Photo special: toilets & disabled toilet

This sign - spotted in the Green Dragon pub in Croydon, London - amuses me greatly, but no one else I've pointed it out to has had the same reaction:



The disabled toilet is itself a toilet (I presume), so this door should be signed simply 'toilets' or 'all toilets'. However one of my friends pointed out that such a sign would not indicate that there was a disabled toilet on the premises, and I fear he has a point.

So a correct sign would have to read 'toilets (including disabled toilet)', which is just ridiculous. I can understand why the Green Dragon has opted for the wording shown in the photo.

And as I recall, the Green Dragon's toilets are through the door and then down a flight of stairs - not so handy for disabled people.

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: downstairs dinning area

It can get very loud in Burger King:



I took this snap in London a while back. Again, I don't get excited over run-of-the-mill typos or spelling mistakes, but unintentionally amusing ones like this are right up my street...

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.

Shock horror: DJs occasionally mention alcohol

Today's edition of the free paper Metro contains a story entitled 'DJs 'encouraging drinking'' which states:

Radio presenters widely encourage drinking, a study warns today. DJs use language that celebrates excessive drinking with research into 1,200 hours of radio output showing 703 references to alcohol.

So - 1,200 hours of radio and 703 references to alcohol. Maths isn't my strong point, but I make that one reference to alcohol about every hour and three quarters, on average. And that's any reference to alcohol, not necessarily celebrations of "excessive drinking". Hardly a shocking statistic.

To be fair, the online version of the story includes far more detail and is the better for it. However it baffles me for a different reason, stating as it does:

Research into 1,200 hours of radio output uncovered 703 extracts containing references to alcohol.

Of these, 179 involved comments made by presenters and another 45 were comments initiated by co-presenters, studio guests and members of the audience.

So who or what made the remaining 479 references to alcohol if not presenters, co-presenters, studio guests and audience members? Jingles, maybe?

It's worth noting that the study was funded by "the Department of Health and the Home Office as part of the Know Your Limits campaign". So not biased at all, then.

And sorry if this blog post is slightly less clear than it might be. I've been conducting some research of my own this evening...

Pronunciation: regular Tory!

Here's an email that Sarah sent to the blog today. As Sarah is from the Midlands, please read it with a non-rhotic accent:

I overheard a conversation one of my colleagues was having on the phone this morning that made me giggle. She was ordering a book and getting a bit stroppy because the person on the other end didn't quite understand what she was asking for.

She kept saying what sounded like 'regular Tory, regular Tory!' and the guy thought she wanted a book about Tories. She felt a bit daft when she realised she was pronouncing 'regulatory' wrong!

Although I personally pronounce 'regulatory' with the stress on the third syllable (reg-yoo-LAY-tor-ee), I believe the 'regular Tory' pronunciation is quite common. Is this a British English / American English difference?

Sadly my Concise OED is too concise to provide me with an answer and the jumbo office Webster's is buried in a cupboard somewhere. Can anyone help?

Eagle-eared listeners – and BraveStarr

A while back Gareth spotted:

an article in The Observer about Radio 4 that managed to describe keen listeners of the Today programme as "eagle-eared". Eagles, naturally, being well-known for their large and splendid ears.

If you check out the web version of the article (which I've just linked to), you'll see that the phrase in question occurs in the third par.

Googling "eagle-eared" leads to 2,810 results, a surprisingly high figure. Take out "eagle-eared bat", however, and you are left with only 329. So perhaps the phrase should be "eagle-eared-bat-eared"...

And does anyone remember the 1980s cartoon BraveStarr? The eponymous hero had, among other attributes, "eyes of the hawk" and "ears of the wolf" – or was it the other way round? Perhaps this YouTube video of the intro will refresh my memory...

'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.

Preposition nonsense up with which I will not put

Spotted in a recent corporate missive (the names have been changed to protect the guilty):

There are lots of good things happening at Company A of which we can be proud. Initiative X is one I personally feel particularly proud of.

Obviously written by someone who doesn't waste too much time worrying about where to put prepositions...


Churchill on prepositions