Meanwhile...

... in rather more important matters, this piece makes important and valuable points, although - typically - many of the commenters have their ears shut.

David Cameron's Handy Guide to Personal Pronouns

1: We

A tricky one, this.  Technically regarded as the first person plural, implying a collective subjectivity, its use is in fact much more complex.  Indeed, the meaning can change diametrically according to context.  This can be illustrated no better than with these two well-known examples of common* usage, where the collectivity implicit in the pronoun appears to be emphasised by the addition of the word 'all'.  In fact, though, the meaning is rather more subtle.

A: 'We are all Thatcherites now'.  Here, 'we all' refers to to 'me, my mates and Tony Blair but hardly anyone else.'

B: 'We're all in this together'.  Here, by contrast, the phrase 'we all' actually refers to 'you all', that is to say everyone except me, my mates and Tony Blair, and so is generally referred to at Eton as the rhetorical second person plural.

It is, as I said, a tricky one, in the use of which only an education costing roughly the same as Mexico's national debt can really produce proficiency.  Nonetheless I hope these words provide some help.

* Did I say common?  You know what I mean.

[With thanks to my friend Kate for inspiration.]

Thatcher: A Nation Mourns

There were extraordinary scenes today as, in an amazing spontaneous show of emotion that took the political classes by surprise, people across the UK came together as one in showing their grief at the loss of their beloved former leader, a far cry from the quiet, private affair of the funeral itself.

Leeds

Glasgow

Meanwhile in London, the extra police wisely
drafted in hold back the throng of those driven wild by grief.

Appropriately, the ceremony was presided over by a
representative of The Hornèd One

But all worth it for this picture of a toff, evidently
sobbing like a Jessie (remind me, Gideon, which 
party it was that ditched the witch  as an electoral
liability in 1990, when you were at the ripe old
age of 19...)

Sadly not everyone was swept up in the
generally sorrowful mood.

Just wondering...

...whether there's anything in this strange constellation of facts.  When Thatcher became Prime Minister she presumed to quote St Francis.  When a pope was elected who took the name of Francis, after the saint, because of his love of the poor, Thatcher was dead within a month.  Some kind of exorcism, perhaps?

On this joyous day in history

Just this.

P.s. Yes, I am a big old hypocrite.

Great Lies of Academia no.94

"I/We would like to thank X for his/her review of my/our book, Y. ..."


And, while we're on the subject, ...

Professor Grumpy's Wise Words, no.(?)2

Never, ever, ever reply to a review.  No matter how dick-witted, unfair, misrepresentational, potentially libellous it was, no one ever, ever, ever, made themselves look better by replying to a review.

Who's the Patron Saint of 'Epic Fails'?

I got this through the letterbox a few days ago.

I can be a bit pedantic, as you know.  Nonetheless I don't expect the composer of the average parish church/community newsletter to know that Richard I never fought any battles at Antioch, or that he never went on the First Crusade (which finished 58 years before he was born).  I don't expect them to know the dates of the Emperor Diocletian (or to know that Diocletian was the name of the persecuting emperor rather than an adjective to describe his persecution; it's not clear how our author understands the term).  Or, possibly, to conjugate the verb to slay in less, shall we say, non-normative fashion.

But I do - kind of - expect the reader of a Christian parish church to spot something logically wrong with the statement that a persecution of Christians took place in 303 BC...

P.S.  It's the sentiment that counts, though, and I approve of that.