Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Damn and blast!

I fell at the final hurdle.

11 comments:

Derek said...

I was led into the room by two burly guards who proceeded to sit me in the single wooden chair. I was sat in the chair. Well and truly. The light was turned on me. It didn't look look good.

The interrogator turned. "So", he said, "you don't like the answer to question 9? Perhaps, you'd like to explain why your answer is better than a crack team of BBC editors".

I wiped the sweat from my brow. It was going to be a long night.

James Higham said...

Never mind. Better than what percentage of the population?

Barnacle Bill said...

Just a promising pedant I'm afraid to report!

Anonymous said...

Fully half of those questions weren't even grammar questions! I call bait-and-switch.

Anonymous said...

D, the interrogators would have given you an extra beating for those introductory sentences.

JH, I don't know. It would be nice to think that everybody could answer 9 or 10 questions correctly.

BB, worth a try.

F, oh yes they were. Grammar and logic is the same thing.

Derek said...

They did. You should see the bruises!

But I still maintain that "I was sat" is the past passive of the transitive verb "to sit". So "the waiter sat me at the table" can be rendered as "I was sat at the table by the waiter". "I was sitting at the table by the waiter" has a completely different meaning.

Anonymous said...

D, I think that "We were seated" is better, which covers both possibilities, i.e. "The waiter seated us..." or as an alternative to "We were sitting".

"We are waiting to be seated" sounds better than "We are waiting to be sat".

Anonymous said...

Q2,4 and 7 are vocabulary questions, not grammar.
Q6 is a *history* question for crying out loud!!


Barnacle Bill said...

Eats, shoots and I'll get my coat on the way out!

Anonymous said...

F, yes, on closer inspection, if you are a real hard core pedant. Why don't you write to the BBC and point out that 40% of their grammar quiz didn't relate to grammar?

BB, did you pay the bill, or just shoot the waiter and scarper?

Anonymous said...

Why don't you write to the BBC and point out that 40% of their grammar quiz didn't relate to grammar?

The example they made out of Derek was enough to cow me. Fraggles are awfully soft...