When an area of Queensland larger than France and Germany put together was under water, did your image and video code still get corrected so that other Charioteers could view them? Yes!
When our capital city was inundated under 30 metres of water, were your grammar mistakes and your typos still efficiently put right? Yes!
When Boadicea and I sat for days and weeks under a metal roof pounded incessantly by tropical rainfall at six inches or more per hour, did the high quality of the Chariot degrade for even a minute? No!
When Cyclone Yasi thundered across our State, remaining at Category 1 for a thousand kilometres or more until it crossed the border with the Northern Territory, did we wimper? No!
But when New York was threatened by no more than a tropical storm, the American nation reacted as though the Four Horsemen had teamed up with Al Qaeda to precipitate Ragnarök. Certain cherished colleagues – Charioteers who inhabit the effete country and a timid canis lupus – so lost their intestinal fortitude as to suggest that grammar and punctuation were no longer important. The editorial suite was shaken to its core.
A dose of stiff upper lip (from the Poms), and a laid back “She’ll be right” (from the Aussies) is what you guys need. Forget punctuation? “Tell ’em they’re dreaming” [The Castle, 1997].
Toby Harnden summed it up pretty well on the Telegraph.
No disrespect to LW, CO or OZ intended. Well, not much, anyway. 🙂
Boadicea's Chariot 
The amusing thing is that most people simply got things in order and rode out the storm. I have one acquaintance in Maryland, in the path of Irene, who simply put her garden furniture and utensils away before cracking open a bottle of top-tier Scotch.
Good on her, Christopher. She must be an Aussie at heart. 🙂
Bearsy, during my years in thrall to a US corporation based in Vermont, I would often phone them at ‘opening time’ during their long winters, to be advised by a janitor that there was ‘nobody home on account o’ the snow’. Where else could that happen?
I think it was down to the “liberal” Septic Meeja and Politicians who tried to make it worse than it actually was.
If the Septics continue down this gentle slope of decline, they will find they will be following the same accelerating path as the UK did starting 60 years ago. However, they still have it in their power to halt their decline, unlike the UK!
You must forgive them, Bearsy. They’re American and have Obama for a president. And I know quite a few idiots voted for him, but not everyone did.
To misquote PG Wodehouse: “There is no time at which grammar does not matter, sir.”
FEEG – not while Obama bin Thingy is still in charge. 😦
Sheona – good old Jeeves! 🙂
Bearsy: For the final time I will state that I profoundly and deeply regret the wrongful placing of said single apostrophe (twice). If such actions constitute “panic” then regretfully I must be guilty as charged. 🙂 ‘ 🙂
This country is indeed in a terrible state, its downfall is imminent, a prediction that has been foretold by many of our transatlantic cousins for over two hundred years. 🙂
Bearsy: she has family in Australia and comes from pre-Diana/Blair Britain, so made of tougher stuff.
FEEG: there is so much hysteria about not getting caught off guard that the results are almost risible.
Obama wanted to look presidential and in charge, but ended up looking like an even bigger buffoon.
To misappropriate an excellent term for this, it’s disaster porn.
Well Auntie BEEB is doing a pretty good job of making it look bad and as they’re showing film I think for once they have a point. At least 15 people have died. The ‘trouble’ may have been that New York and other metroplitan centres escaped the worst. What are the authorities to do? Play it safe or take it easy? Damned if you do – damned if you don’t.
In Bearsy’s defence (not that he needs it), I would add that the Aussie floods included all kinds of nasties such as crocs, venemous snakes and suchlike in the waters, which was probably not the case in Times Square.
OZ
The venomous snakes on two legs?………….
Christina – No, I believe the Aussie floods missed Canberra.
OZ
Ha, ha, OZ, youjust made me snort tea down my nose 😀
Bearsy.
Metal roof?
That apart, ’tis a minor detail, but frankly, what would one expect from our American cousins? I have to confess that they usually handle such climatic excesses with a certain degree of coolth, but they seem to have gone a bit troppo with this one.
There is simply no excuse for such a lowering of standards. Grammar and punctuation are the building blocks of a civilised society.
End of!
Look, I have held my silence for as long as possible but this whole affair is beginning to reek of double standards to me and I feel a ‘J’accuse’ moment coming on.
I stand foursquare with Bearsy in his valiant attempt to rid the Chariot today, ‘and tomorrow the whole world’
of the pestilential inappropriate apostrophe. I also agree with him that it is necessary to correct such abominations, wherever and whenever they appear, regardless of the circumstances or posts involved. More power to his editing elbow.
So, double standards? I offer in evidence Soutie’s recent post:-
https://charioteers.org/2011/08/28/conspiracy-theory/
I would call your attention to the fact that Bearsy has not only not corrected the ‘it’s’ in the third paragraph but has actually ‘liked’ the post.
Loads of smiley things in the hope that any possible doubt can be avoided.
PS With reference to the use of ‘look’ at the start hereof, this is an Australianism (and a South Africanism) with which I fell in love whilst sojourning in the countries concerned. I intend to carry on using it.
When an Aussie (particularly a pollie) starts a sentence with “look”, you can be sure that he feels under pressure and is probably going to lie through his teeth. It is, if you will, a polite Strine way of saying “FFS”. 🙂
Look, Bearsy.
Touche (acute accent on the ‘e’), with the proviso that I am not, in my opinion. lying through my teeth but merely joshing through them.
A bit like when our Honourable Members (?) start yet another lie with “The truth is that………..” in an interview.
OZ
Oops! That wasn’t aimed at you JM, nor indeed at The Bear.
OZ
No offence taken on my part, OZ.
My particular favourite from my time as a Court apprentice was when our client started his explanation with ‘To let you understand, sir’, You knew that every word that was uttered thereafter was calculated, considered and totally mendacious,
Nor was my comment aimed at you, JM. ‘Twas merely a hint to the unwary. 😀
Hold the ALT key down.
Press 0233 on the numeric pad.
Release the ALT key.
Magically, an é will appear.
Mr. Mackie: Your number 15, I would have expected no less, those in the Southern hemisphere must always hang together, providing of course they do not hang separately, but hang they must for, if not, then surely they will all have fallen off by now. 🙂
More keyboard codes here.
http://rmhh.co.uk/ascii.html
Thanks Bearsy. I should have made the effort myself.
Quite right, I note that Bearsy is making no attempt to defend his preferential treatment of his fellow South Hemispherian.
Thanks for the ASCII links. I am, by the way, now totally mortified by the fact that I did not make the effort to acute my ‘e’. I’ve been there and done that in the old days when I used to have to hunt ASCII from one end to the other to produce the necessary effect and I should have had the intellectual rigour to do it again tonight.
It is at times like this one brings out that old favourite, ‘with the greatest possible respect’, before commencing a tirade of insulting and patronising counter arguments against one’s opponent. It was a favourite of Ian Smith when dealing with pesky foreign journalists.
As for Ascii codes, rather than try and remember what they are, I often just google the word or phrase and then copy and paste it complete with the accent. It can be quicker. For those of us more linguistically challenged, that method also provides a degree of confidence about whether the accent is acute or grave. French accents were my bête noire. Or should that be bêtes noires?
é
Depending on which language your key board is set, Jay Em you can hold down the ‘Alt Gr’ button then press ‘e’ to get the above effect. 🙂
é – hey! It works. 🙂
Oh Hugh,
Ye of little faith. 😦
Not here, and it always takes me three tries to get £. I know it’s in the 160’s. Usually ¡ ¢ then £.
El Dubya,
That’ll be because yer keyboard map will be set to ‘colonial chugabug’ 🙂
Ferret : It was the best choice I had from Dell, the others being Sanskrit, Middle-English or Urdu.
Yup mate.
You guys use ANSI over there, we British use ISO. Look on the bright side have you ever seen a chinese keyboard?
Ferret: The fastest Chinese keyboard is still a brush and a pot of black paint.
Ferret: Chinese keyboards have the same basic format as American keyboards, actually. They type in Romanised Chinese and the characters come up. In Taiwan and Japan its different. The Taiwanese base it on sound symbols, and the Japanese have an atrocity.
Christopher: Apologies, I have seen a Japanese keyboard and my assumption was that a Chinese keyboard was similar.
I’ve got æ,ø and å on mine, so there! 🙂
Erm Christopher,
The traditional Chinese layout.
As you say, LW, if I wish to impress my friends and write to them in Chinese, I find it quicker to write out the letter and scan it.
A Chinese typewriter – from 1926…
Bravo: It looks about as useful as an Icelandic telephone directory.