... I want some!

Could you please provide links to appropriate websites as reference for your articles? In this case, it would be to your drug supplier of choice, because you seem to have gotten a very interesting batch this time.

That should be "an infinite *number* of monkeys..."; similarly with typewriters.

Showed the ar'ickle to my tart oo's an In-ger-lish gradjit and she goes "This Lest'uh, E's 'aving a fucking larf, inn'e?" and I'm like "Chill, yer dopey cow - it's fuckin' brill." and she's like "You fink so? You dunno the difference between a split infinitive and a glottel stop, you fuckwit saddo" so... well.. I just 'ad to bitchslap 'er so then, like, the filth are at the door but 'e sez "We don't do domestics" so now I'm dahn the pub instead of the nick. Result!

PS: A very funny piece, Lester. In particular I liked, "...denying the 'forces of darkness' the satisfaction of hanging them along with thousands of participles already left dangling by the uneducated masses..."

Keep up the solecisms, innapropriate adjectives and - above - occasional bad taste, El Reg!

Being into usage and stuff reportage like this needs saying!!

forgive me, but what does ICT stand for? I seem to have missed it.

Are you amanfromMar's brother? The one that did English rather than Philosiphy.

called Roger Irrelevant? "wibble wibble hatstand"

Lester, I want your babies.

Richt ye bam. Ye maun unnerstaun that "wh" isnae snobbishness -- it's Scottishness.

Jus come up here wi yer "hoo" "wot" "wen" "weeeh" "wa-i" and ye'll ken whit ah'm talkin about!

Information is only information if it is communicated. If it isn't, then it's not information. It's hidden away junk. And, if in the future someone finds this hidden away nugget of information it has obviously been communicated.

Whichever arsehole felt that all TLAs needed three letters (erm, 'acronyms', my apology), should have been put against the wall and beaten with a baseball bat.

I shall always correct the mindless little zombies when they use the nasty bastardisation of our already confusing method of abbrev.

Now, will someone please correct my very tired use of grammar and punctuation*. It's been a long day, and I'm sure someone here knows how to fix this.

*Do what you will with the spelling - I'm past caring.

The mere thought of that overbearing, supercilious, pompous little nasty rash brings me out in a snot.

A little amusing, but bollocks none the less.

Dearest creature in creation

Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse

I will keep you, Susy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,

So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

Just compare heart, beard and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it's written).

Made has not the sound of bade,

Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague,

But be careful how you speak,

Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,

Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery:

Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.

Exiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing.

Thames, examining, combining

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war, and far.

From "desire": desirable--admirable from "admire."

Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.

Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.

Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone. Balmoral.

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,

Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.

Scene, Melpomene, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,

Reading, reading, heathen, heather.

This phonetic labyrinth

Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet;

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,

Which is said to rime with "darky."

Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation's O.K.,

When you say correctly: croquet.

Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive, and live,

Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,

Between mover, plover, Dover,

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police, and lice.

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label,

Petal, penal, and canal,

Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.

Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,

Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it."

But it is not hard to tell,

Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,

Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous, clamour

And enamour rime with hammer.

Pussy, hussy, and possess,

Desert, but dessert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.

Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rime with anger.

Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.

Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.

And then: singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Query does not rime with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;

Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.

Though the difference seems little,

We say actual, but victual.

Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;

Put, nut; granite, and unite.

Reefer does not rime with deafer,

Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,

Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific,

Tour, but our and succour, four,

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria,

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion with battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.

Say aver, but ever, fever.

Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess--it is not safe:

We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.

Heron, granary, canary,

Crevice and device, and eyrie,

Face but preface, but efface,

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,

Ear but earn, and wear and bear

Do not rime with here, but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,

Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation--think of psyche--!

Is a paling, stout and spikey,

Won't it make you lose your wits,

Writing "groats" and saying "grits"?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel,

Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict, and indict!

Don't you think so, reader, rather,

Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rimes with "enough"

Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of "cup."

My advice is--give it up!

I was always under the impression that this was GBS' (George Bernard-Shaw) work, but the first Google search finds some German bloke: G. Nolst Trenite' a.k.a. "Charivarius" 1870 - 1946

If you want, there's plenty more where that came from..

I had hoped that Lynne Truss might be missing in action or captured by the Greengrocers Rifle's.