The grill can be used as a grill

One of the Christmas presents I received this year was a fantastic Sainsbury's 'Health Grill' (an own-brand equivalent of a George Foreman grill):


Being a thorough kind of person, I read the instructions before using the grill and was amused to come across the following sentence:

The grill can be used as a grill and can cook a wide variety of foodstuffs.

Really - the grill can be used as a grill? And here I was planning to use it as a microwave...

Photo special: premuim ale

Having said yesterday that I'm not that keen on run-of-the-mill typos, I do find it amusing that one of the employees of my local Sainsbury's supermarket consistently spells 'premium' as 'premuim':



I did say consistently:



I have to admit that I always struggle to spell 'privelige' and 'sacrelige' correctly. Or do I mean 'privilege' and 'sacrilege'? I think I'm misled by the 'elig' part of 'religious'.

So now I want to ask: which words do you have consistent difficulty spelling?

Photo special: whats' happening

As I'm on holiday (again), I've written some posts in advance (again). As before, each post is based around a photo or photos I've taken recently. And once more, please forgive me for any cock-ups on my part, as I won't be around to fix them sneakily before anyone notices.

Here's today's photo:



I'm not really one for misplaced apostrophes (if you are, I recommend visiting Apostrophism or Apostrophe Catastrophes), but what we have here is a rather special case.

I took this shot in my local Sainsbury's supermarket. It appears the sign was printed with a misplaced apostrophe, which was subsequently partially erased - either by the supermarket or by a passing grammar fan, I know not. However what makes me laugh is that whoever tried (badly) to erase the errant apostrophe did not also insert an apostrophe in the correct position.

'10 items or less' becomes 'Up to 10 items'

I'm sorry to bring up 'less vs fewer' so soon after the last time we discussed it, but I must share with you a news story about supermarket chain Tesco altering its '10 items or less' signs to read 'Up to 10 items' in an attempt to avoid 'less' and 'fewer' altogether.

As the story mentions, and as you may have realised, the new wording is amusingly ambiguous:

A Plain English Campaign spokesman said: 'There is a debate about whether the word should be "less" or "fewer".

'Saying "Up to ten items" is easy to understand and avoids any debate.'

That may prove to be wishful thinking, as some would argue 'Up to ten items' could be taken to mean 'ten items and no more' or 'nine items or fewer'.

Thanks for this one, Ro.

Morrinov, Morritini and Vodkat

I am amused that the supermarket Morrisons' own-brand vodka is called 'Morrinov'. I also hear an unconfirmed rumour that its vermouth is called 'Morritini'.

Still, either has to be better than the bottles of 22% 'Vodkat' (pictured) which you can buy in Asda and other cheap places; there's a good reason the Harrogate-based manufacturer can't use the word 'vodka'.

And trawling through the web to find out a bit more about horrible drinks I did come across a good tip: run cheap spirit through a water filter (you know, the type that sits in your fridge) to take the impurities out and make it more drinkable.

Unfortunately, I am not currently in a position to try this advice but if anyone else has the opportunity, I would love to hear whether it works. Thanks.