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“Am I lacking in general knowledge or just wanting to be well-informed?” asks N Andrew McPherson of Tathra. “With the reporting on how many servos are out of petrol (e.g. ‘and there are 151 servos out of fuel in NSW’), am I supposed to know how many servos there are in NSW? Does 151 represent 1 per cent, 5 per cent or 10 per cent of NSW servos? Even the ABC is guilty of this silliness.”
When Tony Tarplee (C8) referred to the disturbing sight of caged kookaburras at the Bridge Road School in Camperdown, we thought the bird brigade might have some kind of explanation. But we’ve heard nothing, apart from a comment in verse from noted versifier Jim Dewar of Davistown: Camperdown kookas in cages?
Surely a sin for the ages!
Those birds won’t be laughing;
I question the staffing
Of schools that approve such outrages.
“Regarding the recent Herald article on modern grandparents’ names, my niece is called Lolly and her husband is Pop,” offers Catherine Craig of Mollymook.
“The tram advertisement for Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure (C8) introduced me to the word welkin, as in ‘making the welkin ring’,” says John Flint of Naremburn. “Though I don’t think I’ve ever made use of the word or the cure.”
“I don’t know about poetry on trams,” comments Meri Will of Baulkham Hills, “but I do remember from my school days a sage warning on a sign in a train carriage showing a handprint above the words: ‘You know where your hands have been. What makes you think they aren’t dirty?’ I’ve been a conscientious hand washer ever since.”
“The grating part of the Artemis II expedition (C8) has been the number of reporters referring to the ‘dark side of the moon’,” notes Frans Boot of Gregory Hills. “Arrrgh!”
Everything is relative for Chrissie Whitlock of Earlwood: “Gosh, chatting about pyjama pockets (C8) keeping you awake all night, Marion Grammer? I can think of better things to do. A cup of cocoa, perhaps?”
David Morrison of Springwood provides a dressing-down (gown?): “Someone with a name such as Marion Grammer should know that ‘my husband and me’ – not ‘I’ – in this instance, is correct grammar. After all, this is Column 8, the pedant’s (and pedants’) paradise.”
“I’m similarly perplexed as to the usefulness of pockets on baby clothes,” adds Mary Watson of Balgowlah Heights. “Babies employ an army to cart around their essentials.”
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