ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

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Ledge, we would never say that, "a 25% saving". It's un-American. But thanks for the headS up.

Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:18 (sixteen years ago) link

Seems like genius to me xpost

stet, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:19 (sixteen years ago) link

Western European Summer Time

also: this can eat a bag of dicks repeatedly.

xpost: what, is "unamerican" now a synonym for "wrong"? :)

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:19 (sixteen years ago) link

fuck! i meant "a synonym for right" ... fuck. bastard. think more carefully about post before posting, simon, you tit.

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:20 (sixteen years ago) link

don't you mean "right"?

stet, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:21 (sixteen years ago) link

Maybe when "grimly 'Simon' fiendish" is a synonym for "a twitchy cnut".

Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:21 (sixteen years ago) link

it is!

stet, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:22 (sixteen years ago) link

don't you mean "right"?

YES THAT IS WHY I CORRECTED MYSELF, WITH MUCH SWEARING.

Maybe when "grimly 'Simon' fiendish" is a synonym for "a twitchy cnut"

oh, that's a given.

as for the war/BST thing ... there was a good reason for that, IIRC, but i'm wasting enough time here and really don't want to go and look it up :)

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:22 (sixteen years ago) link

Well I doubt they would have done it on a whim!

Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link

Ahhh I feel much better: coffee downed, spleen vented. Time to get ready for that 11am meeting!

Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link

Well I doubt they would have done it on a whim!

you reckon?

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:24 (sixteen years ago) link

Gives you more light for evening bombing raids on old Jerry? Also it saves energy -- there's more light during working hours.

stet, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:25 (sixteen years ago) link

Cos you know we couldn't bomb until after tea, right.

stet, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:25 (sixteen years ago) link

i'm sure it was agricultural, in some way.

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 14:27 (sixteen years ago) link

So if it's Daylight Savings Time, then that means I can cash out all those extra hours of daylight and enjoy 180 straight hours of daylight this winter, right?

Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 15:00 (sixteen years ago) link

i think i've been saying 'daylight savings' all my life!
but i also apparently say things like "your guyses house is nice"
otherwise tho, grammar is PERFEVCT

rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 15:50 (sixteen years ago) link

PP that's also known as "moving to Iceland".

Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 15:54 (sixteen years ago) link

but i also apparently say things like "your guyses house is nice"

say more things like this; i'm intrigued!

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:01 (sixteen years ago) link

if you found something that cost $100 on sale for $75, that would be a 25% savingS

That is pure mentalism.

Because the clock-shifting thing is sold to us on the clocks-going-back, October end of things, it being deemed important for farmers and schoolchildren to have more daylight in the morning.

Why don't farmers just get up later in the winter? And schools could start at different times? I don't really understand why we change the clocks at all.

Nasty, Brutish & Short, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:04 (sixteen years ago) link

this thread has been funny again recently

RJG, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:20 (sixteen years ago) link

Umm I'd assumed "savings" had a standard definition on both sides of the Atlantic as more or less "stuff that has been saved" -- I keep my savings under my mattress, not in a savings account in a savings and loan

nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link

Results 1 - 10 of about 58,500 for "life savings" site:.uk. (0.27 seconds)

jaymc, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link

Yes nabisco, but we think of Daylight Saving as an explanation of what the time change is intended to achieve, not a compound noun (is that the right term?) analagous to "lifetime savings".

Alba, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link

analogous.

Alba, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 16:55 (sixteen years ago) link

Farmers hate daylight savings time, but that's for another thread.

Pleasant Plains, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:01 (sixteen years ago) link

You are doing it, PP.

Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:02 (sixteen years ago) link

The thing, you're doing it.

Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:02 (sixteen years ago) link

Yeah, Alba, I know -- I'm just talking about Grimly's apparent rejection of all "savings."

P.S. Before y'all UKers get all sneery about the S you should probably consider that your S-less version is in desperate need of a hyphen -- if it's about saving daylight, then it's Daylight-Saving Time

nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:03 (sixteen years ago) link

we don't call it that

RJG, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:04 (sixteen years ago) link

You know what time it is ... it's DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME

n/a, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:04 (sixteen years ago) link

I mean they

RJG, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link

xpost - Which is, admittedly, way cooler, because someone can say "WHAT TIME IS IT?" and you can say "IT'S DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME, KICK IT"

nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link

Time to save some daylight up in this piece.

jaymc, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:07 (sixteen years ago) link

hyphen: absolutely agree. this point was made at the very beginning and i don't dispute it.

"apparent rejection of all 'savings'" ... eh? not at all. in the right context -- eg the examples in your 4.49pm post -- it's perfect. beautiful. wonderful.

but "daylight savings time" remains nonsensical.

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:09 (sixteen years ago) link

even "another thing coming" makes more sense ;)

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:10 (sixteen years ago) link

My mind is now weighing up Trustee Savings Bank vs. Trustee-Saving Bank. I need to go home.

Madchen, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link

I am fairly sure it was never about saving trustees.

Alba, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:18 (sixteen years ago) link

Grimly, try making a mental comparison with, say, "leavings."

"Leaving" is a gerund, "leavings" is a noun for what has been left.

Through rigorous daylight-saving activities, we will create a savings of daylight.

nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:22 (sixteen years ago) link

The typically USian part is very fancifully using the word "savings" to refer to something that isn't a discrete physical object. No surprise given our other colorful turns of phrase, though.

Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:26 (sixteen years ago) link

11/10 for trying, nabisco, but ... sorry, i'm just not buying it.

xpost ... yes, there is something fascinating going on here, though, not just about US/UK grammar but about how that grammar reflects US/UK thought processes/approaches. i'll come back to it once we've had our introductory lectures on language and psychology :)

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:27 (sixteen years ago) link

I'll put that 11/10 straight in my Compliment Saving Account.

nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:31 (sixteen years ago) link

I'm being serious, you know how many American frontier tall tales/folk tales involve precisely that kind of linguistic play/stretching of the plausible? Ever heard of Pecos Bill and his bronco, Widowmaker? Or Paul Bunyan, or Davy Crocket? Take your pick; see also a TON of Native American stories in which conceptual things take physical form. It's no stretch at all to imagine the "daylight savings" being gleefully portrayed as, say, gold bricks that can be locked up until the hero of the story tricks them back from the villain.

Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 17:32 (sixteen years ago) link

laurel, i'm going to come back and pick your brains [1] about this in the future. that's quite, quite brilliant.

[1] ha! a plural in the idiomatic form. with no logic whatsoever. i give up.

grimly fiendish, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 18:00 (sixteen years ago) link

i am going to start an online bank called DYLGHT SVNGS
where's your investment capital?
it's in the fucking sun, bitches!

rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 18:51 (sixteen years ago) link

i have confused myself with why i find this so funny

rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 18:52 (sixteen years ago) link

(and aside from "guyses" i just say a bunch of westcoast things that i am only half aware of, hm)

rrrobyn, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 19:05 (sixteen years ago) link

Do you say "janky"? Seattle, who is actually from SF, says it's an SF thing for "cheap, poorly made". I like it.

Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:08 (sixteen years ago) link

Seattle is a girl's name

nabisco, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link

You're a girl's name.

Laurel, Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:11 (sixteen years ago) link

I've heard jank but not janky

Will M., Wednesday, 31 October 2007 20:12 (sixteen years ago) link


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