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Nice one Chris:-)

Very good Chris! Funny you should mention cartoons Brendan...

Just seen demonstrating 'A' Level pupil's placard not helping the cause:

Our teachers are qualified to give grades
YOU'R NOT!

Just been to a funeral and the large notice outside the crematorium says
'...and please practice hand-washing...'

To remember s for the verb and c for the noun I apply advice and advise, where you can hear the difference. With practice/practise and licence/license you can't.

42

Have these morphed into one now? Is there no longer a distinction between them?
The transitive verb “to reduce” occurs almost universally now as “the numbers have reduced”.

No, they haven’t. They have been reduced.

Yes, tonta, picking up from your transitive/intransitive thread. Absolutely agreed.

My bugbear is lie/lay, which is difficult to explain to people because 'I lie in the grass' and 'I lay in the grass' are both correct in context.
I fear that 'lay' as in 'I am going to lay down over there' (oh yes, what are you going to lay down over there?) is gradually predominating and will eventually become correct through common usage. We may lose the rather beautiful 'lain' (the body had lain there for hours) so often usurped by 'laid'. (French for ugly!)

Paul tonta

if I was a teacher, I would be furious that my grades had been rejected. I suppose they would have been optimistic though.

I see the minister said "If there is injustices...."

Re reduced. We get "the campaign launched..." and "the train derailed" all the time now - utter rubbish.

tonta

I read that Covid deaths have reduced. I know Lazarus did it but how did this happen?

I don't like arguing but I have to disagree with tonta and grunger. See what I have written on the Transitive v intransitive verbs thread.

Chambers gives "derail" as an intransitive verb (as well as a transitive one) and explains it as "to go off the rails".

So the train goes off the rails. The train derails. Two ways of saying the same thing.

Orson

That is interesting. I dont go by dictionaries but by what sounds right. To me a train cannot de-rail, it is de-railed by something, so "was de-railed" and "has been de-railed" are correct. I suppose if Chambers says it is Ok, I cannot complain, but I dont like it.

Malone

I am delighted to see from another thread that you are back, and I am very pleased to see you, although we disagree on this point.