BS: Things that get up your nose

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: kendall
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 01:11 PM

"I have good news and bad news. First, the earwig has emerged from your brain, but it was a female and it laid its eggs while it was in there."

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 08:31 AM

Fancy getting a cockroach up your nose, he must have one large orifice that's all I can say. Lucky it wasn't pregnant! It could have been like something out of The Twilight Zone!

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Nov 11 - 07:28 AM

Put your budgie out in the freezing rain with a map to San Jose.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 10:33 PM

It's freezing rain out there. My budgie just swore at me. And I don't know the way to San Jose.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: kendall
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 07:51 PM

A friend is mad at me, I can't make the lights work on my Packard, and I just broke a nail.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: GUEST,Sgt. Colin Firth of the 24th Foot
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 06:15 PM

The Horns of the Buffalo.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 04:05 PM

oh, yuck, Virginia, that is just all kinds of nasty.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 03:12 PM

has this one been posted yet?

eeewwwww

Things nor people get up my nose. They get on my last nerve... stomp all over it bouncing up and down shrieking... "Are you annoyed yet? are you annoyed yet? How about now?"

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: gnu
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 02:50 PM

God. Pissed me off to NO END yesterday/today.

In a nutshell... Mum's gonna be 85 tomorrow... wet macular degeneration for several years so she is blind in the right eye... yesterday, the eye doc's assistant make a big deal about high pressure in her left eye and said the doc would double check it... then, the eye doc recommended cataract surgery be done within a year... Mum is scared to death of docs and all medical... she was upset (but steady).

The long story...

When the eye doc was done, she had not checked the pressure so I mentioned it. She had to put an extra set of drops in but she didn't use the freezing drops first nor did Mum get to sit in a drak room for the usualy 15 minutes and I could tell Mum was having discomfort. Usually, by the time the exam is complete, she can see okay to leave on her own and the discomfort is minimal. She was visibly shaken and upset and didn't want to go for her afternoon walkies at the shops.

I delivered some ham for her supper and her left eye was still messed up. I phoned her after supper and it was still messed up... she couldn't read the words in the info box on the TV in the living room. The main picture was blurry. She could see the one in the kitchen fairly well but it doesn't have an info box with writing. I checked my TV and it was fine so I figured it wasn't the signal. That upset her as well.

I talked to her on the phone this morning and her eye was still bad. She had been awake most of the night, had a headache and sounded weak and driained. I made an excuse to go see her and when I saw the TV... GOD fucked up the TV in the living room while we were at the eye doc!!! Even *I* could not read the writing from 2 1/2 feet away with my glasses on!!! I tried all of the picture adjustments. Still could not get a clear picture.

Fuck I was mad! Still am. Yes, at God. And I am gonna kick him in the nuts if I can get by Pete at the main gates. Not any time soon, I hope. Hmmmm... that's up to God, innit? Make that two kicks in the nuts.

God gets up my nose when he screws over a little old lady who has been nothing less that a saint all her life.

Yeah, I know. A long whiney story and a waste of your time but shit like that ain't supposed to happen to good people.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Ed T
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 04:12 PM

When your mate gets up your nose, try this one:

Dealing with your mate

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: gnu
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 03:50 PM

Yo Ed... pass it over here eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Ed T
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 03:31 PM

Burp

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Ed T
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 03:28 PM

Oh, Please

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Bettynh
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 03:11 PM

I'm not showy as a patriot, but I was a Girl Scout. It bothers me to see the flag flying in the dark and/or rain. My neighbor has had his up for months now. I'm sure he'd be shocked to hear that I find his treatment of the flag as disrespectful as the behavior of the hippies when they burned flags. At least the hippies knew and meant what they were doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: gnu
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 01:09 PM

Chinese Tire, er, Crappy Tire, er, Canadian Tire just did. I COULD be holding $5000 and an instant prize with my "decoder". It's a thin plastic card with a code and a portion of it is a see-thru reddish window that one puts over the coded message on the webpage for the contest. Apparently, people who are NOT colour-blind can read the secret fucking message.

I wonder what it says... You really didn't think you were gonna win didja? We just wanted your name, email address, address and such so we can add you to our database and send you countless....

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: kendall
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 06:56 AM

I'm in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 05:08 AM

Not necessarily "young", Patsy ~~ but, come now, those are recognised symptoms of early(-ish) middle-age --

-- like mine...

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 04:35 AM

Another thing that get's up my nose is people who walk behind me, almost treading on my heels, while shouting loudly into their mobile phones!

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 03:22 AM

No matter how much I like to kid myself that I am young the creaking bones and Arthritis tells me differently.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Nov 11 - 12:08 AM

That '130' query was based on a misapprehension ~~ middle-age needn't mean exactly ½-way-thru.

There are not 3, but 4 stages: childhood, youth, middle-age, old age; and no compulsion to regard them all as of equal length: think of the telescope/acceleration effect as time passes: as I never tire of saying, the 13 years of my schooldays, 5-18, went on something like 50 times as long as the 48 years of my first marriage.

On that basis, I think it reasonable to think of childhood up to 14, youth 14-40; middle age 41-'5-years-older-than-I-am-now' until that gets a bit too much even to delude oneself with...

(And one must allow for different circumstances, occupations, &c: a 40-y-o Prime Minister would be a young one; a 28-year-old pop-singer is an oldie.)

I shall be 80 exactly 6 months + 1 day from today.

I suppose that then I shall be old ~ just about - maybe...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: kendall
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 08:14 PM

If they are, they don't know it.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Becca72
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 04:26 PM

Are people living to be 130 nowadays?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Midchuck
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 04:13 PM

Fifty year (plus) aged people who insist that they are middle aged!

My daughter, a family physician, told me that the actual medical definition of "middle age" is 35 to 65. I don't know who decides, but that's what she said.

I kidded her that we were both middle aged at the same time for a little less than a year.

P.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: kendall
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 02:32 PM

Commercials (adverts) that show people playing instruments when it is obvious they don't even know how to hold one.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 05:42 AM

The stench of beer in a concert hall.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 10 Nov 11 - 03:44 AM

Vegetarian burgers, mince or sausages etc. Why would a vegetarian want to eat something that resembles meat?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 09 Nov 11 - 10:51 AM

Account numbers and confirmation numbers so long and complicated they could express the number of quarks in the universe.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Greg B
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 06:31 PM

"In a bad way: Timeshare Sales people--especially the Mexican variety."

Ambiguous sentences.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: gnu
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 02:47 PM

"They had to shoot my grandmother to start a graveyard."

HAHAHAHAHAA!

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 02:37 PM

My body keeps issuing eviction notices, but being a contrary SOB, I ain't goin' until I'm damned good and ready!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: kendall
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 01:46 PM

Middle age is anyone 10 years older than I.
Also, it depends on how long you expect to live. Considering that all of my relatives lived to be very old, I'm middle age at 77. They had to shoot my grandmother to start a graveyard.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: gnu
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 01:45 PM

Saul... "The dispute came before Canada's Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission."

It should have gone before a court of law.

As for the clause itself, it is clear that the intent was that the five year term would be renewed if no one year notice was given.

And, that's why I can't see pictures in emails sent to me by my SiL. Now, THAT would be something for the CRTC to look into.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Bert
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 01:13 PM

Then they are still workers and should join the bloody union;-)

Free beer for all the workers.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 11:40 AM

Absolute claptrap, Bert ~ HM the Queen works as hard as anyone in the country; so do the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, all MPs and many members of the House of Lords, the Director General of the BBC, the Lord Chief Justice (cont p 94)

but...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Bert
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 11:16 AM

...Middle class people who insist that they are working class!...

If they work they are working class.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Ed T
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 11:14 AM

Fifty year (plus) aged people who insist that they are middle aged!

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Nov 11 - 09:47 AM

Middle class people who insist that they are working class!

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Nov 11 - 04:25 PM

Another reason for the use of the serial comma is to distinguish composite usages: as in

"The company will perform plays by Webster, Middleton, Massinger, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, Jonson, and Marlowe."

or

"Representatives were present from Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Tyne and Wear, and Yorkshire."

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: saulgoldie
Date: 07 Nov 11 - 03:54 PM

Yeah, here it is:

Serial Commas

Experts don't agree about this, but when in doubt, it is safer to use the serial comma. ("red, white, and blue" instead of "red, white and blue"). One of the reasons that it's safer to use this comma is to ensure clarity, especially in technical or legal writing. There was a court case where there was disagreement as to how the money should be divided among 3 people because of the lack of the serial comma. (The will said that "Bob, Betty and Jane" were to split the money. Because of the missing serial comma, there was confusion as to whether Bob got 50% and Betty & Jane split the other 50%, or whether each person got 1/3.) So to be safe, always use it.


And another one:

The case of the million-dollar comma

The position of a comma in a 14-page contract is at the heart of a dispute that could cost cable TV company Rogers Communications one million Canadian dollars. 26 Oct 2006
Topics

    * General contract and boilerplate
    * Litigation & International Arbitration
    * Corporate

A five-year contract with Aliant Telecom gave Rogers access to thousands of poles that carried its cables to homes across Canada. Aliant didn't own the poles; it only acted as an agent for a power company. When the power company decided to take control of the poles itself and raise the rates, Aliant gave 12-months' notice to Rogers that its deal would be terminated one year before the expiry of the five-year term.

Early termination would force Rogers to start paying the power company at the higher rates, costing Rogers an extra CAN$1 million over that final year. But Rogers could avoid this expense if Aliant had no right to terminate early.

Aliant's right turned on a single clause:

"[…This Agreement] shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party."

Aliant interpreted this as a right to terminate at any time upon one year's notice to Rogers. But Rogers read it as a right to terminate only at the end of the current or a renewed five-year term.

The dispute came before Canada's Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission.

Aliant argued that, based on grammatical rules of punctuation, since the comma closed the clause "and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms", the subsequent qualifier "unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party" qualified all of the preceding section.

Aliant added that, had the intention been to limit the right to terminate to the end of the five-year term, there would have been no comma placed before the word "unless" and clear wording would have been included specifying by what date the notice was required.

Not so, argued Rogers. If Aliant could terminate at any time upon one year's notice, the express agreement by the parties to a five-year term was effectively meaningless. Why bother with the words "…for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms," it asked?

The Commission sided with Aliant, describing the clause as "clear and unambiguous." Had the intention been to limit the right to terminate at the end of the current and any renewal term, clear wording would have been included specifying by what date the notice was required, it said.

That ruling was issued in July. This month, Globe and Mail reported that Rogers is appealing. In doing so, Rogers will rely on Canada's second official language. The Toronto daily said that Rogers spent two months finding a French version of the same contract. The punctuation is different in the French version and Rogers says it supports its interpretation of the English version. According to The New York Times, Rogers has also commissioned a 69-page affidavit from an authority on contract language.

Aliant is said to be preparing its response.
Interpretation in the UK

In the UK, as in many other jurisdictions, when faced with a contractual ambiguity, courts examine evidence of the parties' intentions. They consider the contract as a whole, not just the specific clause and adopt the ordinary meaning of words.

In 1998, Lord Hoffman ruled in the House of Lords: "The meaning of words is a matter of dictionaries and grammars; the meaning of the documents is what the parties using those words against the relevant background would reasonable have been understood to mean. The background may not merely enable the reasonable man to choose between the possible meanings of the words which are ambiguous but even (as occasionally happens in ordinary life) to conclude that the parties must, for whatever reason, have used the wrong words or syntax."


Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: saulgoldie
Date: 07 Nov 11 - 03:51 PM

I can't cite chapter and verse. But I think I remember reading about a case of inheritance about which there was an issue over a comma either being there or not. It was something like "...to be divided among A, B, and C" vs "...A, B and C" Perhaps it was just a puzzler. But in this case, the comma made a significant difference as to how it was divided. (Oh, I wish I could remember the specifics! CRSS, you know.)

Usually a mere comma does not make that much difference. But, as said before, in some legal cases, it can. And in more mundane circumstances, it can still cause confusion in the reader requiring follow-up clarification.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Ed T
Date: 07 Nov 11 - 03:47 PM

Many wars have been started because people "take advantage of" a misunderstanding.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: kendall
Date: 07 Nov 11 - 03:32 PM

Many wars have been started because of misunderstanding.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: gnu
Date: 07 Nov 11 - 03:28 PM

On accounta MDs are not trained to print... which I find very odd.

As an engineering student I had to print all of my work in a specific text style. The only time I used writing was for my signature, AFTER I had printed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Ed T
Date: 07 Nov 11 - 02:44 PM

If grammar is important for everyone, why is it not more important for doctors to write clearly when writing prescriptions or other important medical directions?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 07 Nov 11 - 01:01 PM

""I find it hard to imagine a situation in which a legal case would hinge on a simple grammatical error. Do you know of such a case?""

Not so much court cases, but I do know of some contracts invalidated by misplaced punctuation and grammatical error.

An uncle of mine who was in the property business had to refuse the services of one partner in the law firm he used, for that very reason, and came very close to severing his contact with the firm as a whole.

Had anyone invoked the terms of those in a legal action, I'm not sure what the outcome might be.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: kendall
Date: 06 Nov 11 - 08:48 PM

Jim, you are right, they don't belong in the same category.
Bad grammar bugs me because laziness bugs me. As I said before, it's part of the dumbing down of America.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Nov 11 - 08:40 PM

Don T: I didn't say grammar was of no importance. I said I don't consider grammatical errors to be in the same league with dangerous driving, etc.

I find it hard to imagine a situation in which a legal case would hinge on a simple grammatical error. Do you know of such a case?

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: gnu
Date: 06 Nov 11 - 08:15 PM

Don.. "Are guys like this incredibly competitive, mean-spirited, just plain stupid, or all of the above?"

Yes... and... isn't it odd? WHY do these idiots do these things? I just slow down and start moving over and nudge them out of the way. Either the idiot allows me in or the next one will. If not, apparently they don't understand the law. Their loss if THEY hit ME. And, they won't... >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Bert
Date: 06 Nov 11 - 06:34 PM

Drivers who, on turning left, will slow down in the fast lane and completely ignore the clearly marked turning lane.

Subject: RE: BS: Things that get up your nose
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 06 Nov 11 - 06:28 PM

""I guess one of the things that get up my nose is—people who complain about other people's grammatical errors.""

If you really feel that correct grammar is of no importance Jim, I can only hope that you never have a solicitor who is of the same opinion carry out the conveyancing on your house purchase.

You might find that it isn't your house, that its value is reduced, or that you are unable at a later date to sell it on.

And that is just one way of the many in which bad grammar can wreck the even tenor of your life.

Don T.