Smallweed 16-04-05 - Revision history

PeterWilson at 18:17, 22 June 2019

2019-06-22T18:17:35Z

PeterWilson at 13:36, 20 August 2018

2018-08-20T13:36:00Z

DavidWalker at 11:00, 13 September 2015

2015-09-13T11:00:18Z

JoachimNoreiko: merging from duplicate with typo title

2007-06-26T12:41:26Z

merging from duplicate with typo title

PeterWilson: Smallweeed 16-04-05 moved to Smallweed 16-04-05: Typo

2007-06-26T07:20:56Z

Smallweeed 16-04-05 moved to Smallweed 16-04-05: Typo

PeterWilson at 07:18, 26 June 2007

2007-06-26T07:18:11Z

PeterWilson at 07:16, 26 June 2007

2007-06-26T07:16:53Z

PeterWilson at 07:16, 26 June 2007

2007-06-26T07:16:14Z

New page

This fine comment by the columnist 'Smallweed' on some English usage was published in ''The Guardian'' on Saturday April 16, 2005. It is meant to supplement AWE's article [[-e - -ee]], and to share our admiration of the quality of its writing and humour.

... I boarded a bus where a notice informed me there was room for 16 standees. I would like to have asked the driver this question: what exactly is a standee? But he was too busy discussing the recent decline of Newcastle United with a man in a woolly hat. As it happened, I received a letter the very same day asking what I made of the term "attendee" that appeared to be creeping into the language. "You may very well ask," I muttered as I folded it neatly up and filed it away under "filed". I had always assumed that someone who took a positive action was given a designation that ended in -er, while those on the receiving end were given the suffix -ee. Take the word referee. A referee is one to whom an issue to be resolved is referred; whoever is asking the question would be a referrer. Imagine, for instance, that the Newcastle footballer Lee Bowyer went up to the man in black and inquired with exquisite courtesy: "What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?" Bowyer would be the referrer, and his victim the referee. Equally, those who signed Bowyer for Newcastle were employers, and Bowyer whom they signed is their employee, though not, perhaps, for much longer.

I have yet to work out the sense in which "standee" could be used correctly, since it seems to mean someone on the receiving end of the act of standing. Attendee is simpler. Imagine a lavish salon. The king reclines on a bed, reading Sporting Life. Gathered around him are courtiers, various other grandees, practised sycophants and other lesser experts in the obsequious. They are the attenders: the king, in my book, is the attendee. Were they to haul him from his bed with shouts of "Call yourself a hardworkingfamily? What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?", and force him into an upright posture against the wall of the salon, I suppose he might be a standee too. But better not to experiment.

[[category:academic English]][[category:correctness]][[category:etymology]]

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 :I have yet to work out the sense in which "standee" could be used correctly, since it seems to mean someone on the receiving end of the act of standing. Attendee is simpler. Imagine a lavish salon. The king reclines on a bed, reading Sporting Life. Gathered around him are courtiers, various other grandees, practised sycophants and other lesser experts in the obsequious. They are the attenders: the king, in my book, is the attendee. Were they to haul him from his bed with shouts of "Call yourself a hardworking family? What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?", and force him into an upright posture against the wall of the salon, I suppose he might be a standee too. But better not to experiment. "
 ::It is more usual in current English to use [[attendance - attendants|attendant]] than Smallweed’s ‘attender’.
-[[category:academic English]][[category:correctness]][[category:etymology]]
+::::Lee Bowyer, mentioned above, was a professional footballer of high renown at the time. He was notorious for several violent interchanges on and off the pitch, one in 2000 outside a nightclub in Leeds (he was then a player at Leeds United) and one in 2005, when he was with Newcastle United, and was involved in a fight during a match with Aston Villa. Smallweed's "exquisite courtesy" is, of course, [[ironic]].

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 :"... I boarded a bus where a notice informed me there was room for 16 standees. I would like to have asked the driver this question: what exactly is a standee? But he was too busy discussing the recent decline of Newcastle United with a man in a woolly hat. As it happened, I received a letter the very same day asking what I made of the term "attendee" that appeared to be creeping into the language. "You may very well ask," I muttered as I folded it neatly up and filed it away under "filed". I had always assumed that someone who took a positive action was given a designation that ended in -er, while those on the receiving end were given the suffix -ee. Take the word referee. A referee is one to whom an issue to be resolved is referred; whoever is asking the question would be a referrer. Imagine, for instance, that the Newcastle footballer Lee Bowyer went up to the man in black and inquired with exquisite courtesy: "What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?" Bowyer would be the referrer, and his victim the referee. Equally, those who signed Bowyer for Newcastle were employers, and Bowyer whom they signed is their employee, though not, perhaps, for much longer.
 :I have yet to work out the sense in which "standee" could be used correctly, since it seems to mean someone on the receiving end of the act of standing. Attendee is simpler. Imagine a lavish salon. The king reclines on a bed, reading Sporting Life. Gathered around him are courtiers, various other grandees, practised sycophants and other lesser experts in the obsequious. They are the attenders: the king, in my book, is the attendee. Were they to haul him from his bed with shouts of "Call yourself a hardworking family? What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?", and force him into an upright posture against the wall of the salon, I suppose he might be a standee too. But better not to experiment. "
 [[category:academic English]][[category:correctness]][[category:etymology]]

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 :"... I boarded a bus where a notice informed me there was room for 16 standees. I would like to have asked the driver this question: what exactly is a standee? But he was too busy discussing the recent decline of Newcastle United with a man in a woolly hat. As it happened, I received a letter the very same day asking what I made of the term "attendee" that appeared to be creeping into the language. "You may very well ask," I muttered as I folded it neatly up and filed it away under "filed". I had always assumed that someone who took a positive action was given a designation that ended in -er, while those on the receiving end were given the suffix -ee. Take the word referee. A referee is one to whom an issue to be resolved is referred; whoever is asking the question would be a referrer. Imagine, for instance, that the Newcastle footballer Lee Bowyer went up to the man in black and inquired with exquisite courtesy: "What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?" Bowyer would be the referrer, and his victim the referee. Equally, those who signed Bowyer for Newcastle were employers, and Bowyer whom they signed is their employee, though not, perhaps, for much longer.
-:I have yet to work out the sense in which "standee" could be used correctly, since it seems to mean someone on the receiving end of the act of standing. Attendee is simpler. Imagine a lavish salon. The king reclines on a bed, reading Sporting Life. Gathered around him are courtiers, various other grandees, practised sycophants and other lesser experts in the obsequious. They are the attenders: the king, in my book, is the attendee. Were they to haul him from his bed with shouts of "Call yourself a hardworkingfamily? What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?", and force him into an upright posture against the wall of the salon, I suppose he might be a standee too. But better not to experiment. "
+:I have yet to work out the sense in which "standee" could be used correctly, since it seems to mean someone on the receiving end of the act of standing. Attendee is simpler. Imagine a lavish salon. The king reclines on a bed, reading Sporting Life. Gathered around him are courtiers, various other grandees, practised sycophants and other lesser experts in the obsequious. They are the attenders: the king, in my book, is the attendee. Were they to haul him from his bed with shouts of "Call yourself a hardworking family? What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?", and force him into an upright posture against the wall of the salon, I suppose he might be a standee too. But better not to experiment. "
 [[category:academic English]][[category:correctness]][[category:etymology]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-This fine comment by the columnist 'Smallweed' on some English usage was published in ''The Guardian'' on Saturday April 16, 2005. Its inclusion here is meant to supplement AWE's article [[-e - -ee]], and to share our admiration of the quality of its writing and humour.
+This fine comment by the columnist 'Smallweed' on some English usage was published in ''The Guardian'' on Saturday April 16, 2005 (online at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1461206,00.html). Its inclusion here is meant to supplement AWE's article [[-e - -ee]], and to share our admiration of the quality of its writing and humour.
-"... I boarded a bus where a notice informed me there was room for 16 standees. I would like to have asked the driver this question: what exactly is a standee? But he was too busy discussing the recent decline of Newcastle United with a man in a woolly hat. As it happened, I received a letter the very same day asking what I made of the term "attendee" that appeared to be creeping into the language. "You may very well ask," I muttered as I folded it neatly up and filed it away under "filed". I had always assumed that someone who took a positive action was given a designation that ended in -er, while those on the receiving end were given the suffix -ee. Take the word referee. A referee is one to whom an issue to be resolved is referred; whoever is asking the question would be a referrer. Imagine, for instance, that the Newcastle footballer Lee Bowyer went up to the man in black and inquired with exquisite courtesy: "What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?" Bowyer would be the referrer, and his victim the referee. Equally, those who signed Bowyer for Newcastle were employers, and Bowyer whom they signed is their employee, though not, perhaps, for much longer.
+:"... I boarded a bus where a notice informed me there was room for 16 standees. I would like to have asked the driver this question: what exactly is a standee? But he was too busy discussing the recent decline of Newcastle United with a man in a woolly hat. As it happened, I received a letter the very same day asking what I made of the term "attendee" that appeared to be creeping into the language. "You may very well ask," I muttered as I folded it neatly up and filed it away under "filed". I had always assumed that someone who took a positive action was given a designation that ended in -er, while those on the receiving end were given the suffix -ee. Take the word referee. A referee is one to whom an issue to be resolved is referred; whoever is asking the question would be a referrer. Imagine, for instance, that the Newcastle footballer Lee Bowyer went up to the man in black and inquired with exquisite courtesy: "What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?" Bowyer would be the referrer, and his victim the referee. Equally, those who signed Bowyer for Newcastle were employers, and Bowyer whom they signed is their employee, though not, perhaps, for much longer.
+:I have yet to work out the sense in which "standee" could be used correctly, since it seems to mean someone on the receiving end of the act of standing. Attendee is simpler. Imagine a lavish salon. The king reclines on a bed, reading Sporting Life. Gathered around him are courtiers, various other grandees, practised sycophants and other lesser experts in the obsequious. They are the attenders: the king, in my book, is the attendee. Were they to haul him from his bed with shouts of "Call yourself a hardworkingfamily? What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?", and force him into an upright posture against the wall of the salon, I suppose he might be a standee too. But better not to experiment. "
 I have yet to work out the sense in which "standee" could be used correctly, since it seems to mean someone on the receiving end of the act of standing. Attendee is simpler. Imagine a lavish salon. The king reclines on a bed, reading Sporting Life. Gathered around him are courtiers, various other grandees, practised sycophants and other lesser experts in the obsequious. They are the attenders: the king, in my book, is the attendee. Were they to haul him from his bed with shouts of "Call yourself a hardworkingfamily? What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?", and force him into an upright posture against the wall of the salon, I suppose he might be a standee too. But better not to experiment. "
 [[category:academic English]][[category:correctness]][[category:etymology]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:18, 26 June 2007
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−	This fine comment by the columnist 'Smallweed' on some English usage was published in ''The Guardian'' on Saturday April 16, 2005. It is meant to supplement AWE's article [[-e - -ee]], and to share our admiration of the quality of its writing and humour.	+	This fine comment by the columnist 'Smallweed' on some English usage was published in ''The Guardian'' on Saturday April 16, 2005. Its inclusion here is meant to supplement AWE's article [[-e - -ee]], and to share our admiration of the quality of its writing and humour.

	"... I boarded a bus where a notice informed me there was room for 16 standees. I would like to have asked the driver this question: what exactly is a standee? But he was too busy discussing the recent decline of Newcastle United with a man in a woolly hat. As it happened, I received a letter the very same day asking what I made of the term "attendee" that appeared to be creeping into the language. "You may very well ask," I muttered as I folded it neatly up and filed it away under "filed". I had always assumed that someone who took a positive action was given a designation that ended in -er, while those on the receiving end were given the suffix -ee. Take the word referee. A referee is one to whom an issue to be resolved is referred; whoever is asking the question would be a referrer. Imagine, for instance, that the Newcastle footballer Lee Bowyer went up to the man in black and inquired with exquisite courtesy: "What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?" Bowyer would be the referrer, and his victim the referee. Equally, those who signed Bowyer for Newcastle were employers, and Bowyer whom they signed is their employee, though not, perhaps, for much longer.		"... I boarded a bus where a notice informed me there was room for 16 standees. I would like to have asked the driver this question: what exactly is a standee? But he was too busy discussing the recent decline of Newcastle United with a man in a woolly hat. As it happened, I received a letter the very same day asking what I made of the term "attendee" that appeared to be creeping into the language. "You may very well ask," I muttered as I folded it neatly up and filed it away under "filed". I had always assumed that someone who took a positive action was given a designation that ended in -er, while those on the receiving end were given the suffix -ee. Take the word referee. A referee is one to whom an issue to be resolved is referred; whoever is asking the question would be a referrer. Imagine, for instance, that the Newcastle footballer Lee Bowyer went up to the man in black and inquired with exquisite courtesy: "What the freak do you think you are freaking playing at?" Bowyer would be the referrer, and his victim the referee. Equally, those who signed Bowyer for Newcastle were employers, and Bowyer whom they signed is their employee, though not, perhaps, for much longer.

← Older revision	Revision as of 07:20, 26 June 2007
(No difference)