Saturday, May 03, 2008

Is It Just Me or What...?

I am coming to you today from the planet Pedantia on a journey through the vortex of Il' Literatius ...

Randomly listening to Radio 4 yesterday, I captured a few of my favourite bugbear monsters: sikth, intEgral, REsearch but the winner was a woman talking about energy-saving houses.

She said; "whevver peepull really make the most of their 'ouses is a mute point!"

Now, I don't mind accents...but a mute point...

And then there was the email I got from a window company (I am looking for quotes to do the windows on the house in Liverpool):

hi

its the glassman thanks for your email i have looked at your photos

to match the excisting with a 25mm georgian bar supply and fit remove all debris all to fensa regs k glass fire escapes etc.

£5280+vat

kind regards

Andrew

Managing director.


I thought the last 2 words really set it off! If he's the managing director, what are the rest of them like??

I suppose I should be glad he uses spaces in the text...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahahaha! I think I come from Pedantia, too!

Some pronunciation does have allowable variants, but 'mute point'? Ha!

Reminds me of Claudia 'Epitome' Winkleman at a recent red carpet event. Yes, she pronounced her honorary middle name 'Epi-tome'. On live television. I hope she spent the next day curled into a foetal ball of whimpering embarrassment, having learned her mistake.

Anji said...

I come from an area of England where 'was you?' and 'I be' are frequently used. I have to remember that my teaching hat is not on sometimes. I wonder why the glassman doesn't turn the spell checker on...

MacDuff said...

I think you have misunderstood her a moot point is of course one which invites debate but a mute point might be one that says nothing to you at all. You merely shrug your shoulders and say 'so what?'
On the other hand....

Neutron said...

Hiya, thanks for the comments. I realise there are misguided people who say inTEGral and REsearch...they are called Americans.
MacDuff...do you think maybe a mute point is actually when you stand with an index finger outstretched and say nowt? Could be...!