GrammarBlog

Mocking Poor Grammar
Since 2007

A noun that is formed from a verb and which describes an action. In English it ends in -ing, eg 'the baking of bread' and 'Smoking damages your health'.

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1. Considering our growing American audience, (according to Google analytics we get more unique hits from the US than the UK) do you think we should link to further information when using such British references as Arthur “so-called” Scargill.

   Comment by Gez — 5th September, 2007 @ 10:09 am

2. And we all know you are an edgy, radical leftie, who’s been on protests and everything. There’s no need to try and show off by making light of the death of the Queen of Our Hearts. Appently she was the kindest, most beautiful, cleverest person that has ever lived. I never met her but you could just tell by all those photo spreads in the Daily Mail.

   Comment by Gez — 5th September, 2007 @ 10:13 am

3. Yes, very possibly. Plus, Arthur might get some after dinner speaking work in Texas if we do, as a bonus.

   My favourite Scargill story is told by Mark Steel, in the rather brilliant ‘Reasons To Be Cheerful’ (very possibly my second favourite book after The Daily Express Diana Memorial Annual 1998), and it goes a little something like this:

   “Strangest of all was his [Scargill's] habit of referring to himself in the third person. So I stood there, trying to nod in agreement, as Scargill yelled ‘What did Arthur Scargill do when the pension fund was threatened ? I’ll tell you what Arthur Scargill did. Arthur Scargill …’. Afterwards Mark Thomas, who was standing nearby, suggested that I should have said ‘This Arthur Scargill bloke sounds brilliant. I’m going to go and talk to him because you’re a wanker mate’”

   Comment by Dan — 5th September, 2007 @ 10:24 am

4. I say ‘very possibly’ an awful lot, and it doesn’t really make any sense, very possibly.

   Comment by Dan — 5th September, 2007 @ 10:31 am

5. I’ve just realised I was concentrating on my tags so much I forgot to use a question mark. Excuse me, it’s hara-kiri time.

   Comment by Gez — 5th September, 2007 @ 11:11 am

6. On the subject of Diana-based humour, I don’t think it’s just the preserve of marauding, subversive lefties. I watched a particularly hateful, neo-Fascist show on Fox News yesterday morning called The Red Eye (it was supposed to be a semi-comic current affairs show, but was actually one of the most unpleasant things I’ve ever seen) and they were laughing riotously over Diana’s ‘good-looking corpse’.

   Comment by Tom — 5th September, 2007 @ 1:00 pm

7. Not that’s there’s anything wrong with that joke per se, it was just that I didn’t expect neocons to be so anti-royalist.

   Comment by Tom — 5th September, 2007 @ 1:02 pm

8. I was worried about you then Tom.

   Jesus, don’t do that to me.

   Comment by Dan — 5th September, 2007 @ 2:31 pm

9. I can’t help but think this sign has something more to say for itself. Maybe if you’d stuck around a bit longer you’d have found out. Perhaps “lefties, by their nature open-minded and sensitive…”, and so on. People often do the same to me in real-life, and walk off when I’m in the middle of a sentence because they think my audible comma is an audible full stop. When it isn’t (oi, come back).

   P.S. I’d like to complain about this blog’s ‘word’ verification system for commenting on entries. The main basis for my complaint is that the ‘word’ I’m being asked to enter right now is “scugz”, which isn’t even a word as far as I know (although if it was, I’d guess it’s a hybrid of ’scum’ and ‘thug’ with a zany and edgy ‘z’ suffixed, in order to pluralise. I suppose it’s snappier than “scummy thugs”. Though not nearly as pleasnt to say). I expected better, here of all places. And although I know it’s not any of you blogtodians’ faults really, and this is a bit like shouting at the girl on front desk when marching into a multinational corporation to complain about its syetematic impoverishment of the developing world, you’re my only point of contact.

   Well, here goes… S.C.U.G…

   Comment by Paddy — 6th September, 2007 @ 12:46 am

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