1 hour ago, pilgrim said:

he sleeps upside down on his back as I think he learnt that from the cat - who is of course the boss!!

Same here!

1 hour ago, pilgrim said:

canny lass - forgive the lower case but I think I can be familiar with you now

L’enfant qui est aimé a plusiers noms. Non?

I answer to most names.

I can spell I just cant type and anyways I have always been of the opinion that if you spell the same word the same way every time you show a distinct lack of imagination lol -- spooner malaprop et al -there is no better joy than mangling the English language in the right way. although I do despair at the child's a level English - in the huge lack of vocabulary and the absolute dimness of what they are saying and where the words originated from - and that includes her whole year group - at times I feel as though I am speaking a foreign language -- er oh yes I am its English lol

and I call the child many names --most not acceptable in the more delicate circles of society --although I have found that the titled friends of ours have a greater grasp of the more basic language than most others lol

4 hours ago, pilgrim said:

I have always been of the opinion that if you spell the same word the same way every time you show a distinct lack of imagination

Quite! Spelling, and I'm being serious here, is the least important property of a word. Of a word's form, function and semantic content it's not the form of the word  that conveys information to the reader. Speach, even in its written form, is about communication and It takes a great many spelling errors and/or typos before communication is lost to the average native speaker (assuming that they still have a couple of grey cells functioning up top). I tend to see spelling errors as no more that contributions to an ever present and ongoing language change. The more narrow-minded tend to see them as language decay. It's an interesting debate.

perhaps the demise of the use of 'one' and its replacement with 'I' is  the first example of 'txtspeak'  - replacement of the word with the number, although I always felt the use of 'I' is much more self centred and of less worth than the more self effacing 'one'

there are many examples of a paragraph written with additional letters, where you have to count the repeated letters and many people are unable to see them at all. which sheds an insight on how we take in visual keys and understanding.

20 hours ago, pilgrim said:

there are many examples of a paragraph written with additional letters, where you have to count the repeated letters and many people are unable to see them at all. which sheds an insight on how we take in visual keys and understanding.

... also many examples of text written with all vowels removed. Still perfectly understandable though - if things are working up top.

 

21 hours ago, pilgrim said:

with the number, although I always felt the use of 'I' is much more self centred and of less worth than the more self effacing 'one'

One has to agree.

One uses only the word form up to 10. One does.

2 hours ago, Steve Turnbull said:

One uses only the word form up to 10. One does.

One learns something new every day, does one not!

How is it with twenty one, thirty one and so on(e)?

Well, Canny Lass, I'm conditioned to use AP Style so that would be 21, 31 and so on!

2 hours ago, mercuryg said:

Well, Canny Lass, I'm conditioned to use AP Style so that would be 21, 31 and so on!

MLA used here, Merc, where letters versus numerals is related to the number of words required to express the number. Numbers requiring one or two words (one, fifteen, twenty-one, forty-five, one thousand etc.) are written as words while more than two words requires expression in numerals (121 - instead of one hundred  and twenty-one,  1 340 instead of one thousand three hundred and forty etc.). Mind you, it also advises the use of a hyphen to separate two-word constructions but I'm not so fussy about that and neither are my clients. It's a complex (and interesting) business! 

Edited February 16, 20188 yr by Canny lass

so how do you fit in the indigenous  folk that have word for - one- two and the all else is many ??  ooo and when is the us/uk definition of million/billion gonna be decided?

37 minutes ago, pilgrim said:

so how do you fit in the indigenous  folk that have word for - one- two and the all else is many ??  

Don't know about Merc, but I get round it by avoiding those contracts like the plague!