People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Gavin Chipper »

People who start Facebook updates with "That moment when..."
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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People who write to Susie Dent to ask about the origin of some word or saying, when they could just Google it. (If these people really exist and aren't made up by the show.)
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote:People who write to Susie Dent to ask about the origin of some word or saying, when they could just Google it. (If these people really exist and aren't made up by the show.)
Frak. Apparently, I am officially Not To Be Trusted.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Johnny Canuck wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:People who write to Susie Dent to ask about the origin of some word or saying, when they could just Google it. (If these people really exist and aren't made up by the show.)
Frak. Apparently, I am officially Not To Be Trusted.
Unlucky. OK, I'll allow that such people are to be trusted if they write in just to see if they can get their question read out on television, as long as they do not do so in as a genuine pursuit of information (unless as just a secondary means) - i.e. they still just Google it themselves anyway.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote:
Johnny Canuck wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:People who write to Susie Dent to ask about the origin of some word or saying, when they could just Google it. (If these people really exist and aren't made up by the show.)
Frak. Apparently, I am officially Not To Be Trusted.
Unlucky. OK, I'll allow that such people are to be trusted if they write in just to see if they can get their question read out on television, as long as they do not do so in as a genuine pursuit of information (unless as just a secondary means) - i.e. they still just Google it themselves anyway.
People who arbitrarily change the rules and add caveats just so they don't offend people they want to appear nice to.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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People who point out the above inconsistently :D
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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People who say "passed away" instead of "died". Just say it.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Harsh.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Mark Deeks »

I mean, what's the purpose of changing it? When people pass away, they die. Do we not just substitute "passed away" for "died" when we hear it? I think so, in which case, why do the first substitution? Just say it. Don't be afraid of death. It's the most normal thing going.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Matt Morrison »

There are countless equivalent examples too, and it all depends on circumstance and knowing your audience. Essentially I get what you're saying but I disagree that it's never appropriate to pussyfoot around certain things. But then I am a big girl's blouse.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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We as humans are burdened by the awareness of our own mortality, unlike, say, worms. The best we can do is deal with it. I get the need to pussyfoot, but I just don't know why this does it.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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I'm guessing that you haven't lost anyone close recently.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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No I don't mean your next door neighbour
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Marc Meakin wrote:I'm guessing that you haven't lost anyone close recently.
Why would that make a difference? A family member of mine died quite recently, and I still felt no need to descent into euphemism to soften the fact that he karked it at an undue age. Does using phrases like 'passed away', or the laughable 'fell asleep' make anyone feel better about things?

I worry about the poor bastards who got buried because they simply fell asleep.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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I am one of the dying breed of people with a little decorum when dealing with delicate matters like bereavement.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Marc Meakin wrote:I am one of the dying breed of people with a little decorum when dealing with delicate matters like bereavement.
Don't you mean 'passing away breed'?
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Journalists/newsreaders who use jargonistic phrases on the general public without stopping to think that people might not know what the fuck they're on about. For example:

Self-immolation
Diplomatic Cables
Deficit (no-one actually knew what this meant when the term first came into common usage in about 2008)
Abolishing the 10p tax rate

There's loads more. That's just what sprung to mind.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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No one close to me has died or passed away recently, no. But I don't think that changes my opinion any. Death sucks, but I don't know if changing its name helps with that.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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You and Ian are both saying "don't use 'passed away' with me, say what you mean" which is totally and utterly fine. But I bet you both know _other_ people who wouldn't appreciate the kind of bluntness you're advocating, and not trusting people purely based on their attempts to make something a little less harsh seems weird; even if you disagree with them doing it, I can't see how their reasons to do so are untrustworthy.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Matt Morrison wrote:You and Ian are both saying "don't use 'passed away' with me, say what you mean" which is totally and utterly fine. But I bet you both know _other_ people who wouldn't appreciate the kind of bluntness you're advocating, and not trusting people purely based on their attempts to make something a little less harsh seems weird; even if you disagree with them doing it, I can't see how their reasons to do so are untrustworthy.
I understand it, I didn't lump in on the non-trust side of things though. If I was talking to someone who was upset about a death, I'd be gentle and understanding as appropriate, but I'd be surprised if I ended up using a euphemism. I'd probably just talk about something else if they were that sensitive.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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People who get on an escalator on the right (standing) side and then change their mind part-way up and cut in front of someone to use the left (walking) side.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Adam Gillard wrote:People who get on an escalator on the right (standing) side and then change their mind part-way up and cut in front of someone to use the left (walking) side.
People who don't use the standing/walking side system.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Matt Morrison wrote:even if you disagree with them doing it, I can't see how their reasons to do so are untrustworthy.
When I started this thread, the whole trust thing wasn't meant to be taken literally. It was supposed to be more of a humorous thing. Just "people who do wrong stuff" really.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Matt Morrison wrote:You and Ian are both saying "don't use 'passed away' with me, say what you mean" which is totally and utterly fine. But I bet you both know _other_ people who wouldn't appreciate the kind of bluntness you're advocating, and not trusting people purely based on their attempts to make something a little less harsh seems weird; even if you disagree with them doing it, I can't see how their reasons to do so are untrustworthy.
People who use enclosing punctuation marks or all capitals for emphasis in online contexts where bold, italic and underline are available.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote:
Matt Morrison wrote:even if you disagree with them doing it, I can't see how their reasons to do so are untrustworthy.
When I started this thread, the whole trust thing wasn't meant to be taken literally. It was supposed to be more of a humorous thing. Just "people who do wrong stuff" really.
Yeah, this is pretty much where I was with it too. It's not as though if someone said "passed away" I would refuse to entrust my dog with them. I think it's a bit odd and unnecessary and speaks to a fear of death that is probably unhealthy, but I wouldn't actively distrust them.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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At least "passed away" means "died", and everyone understands it. There was an item on the Liverpool FC website a couple of years ago, the day after Yaya Toure had had a dreadful game in the World Cup, expressing their sympathies to Kolo Toure on the passing of his brother. Turned out it was another brother, who had died.

The one that aggravates me is the universal way that the media will report "Tributes were being paid to X, who died today" which implies that the news story is the tributes. Do they think it somehow softens the blow, when the actual news is "X died today". Particularly when it's your local paper, and the tributes amount to his mother saying he was lovely, and his headmaster who clearly can't exactly remember which one he was.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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People who share stuff from the "Humans of New York" facebook page. What the hell is that all about?
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Men who think that football is a bit shit
People who hate dogs
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Adam Gillard »

Men
Mike Brown: "Round 12: T N R S A E I G U

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Another niner for Adam and yet another century. Well done, that man."
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Sexists.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Gavin Chipper »

People who say to me when I swear something along the lines of "I don't think I've ever heard you swear before. You don't seem like the sort of person who would swear." You'd be surprised how many people have actually said this to me over my life. I find it a really odd thing to even go through someone's mind. Cunts.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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I get that sometimes except with "that was quite quick witted, for you". I don't think it's anything personal or thought through. I think people just say things sometimes.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote:People who say to me when I swear something along the lines of "I don't think I've ever heard you swear before. You don't seem like the sort of person who would swear." You'd be surprised how many people have actually said this to me over my life. I find it a really odd thing to even go through someone's mind. Cunts.
My theory is that it means that you - in normal conversation - swear appropriately, i.e. only when the situation demands it to, for instance, reinforce a point. This distinguishes you from people who swear every other word. But then excessive and unnecessary use of swearing can be funny too.

I of course have mastered both techniques (but employ them in an entirely inappropriate manner).
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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People who think the word "literally" is off limits when you're exaggerating. As if saying "I literally died laughing" is any more inaccurate than saying "I died laughing".
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote:People who think the word "literally" is off limits when you're exaggerating. As if saying "I literally died laughing" is any more inaccurate than saying "I died laughing".
Agreed. In my opinion, "literally" has a legitimate figurative use.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Johnny Canuck wrote:Agreed. In my opinion, "literally" has a legitimate figurative use.
It annoys pedants, which is always a legitimate use.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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People who pronounce "Asia" with a "sh" sound rather than a "zh" sound.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Johnny Canuck wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:People who think the word "literally" is off limits when you're exaggerating. As if saying "I literally died laughing" is any more inaccurate than saying "I died laughing".
Agreed. In my opinion, "literally" has a legitimate figurative use.
You're both literally wrong. Literally has (or should have*) a very specific function of distinguishing a statement from figurative, hyperbolic, ironic or metaphorical statements. Just because it is widely misused doesn't mean it should be ok to widely misuse it.

*I see the OED has bowed to the stupidity of the general public by including a non-literal definition of literally....
1.1 (informal) Used for emphasis while not being literally true
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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sean d wrote:
Johnny Canuck wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:People who think the word "literally" is off limits when you're exaggerating. As if saying "I literally died laughing" is any more inaccurate than saying "I died laughing".
Agreed. In my opinion, "literally" has a legitimate figurative use.
You're both literally wrong. Literally has (or should have*) a very specific function of distinguishing a statement from figurative, hyperbolic, ironic or metaphorical statements. Just because it is widely misused doesn't mean it should be ok to widely misuse it.

*I see the OED has bowed to the stupidity of the general public by including a non-literal definition of literally....
1.1 (informal) Used for emphasis while not being literally true
The word "literally" doesn't have to be used literally any more than the word "hoarsely" has to be used "hoarsely". It's an error of levels or something to say otherwise. When you use the word "literally", it applies to what you are saying after the word "literally", not the word itself. And the word "literally" is just a word like any other in the English language, which can be used for exaggeration or figuratively.

But if I was writing the dictionary, I might not bother with the informal sense. The point is that there is literally nothing special about the word. It can be used figuratively, but so can any other word. There example here is "I have received literally thousands of letters", but you could also say "I have received thousands of letters", in which case you'd be using the word "thousands" figuratively", but I don't think this needs to be mentioned in the dictionary entry for "thousands".
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote: When you use the word "literally", it applies to what you are saying after the word "literally", not the word itself.
Agreed. And it defines what follows as being in a literal, actual, non-figurative sense.

Certainly you can state "I have received thousands of letters" and everyone would understand that you mean you have received loads of letters. But if you say you have "literally received thousands of letters" that should means you have received at least 2,000 letters. The whole point of the word literally is to denote the fact the fact that you have in a literal sense received thousands of letters.... you're saying "I'm not speaking figuratively here, I have actually received multiples of a thousand letters"
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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In my opinion, the debate over whether or not "literally" can be used in an informal sense has been inconceivably overblown.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Heather Styles »

This is quite interesting (I literally don't understand all of it, but there are some beautiful sentences): http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-y ... sused-word
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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sean d wrote:I see the OED has bowed to the stupidity of the general public by including a non-literal definition of literally....
1.1 (informal) Used for emphasis while not being literally true
Nice circular definition there. I'd say defining a word by using the word itself is a bad idea.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Tim Down wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:I see the OED has bowed to the stupidity of the general public by including a non-literal definition of literally....
1.1 (informal) Used for emphasis while not being literally true
Nice circular definition there. I'd say defining a word by using the word itself is a bad idea.
Especially so if a word is defined by the word itself preceded by "not"!
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Tim Down wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:I see the OED has bowed to the stupidity of the general public by including a non-literal definition of literally....
1.1 (informal) Used for emphasis while not being literally true
Nice circular definition there. I'd say defining a word by using the word itself is a bad idea.
I think that quote has literally been attributed to the wrong person.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Femidom Chunderthrust wrote: I think that quote has literally been attributed to the wrong person.
Oops. Sorry. Fixed now.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Gavin Chipper »

People who think that a scale from 1 to 10 is the same as a score out of 10. In fact, people who ask you to rate something on a scale from 1 to 10. Why 1 to 10? Why not 15 to 71? 0 has to got to be the zero point!
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote:Why 1 to 10?
But it's not always 1 to 10, is it? Sometimes 0 is an option, so 0 to 10 (or eleven ranks). Depends on how the question is termed. I think you sometimes assume that people are less rigorous than you, when the case may be that they are in fact more rigorous.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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JimBentley wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:Why 1 to 10?
But it's not always 1 to 10, is it? Sometimes 0 is an option, so 0 to 10 (or eleven ranks). Depends on how the question is termed. I think you sometimes assume that people are less rigorous than you, when the case may be that they are in fact more rigorous.
Sometimes it is an option, and the people who give you a 0 to 10 scale can be trusted. But 1 to 10 is very common.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote:0 has to got to be the zero point!
Why? One is the first number of the counting, and is somewhat more venerable than its upstart neighbour zero.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Gavin Chipper »

Ian Volante wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:0 has to got to be the zero point!
Why? One is the first number of the counting, and is somewhat more venerable than its upstart neighbour zero.
I just think it's odd to have a scale from 1 to 10. It's confusing for one thing. People might give a score of 5 thinking it's the middle, when actually it's equivalent to 4 out of 9. 5.5 would actually be the middle score. I'd be surprised if many people actually properly took into account this asymmetry when giving their score. It's also the same as saying "Add one to your score out of 9". Absolutely stone-cold mental, I genuinely can't see any other description that applies.

If it's 0 to 10 then it's the same as 0 to 100 but with everything divided by 10. But comparing a 1 to 10 scale with a 1 to 100 scale doesn't work as nicely.

On The Last Leg, Jeremy Corbyn was asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how much "in" he was with the EU. This was later misreported on the news as his score out of 10 rather than his score out of 9, plus 1.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

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Gavin Chipper wrote:
Ian Volante wrote:
Gavin Chipper wrote:0 has to got to be the zero point!
Why? One is the first number of the counting, and is somewhat more venerable than its upstart neighbour zero.
I just think it's odd to have a scale from 1 to 10. It's confusing for one thing. People might give a score of thinking it's the middle, when actually it's equivalent to 4 out of 9. 5.5 would actually be the middle score. I'd be surprised if many people actually properly took into account this asymmetry when giving their score. It's also the same as saying "Add one to your score out of 9". Absolutely stone-cold mental, I genuinely can't see any other description that applies.
On a sort of related (not really) aside, all our A-Level mock examinations had a maximum score of 100, i.e. if you answered everything correctly you would score 100. All of them except in Maths that is, for some reason the mock exams always had a maximum of 114, or 109, or 112, or some other seemingly-random figure between 100 and 120. Can anyone confirm if they can recall such a weird system? Maybe it still goes on, who knows.
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Thomas Carey »

Jim Bentley wrote: On a sort of related (not really) aside, all our A-Level mock examinations had a maximum score of 100, i.e. if you answered everything correctly you would score 100. All of them except in Maths that is, for some reason the mock exams always had a maximum of 114, or 109, or 112, or some other seemingly-random figure between 100 and 120. Can anyone confirm if they can recall such a weird system? Maybe it still goes on, who knows.
They pretty much all (except some weird tiny exam boards) use 75 now.
cheers maus
Peter Mabey
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Peter Mabey »

In our maths exam, each question was worth a number of marks for a correct answer, and the individual totals were scaled to make the best 100. On one occasion, after this had been done, it was found that I'd not been credited for an answer, so rather than change everybody's by rescaling, the master decided to keep the factor he'd used, so I ended with 102% :D
Gavin Chipper
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Gavin Chipper »

People who ever use the word "gifted" to describe anyone.
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Euan Slatter
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Euan Slatter »

Sharon Osbourne on X Factor.
COUNTDOWN or THE TUBE? Which is better? There's only one way to find out....

Call it a draw :)

Robins Till I Die
Marc Meakin
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Marc Meakin »

People who post the exact same thing as the previous poster thus creating the impression of a great coincidence or the impression the poster is a dickwad
GR MSL GNDT MSS NGVWL SRND NNLYC NNCT
Marc Meakin
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Marc Meakin »

People who post the exact same thing as the previous poster thus creating the impression of a great coincidence or the impression the poster is a dickwad
GR MSL GNDT MSS NGVWL SRND NNLYC NNCT
Marc Meakin
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Marc Meakin »

:D Oops, I rest my case
GR MSL GNDT MSS NGVWL SRND NNLYC NNCT
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Euan Slatter
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Re: People you shouldn't trust

Post by Euan Slatter »

Marc Meakin wrote::D Oops, I rest my case
That just proved you were correct, that second post :D
COUNTDOWN or THE TUBE? Which is better? There's only one way to find out....

Call it a draw :)

Robins Till I Die
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