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It's that Little Word 'for' that makes it confusing Foxy. It's a politicians favourite because it has so many different meanings. That makes it easy for them to wriggle out of things when the going gets tough. That sentence can be read in several different ways. What they want the reader to read is: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver to the benefit of Bedlington. What the reader should read is: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver on behalf of Bedlington. The failure to use the direct- and indirect objects (what's being delivered and to whom) only adds to the confusion. If we now add those the sentence could read: Labour has delivered, is delivering and will continue to deliver, on behalf of Bedlington, all Money intended for Bedlington (direct object), to the people of Ashington (indirect object). Isn't syntax wonderful! Just imagine what could happen if they learned to use the Word to!

Foxy Definitely NOT!

Could I draw on your vast knowledge of languages Canny lass and ask, Does it have as many meanings as NOT? ie Not getting anything, Not ever had anything, Not answering any of your questions, Not had time to visit Bedlington, the money's NOT coming here it's going to Ashington and I'll NOT be sorry to see the back of them.

What Jewish question would that be Sym? If someone was inserted into public life (particularly someone who is now a millionaire with no visibility as to how that status was achieved) by US Neocon money, and was asking for our nuclear button, I'm sure you'd be asking questions about the "influence" of their paymasters. As quite a few Neocons are Zionists too things must be getting rather tricky for the PC left these days. Is there a PC Leftie Handbook available (from The Guardian bookshop?) to resolve the demonise/worship dilemma? If not then there's your path to certain fame and fortune; get scribbling!

I'm not sure if this should be in this thread or in the Good Jokes Column but if there's anyone from Camp Bastion reading this, and I know you all do, could you please Justify or enlighten me on the Last Sentence.?...... Thanking you in anticipation!

Netty may not be native to Northumberland. I've Heard it used in both Yorkshire and Wales - but there can be lots of explanations for that. When we try to decipher the meaning of Words today it's all too easy to break the Word down into its modern day morphemes (Components of meaning). However, if we want to get anywhere near the truth we have to go back to the origins of the Word and look at the morphemes as they were when the Word was taken into the language. To give you an example let's take 'Bedlington'. If we break it down into modern day morphemes we'd get Bed,ling and ton and we can read whatever we like into that - hypothesizing wildly we could get something as rediculous as a resting Place for Heavy fish. If we break it down into old English morphemes (700-1100 BC) we get something quite different - Bedl, ing and ton. Then our hypothesis could also be very different. For example, the 'farmstead belonging to Bedla'. Bedla was a well used name during the period, ing was known to be a form of the genitive and ton was a very small plot of land. Language Changes all the time and ton as in Bedlington is, today, most often given to mean Town but when it first came into the English langauge, as tun, it simply meant an enclosure, a garden, or a yard. Over the following centuries it Went on to mean the houses and Buildings on that piece of land. Later its meaning changed to encompass the inhabitants and even later it changed again to include the administrative system in use with that particular piece of land, it's dwellings and it's inhabitants. A similar thing happened with the English Word cabin. If we trace it's origins we find that it has had all sorts of meanings - many of them now obsolete. According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology,it started out as the Latin capanna/cavanna (spellings with -in appeared first in the 16th Century) and it meant, among many other things, cave. By the 14th Century it was being used in the meaning of a ships compartment.and in the 15th Century a rude habitation. First in the 17th Century was it being used when referring to that which we today call a cabin . In the case of our beloved 'netty' and its etymology, much depends on when it came into the English language or one of its many dialects. The net theory, I find hard to accept - but don't rule it out. Earth closets have been around for centuries. So has net. However, I'm doubtful if the two entities were ever to be found in one establishment. They belong to two different social classes, unless of course the Word 'netty, is relatively new. My own theory is still a loan Word from Latin, possibly via French, followed by abbreviation - in this case initial clipping (using the last part of the Word to serve as the whole). Just one Little question - why would anybody add a diminutive ending to the Word net?