote:

# To say that I'm high strung ...

> Should be 'I'm highly strung...'


A single typo is hardly the same thing as being unable to write any
recognisable words at all, is it?

Ken Johnson

In article
,
   Ken Johnson  wrote:


> A single typo is hardly the same thing as being unable to write any
> recognisable words at all, is it?

> Ken Johnson


But everything WAS recognisable and readable. 

Those two youngsters were communicating in the way they probably
always do, that most kids of their age do, in a way they feel
comfortable, through the medium that they are probably most used to,
where they know their friends will read their thoughts and where they
will get the support they badly need.

Why should they suddenly change and become very formal?

-- 
Gertie. 

Award-winning bog cleaner, Latin scholar and beer festival organiser.
Veni, vidi, Vici iiabui et cervaca, or summat like that 
reply-to address works but not to html mail, hotmail or aol addresses


The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

"Modest Stillness and Humility"  wrote in message 
news:90f48730-b059-4595-a7dd-acdd957d33ef@t1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
> On Dec 31, 8:08 pm, Ken Johnson  wrote:
>> On 31 Dec 2007, 13:30, Modest Stillness and Humility
>>
>>  wrote:
>> > Why are you saying things like "I reproduce them unedited," like some
>> > chain letter forwarding fool?- Hide quoted text -
>>
>> You can't say anything like "I reproduce them unedited." Either you
>> say "I reproduce them unedited," or you say something that isn't "I
>> reproduce them unedited." There isn't anything like "I reproduce them
>> unedited" that I could say, even if I wanted to.
>>
>> I take it you're a teacher.
>>
>> Ken Johnson
>
> Your first statement is false.  Your second statement is true.  Your
> third statement is false.
>
> Your fourth statement is irrelevant.

... your fifth statement, wellwhat can we say abt t that? well, at first 
glance it
appeared to be like all your other babblings but upon closer examination the
truth came out.

b

"Ken Johnson"  wrote in message 
news:c14dd1f1-e55f-425e-b544-e0426d657b97@l6g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
> On 1 Jan, 10:48, "gertie@grumbles"  wrote:
>
> # To say that I'm high strung ...
>
>> Should be 'I'm highly strung...'
>
>
> A single typo is hardly the same thing as being unable to write any
> recognisable words at all, is it?
>
> Ken Johnson


bsvfhnb`wswqhetswgtjntu.fd ejhv vqfmf479olkhjocvxz b

b

On 1 Jan, 15:43, "gertie@grumbles"  wrote:

> Why should they suddenly change and become very formal?

Because they are writing an epitaph for their dead child.

Ken Johnson

On Dec 30 2007, 2:14 pm, Ken Johnson  wrote:
> Archie-Lee Andrew Hurst was savaged to death by a rottweiler dog. His
> parents left the following messages on a social networking site in his
> memory. I reproduce them unedited.
>
> From his mother, aged 17: "RIP my lil angel mummy knows your still
> here love u always and foreva x x x x x x."
>
> From his father, aged 20: "Never gona 4get ya lil man, RIP 4eva n
> always, miss ya so much, ur mummy sez i can ave ur iggle piggle, so
> gna keep him in car wi me xxxxx."
>
> This child was growing up with neither parent able to write

Didn't they write those sentences above? Please grace us with your
definition of "writing."

--

"Ken Johnson" wrote:
> Because they are writing an epitaph for their dead child.
>
> Ken Johnson

The accepted definition of an epitaph is the inscription upon a person's 
tomb in memory of that person.

I don't see how a message on a social networking site qualifies as an 
epitaph.

"gertie@grumbles"  wrote:

> I don't usually comment on articles cross-posted
> from other groups but couldn't resist this one.

You should have resisted. Before you attempt to
criticize others English usage, you should learn to
use English correctly yourself.

> See below!

> Kent Paul Dolan  wrote:

[Improper Usenet formatting corrected.]

> lot of stuff criticising poor mastery of the use
> of the written language by others, which I have
> snipped, leaving the following, about which I feel
> I have to comment:

>> Trying to teach a class half of whom were fully
>> incapable of being educated

> 'A class', in this sentence, is a noun in the
> singular form, so

> ......'half of whom were ...'
>       should be
> .....'half of which was ...'

Wrong. "Class" is a collective noun, so it is
perfectly acceptable to speak of its individual
members in continuing.

The usages "half of which" and "half of whom" convey
entirely different meanings, as well, a nuance that
escapes your ken.

You can only say "half of which" if it would not be
a problem to divide the class exactly in half, a
rather awkward proposition if that class were of odd
parity, or if it would not be possible to mistake
the usage as speaking about an average per
individual or across individuals rather than about
the individuals taken one by one.

I believe you'll find that Strunk and White's _The
Elements of Style_ have cogent commentary on this
case, with a glass of water versus a pot of marbles
or some such, as the example of things exactly
divisible for which "half of which" is properly
used, versus things only approximately divisible,
for which "half of whom" is properly used.

By analogy, one does not sloppily say of a herd of
sheep that is bi-colored, that it is a herd half of
which is black, which might be interpreted to mean
that each sheep is half black, half white, or that
the herd is half black "on average", but that it is
a herd half of whose individuals are fully black.

More usually, in fully proper English usage, that
becomes elided to "half of whom are black".

> [Snip intervening material]

> To improve your work, correct the following:

>> What is noteworthy, though, is that there was a
>> half of the class who were _entirely_ competent
>> in their native tongue....

Ditto. You are wrong again.

> Also:

>> To say that I'm high strung ...

> Should be 'I'm highly strung...'

Well, no, since "high strung" does not mean "highly
strung", which would mean "strung with many
strings", but instead means "strung with tight
strings", and thus "strung to a 'high' pitch".

>> I'm firmly convinced that...

> You got it right here!

I got it right the first time too, it is only your
lack of grasp of English idiom which finds you
falsely claiming otherwise.

> That shows you can do it sometimes.

["It" here has no referent, since it does not
make sense to give it the meaning of the earlier
uses of "it".]

No, that shows that I can use English correctly more
times than you can interpret it correctly, a far
stronger result.

> Have a progress point and try not to be
> inconsistent!

Try not to teach your grandfather to suck eggs,
lack-wit.

> So, what makes you fit to comment on others' use
> of the English language when you don't get it
> right yourself?

Perhaps the fact that I get English correct more
often than wannabie pedants?

> I'm not sure your judgement(sic) has any validity
> when you obviously don't recognise the faults in
> your own writing!

I'm not sure you have any business commenting on
usages of English in cases where you get all your
criticisms dead wrong, but then hey, I don't grade
on a curve. Cope.

I suggest that in the future, you submit to the
impulse not to send your words straight into the
nearest buzz saw, and that for your lifetime, you
refrain from correcting the English of your
intellectual superiors, since your schooling has
left your comprehension of English usage
sufficiently deficient to find you making a public
fool of yourself, as in the current case.

> Happy New Year!

Oh, yes, putting fools in their places is what I do
for entertainment, so this new year is off to an
excellent start: so far in two days, three fools and
counting.

> Gertie.

xanthian.

[Snipped, everything, mostly unread]


haha!  What a prat you are!

-- 
Gertie. 

Award-winning bog cleaner, Latin scholar and beer festival organiser.
Veni, vidi, Vici iiabui et cervaca, or summat like that 
reply-to address works but not to html mail, hotmail or aol addresses


If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

In article , gertie@grumbles 
 writes
>
>[Snipped, everything, mostly unread]
>
>
>haha!  What a prat you are!
>
Also, you are incredibly rude.  It is clear which of you is pedantic.
-- 
Kathy

"kirkus vomit"  wrote in message 
news:s4mdncX1Me8SRufanZ2dnUVZ_sKqnZ2d@comcast.com...
>
> "Ken Johnson"  wrote in message 
> news:c14dd1f1-e55f-425e-b544-e0426d657b97@l6g2000prm.googlegroups.com...
>> On 1 Jan, 10:48, "gertie@grumbles"  wrote:
>>
>> # To say that I'm high strung ...
>>
>>> Should be 'I'm highly strung...'
>>
... should be fucked

b
>
>> A single typo is hardly the same thing as being unable to write any
>> recognisable words at all, is it?
>>
>> Ken Johnson
>
>
> bsvfhnb`wswqhetswgtjntu.fd ejhv vqfmf479olkhjocvxz b
>
> b
>
>

"Kathy"  wrote in message 
news:cKpfqZAgEWfHFw8A@knotland.demon.co.uk...
> In article , gertie@grumbles 
>  writes
>>
>>[Snipped, everything, mostly unread]
>>
>>
>>haha!  What a prat you are!
>>
> Also, you are incredibly rude.  It is clear which of you is pedantic.

... he's a pedophile??? *

b * what courses should i take to be cum 1???

On 2 Jan, 07:08, "News Groups"  wrote:

> The accepted definition of an epitaph is the inscription upon a person's
> tomb in memory of that person.


The second definition of "epitaph" in dictionary.com is "a brief poem
or other writing in praise of a deceased person." I'm now at the age
when the right word doesn't always come to hand when I need it, and
"epitaph" seemed quite a good approximation. If you find the term
"epitaph" confusing, you could substitute "valediction" or "eulogy."

Ken Johnson

On 2 Jan, 04:42, Gilchrist  wrote:

> Didn't they write those sentences above? Please grace us with your
> definition of "writing."


Please grace us with your definition of "sentences."

Ken Johnson

Kathy  wrote:

> Also, you are incredibly rude.

Oh, you cut me to the quick.

> It is clear which of you is pedantic.

Well, at least I have the chops for being a pedant.

I would venture that true rudeness is stepping in
uninvited to correct a stranger's English when your
every correction is a clueless bit of idiocy, but of
course. you are quite free to conclude otherwise in
defense of the no-class mentally defective woman
who found herself misbehaving so.

She having behaved so rudely without first taking
measure of her target or of the likely consequences,
being tongue-flensed by a retired sailor for her
efforts is merely repaid stupidity.

The universe is surprisingly consistent about
repaying stupidity with pain and death. Take note of
that before making similarly poor future choices.

xanthian.
Kent Paul Dolan, LCDR, USNOAA Corps, retired.

I'd sic the MA-degreed school teacher whom I've been
supporting on my far sub-poverty salary for a bit
over two years now on you, but her inability to live
a normal life or support herself except by begging
change was finally traced to a brain tumor the size
of a small orange, and she's too busy currently
recovering from the extensive brain surgery that
removed that tumor to have time to deal with you two
buffoonettes, as my time to read you your rights to
have remained silent rather than make such public
fools of yourselves is similarly limited by the long
journey each day to spend time at her side in the
recovery area of St. Joseph's Hospital, Phoenix,
a trip from which I've just returned a bit before
midnight to find myself being gang-doxied by dunces.

In article , Kathy
 wrote:
> In article , gertie@grumbles
>  writes
> >
> >[Snipped, everything, mostly unread]
> >
> >
> >haha!  What a prat you are!
> >
> Also, you are incredibly rude.  It is clear which of you is
> pedantic.

I hope you don't mean *I* am incredibly rude!!!


(had to read it twice ...)

;o))


-- 
Gertie. 

Award-winning bog cleaner, Latin scholar and beer festival organiser.
Veni, vidi, Vici iiabui et cervaca, or summat like that 
reply-to address works but not to html mail, hotmail or aol addresses


When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

In article , gertie@grumbles 
 writes
>In article , Kathy
> wrote:
>> In article , gertie@grumbles
>>  writes
>> >
>> >[Snipped, everything, mostly unread]
>> >
>> >
>> >haha!  What a prat you are!
>> >
>> Also, you are incredibly rude.  It is clear which of you is
>> pedantic.
>
>I hope you don't mean *I* am incredibly rude!!!

Of course not Gertie, you know me better than that.

I see that he is now using someone else's unfortunate ill health as an 
excuse for his bad manners.  How unpleasant.
>
>
>(had to read it twice ...)
>
>;o))
>
>

-- 
Kathy

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008 23:40:05 +0000, Kathy
 wrote:
>In article , gertie@grumbles 
> writes
>>In article , Kathy
>> wrote:
>>> In article , gertie@grumbles
>>>  writes
>>> >
>>> >[Snipped, everything, mostly unread]
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >haha!  What a prat you are!
>>> >
>>> Also, you are incredibly rude.  It is clear which of you is
>>> pedantic.
>>
>>I hope you don't mean *I* am incredibly rude!!!
>
>Of course not Gertie, you know me better than that.
>
>I see that he is now using someone else's unfortunate ill health as an 
>excuse for his bad manners.  How unpleasant.


"The Planet of the Librarians".

Sue Bilstein  wrote:

> "The Planet of the Librarians".

No, librarians are better at checking their facts, Sue.

Granted, the planet where those two live is rather far
removed from the consensual reality the rest of us
inhabit, will-we-nil-we.

xanthian, envisioning gin swillers in bustles. leering
blurily at passers-by: "Correct your English for you,
sailor? Two quid gets you an hour."

In article <Zg0+wiAVPsfHFw+y@knotland.demon.co.uk>, Kathy
 wrote:
> I see that he is now using someone else's unfortunate ill health as
> an excuse for his bad manners.  How unpleasant.

They write some bizarre stuff, don;t they?

I wonder why they had to crosspost here if they didn't want any
comments?

-- 
Gertie. 

Award-winning bog cleaner, Latin scholar and beer festival organiser.
Veni, vidi, Vici iiabui et cervaca, or summat like that 
reply-to address works but not to html mail, hotmail or aol addresses


I am in shape. Round's a shape...

Poor, determined, delusional gertie, you keep
answering back to stuff not addressed to you.

Don't bother.

Did you somehow think I'd ever read another one of
your postings when the first one entirely revealed
to me the worth of your output?

Life is too, too short for that.

Usenet has over 60,000,000 participants, and you
rank in the bottom 1% of them as measured by quality
of mind.

I'd rather _converse_ than be deluged with off-topic
lectures freighted with errors from a self-important
lack-wit nobody.

You played the game of _your_ choice.

You _lost_.

Cope.

Learn to be graceful about surviving the
consequences of _your_ mistakes.

xanthian, crossed the "15,000 galaxies
classified" milepost last night.

"Want the consequences of what you want."
Neal A. Maxwell, LDS Apostle, at a De Anza
College LDS Regional Conference lecture in
the early 1990s.

Kent Paul Dolan warbled...
> Poor, determined, delusional gertie, you keep
> answering back to stuff not addressed to you.

To whom are they addressed then? These posts are appearing in a public 
newsgroup where all members are encouraged to interact.
If you are not deliberately posting the, to such a public place, then 
you need to take a look at your software settings.

Unless, of course, you are one of those perverse beingas known as a 
'troll' and are doing this quite deliberately?

-- 
Bev.

Bev  wrote:
> Kent Paul Dolan warbled...

>> Poor, determined, delusional gertie, you keep
>> answering back to stuff not addressed to you.

> To whom are they addressed then? These posts are
> appearing in a public newsgroup where all members
> are encouraged to interact.  If you are not
> deliberately posting the[m], to such a public
> place, then you need to take a look at your
> software settings.

> Unless, of course, you are one of those perverse
> beingas(sic) known as a 'troll' and are doing this
> quite deliberately?

I've posted or cross-posted around 47,000 articles
to Usenet over 22+ years now. It might be a good
first set of assumptions for you to make that I know
exactly what I'm doing, that I know exactly how to
say what I mean, neither more nor less, that I know
precisely what the interpersonal implications of a
certain posting style mean, such as talking about
one person while answering another person instead,
and most certainly, that words of mine will not be
requiring you personally to use your own agenda to
put a perverse spin on my words or from them erect
strawmen to destroy.

Quite a bit of the social structure of Usenet is
that way in significant part because of me, both me
being helpful and me being belligerent, over that
long posting history. Even mere dripping water
eventually erodes stone, given the time to do so.

http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=JwsITBEAAAC14qHMCXECZzg9fzac3F9kkdEasx1kiYTQavV7mdW13Q
or
http://preview.tinyurl.com/34soup

Apparently uk.education.teachers is a refuge for
collectively slow learners, you are now the third
participant there to try to snipe at someone who can
rend you limb from limb with a touch of the
keyboard, and fails to do so only out of a misplaced
sense that the Darwin Awards don't need my
assistance all that much, functioning quite well on
their own as they do.

Does "do your research _first_" seem to you to be
advice posted here for the first time in the history
of humankind? If so, that would explain quite a lot.

As to why my articles showed up originally on
uk.education.teachers, it is because I joined a
conversation begun by Ken Johnson including that
newsgroup, and chose not to trim it away from the
newsgroups list, it being a reasonable part of the
crossposting list for the subject matter, as opposed
merely to a trolling target newsgroup included with
intention only to annoy. The idea to post there did
not originate with me.

xanthian.

Bev  wrote:
>  Kent Paul Dolan warbled.
>
> > I've posted or cross-posted around 47,000 articles
> > to Usenet over 22+ years now
>
> I suspected as much. Thank you for the confirmation.

Kent is the Sophomoric Screwball of talk.bizarre,
aka "Kent Dorfman" 

Here's his signature from 10 years ago:

Kent, the man from xanth.  | Can we hurry this up? | Reputed net.scum
Latter
Kent Paul Dolan.              | I have places to go,     | Day Saint
propagandist
       | and people to insult.    | and known rabid
atheist.
.
.
--

"(David P.)"  wrote:
 > Bev  wrote:

 >> I suspected as much. Thank you for the
 >> confirmation.

What in the world do you think you just confirmed?

"The problem isn't the things we don't know, it's
the things we know that aren't so."

 > Kent is the Sophomoric Screwball of talk.bizarre,
 > aka "Kent Dorfman" 

One could of course _attempt_ in life not to know
quite so many things that aren't so, say, by
exercising due diligence -- here, by doing one's
homework to learn the worth of David's opinions in
general before accepting this alcohol addict's
insistently proffered opinion on much of anything.

Here are his own words, luscious pearls of true
"bottom of the bottle wisdom". See if you'd like
to live in the world he craves to control:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/2amxej

xanthian.

"(David P.)"  wrote:
>
> Here's his signature from 10 years ago:
>
> Kent, the man from xanth.  | Can we hurry this up? | Reputed net.scum
> Latter
> Kent Paul Dolan.              | I have places to go,     | Day Saint
> propagandist
>        | and people to insult.    | and known rabid
> atheist.

Kent, the man from xanth. Kent Paul Dolan,
propagandist. 
Reputed net.scum.  Latter Day Saint,
and known rabid atheist.
Can we hurry this up?
I have places to go, and people to insult.
.
.
--

Kent Paul Dolan  wrote:
>
> ...learn the worth of David's opinions in
> general before accepting this alcohol addict's
> insistently proffered opinion on much of anything.

Kent has an answer for everything except
his chronic depression.   He likes to boast
about his military service.   Do Purple Heart
recipients run about trying to impress?  No,
because they have been in combat, and have
some humility and proper respect for God
Almighty!   Kent, OTOH, is his own Higher
Power.   With his failing eyesight and other
physical problems, as his sixties drag on,
and no prayin' goin' on, he'll keep on bein' blue!
.
.
--

what on earth is United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration???

-- 
(All Incoming and Outgoing Emails Scanned With Norton Antivirus 2007)

"
> Kent Paul Dolan, LCDR, USNOAA Corps, retired.

"jo"  wrote:

> what on earth is United States National Oceanic
> and Atmospheric Administration???

In one sense it's this, and if you can read the text
without your eyes glazing over, there's quite a bit
to learn from the labels here:

http://www.pco.noaa.gov/org/NOAA_Organization.htm

In another sense, it is a subdivision of the US
Department of Commerce, tasked with handling the wet
and airy stuff.

>> Kent Paul Dolan, LCDR, USNOAA Corps, retired.

What I find hilarious is that the USNOAA Corps,
the part of NOAA from which I'm retired, and
an entity which has been around continuously since
1803 when Thomas Jefferson created it as "The Survey
of the Coast" [and most recognizable under its old
name "The US Coast and Geodetic Survey"], is too
small potatoes to find a place _at all_ on the above
organization chart.

Between active service and the retired rolls, there
are only about 400 of us total.  We are the officers
who staff and run the (union-crewed) meteorological,
oceanographic, and fisheries research ships, and the
hydrographic survey ships, for the US DoC, and
perform related management tasks when ashore.

That probably sounds more impressive than it is. In
these days of million dead weight ton oil tankers,
the biggest ship I ever drove displaced 3,000 tons,
or 0.3% of the size of a "real ship". Still, that's
as big as around 2,000 Chevrolet Neons, to look at
it another way, so I've driven a bigger chunk of
metal than most people have, and driven it over
about 1/2 the circumference of the planet, as well,
from Senegal to the mid-Pacific, and from Alaska to
Equador.

I was never a ship's captain, nor even very close, I
made it to "Navigator", which is the fourth ranking
officer, on both the ships on which I served.  In
part that's because I was an enlisted submarine
sailor in the US Navy for half my career, before I
took a commission in the USNOAA corps. In part that
was because I retired as early as possible.

I did a lot more real management as a US Navy
missile technician leading petty officer than I ever
did as a USNOAA Corps Lieutenant Commander.

Still, I'd recommend the USNOAA Corps as a career to
any US new college graduate with a degree in the
sciences and a yen to be a manager.

It was a giggle day to day, and left me at the end
less naive about the world than are most people I
encounter.

xanthian.

jo  wrote:
>what on earth is United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
>Administration???

Among other things, they are responsible for installing new sunspots
in accordance with the 11-year cycle.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

klu...@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
> jo  wrote:

>> what on earth is United States National Oceanic
>> and Atmospheric Administration???

> Among other things, they are responsible for
> installing new sunspots in accordance with the
> 11-year cycle.

And for that purpose they use a _really long_
sunspot applicator rod, made from asbestos pulled
out from pipe insulation in buildings. This is done
by administrators and staff standing in North
Dakota, where there is enough surplus cold all year
long to entirely extinguish the sun, much less
"spot" it. Fortunately for lovers of North Dakota
summers (all three days of them), no call has ever
been put forth to turn the sun into one big spot, or
enough cold might be extracted from North Dakota to
cause the dreaded "summer thaw", and the whole
state would sluice down the Mississippi river and
be lost, along with one star lost from the US flag.

HTH

xanthian.

Scott Dorsey  did eloquently scribble:
> jo  wrote:
>>what on earth is United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
>>Administration???

> Among other things, they are responsible for installing new sunspots
> in accordance with the 11-year cycle.

Do they also flip the switch which reverses the polarity at the start of a
new one? Or is that another department?
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   | "I'm alive!!! I can touch! I can taste!         |
|Andrew Halliwell BSc(hons)|  I can SMELL!!!  KRYTEN!!! Unpack Rachel and    |
|            in            |  get out the puncture repair kit!"              |
|     Computer Science     |     Arnold Judas Rimmer- Red Dwarf              |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article ,
  wrote:
>Scott Dorsey  did eloquently scribble:
>> jo  wrote:
>>>what on earth is United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
>>>Administration???
>
>> Among other things, they are responsible for installing new sunspots
>> in accordance with the 11-year cycle.
>
>Do they also flip the switch which reverses the polarity at the start of a
>new one? Or is that another department?

Polarity?  No, the solar wind is unpolarized.  I think Lindemann suggested
this in the 1920s... it has both protons and neutrons.  It's good stuff,
that solar wind.

Remember to listen to solar traffic and weather, together on the 46es on
WWV, your station for solar news...
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey  did eloquently scribble:
> In article ,
>  wrote:
>>Scott Dorsey  did eloquently scribble:
>>> jo  wrote:
>>>>what on earth is United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
>>>>Administration???
>>
>>> Among other things, they are responsible for installing new sunspots
>>> in accordance with the 11-year cycle.
>>
>>Do they also flip the switch which reverses the polarity at the start of a
>>new one? Or is that another department?

> Polarity?  No, the solar wind is unpolarized.  I think Lindemann suggested
> this in the 1920s... it has both protons and neutrons.  It's good stuff,
> that solar wind.

Not the wind, the sunspots.

The start of a new solar cycle is marked by the first sunspot to appear with an
opposite polarity to any others. Which happened last week, I think.
-- 
______________________________________________________________________________
|   spike1@freenet.co.uk   |                                                 |
|Andrew Halliwell BSc(hons)| "ARSE! GERLS!! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!!!"          |
|            in            | "THAT WOULD BE AN ECUMENICAL MATTER!...FECK!!!! |
|     Computer Science     | - Father Jack in "Father Ted"                   |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------