come in simon

[Ponte]

I don't really get why anyone would still read newspapers if I'm honest. The news within them is freely available instantly on the web and largely out of date by the time you get your hands on the hard copy the following day. And - as has been mentioned - nearly all of them have a pre-defined agenda (usually political) that makes a lot of what they put out pretty much useless.

Seems a very outdated media form to me.

I like a newspaper to flick through when I'm having a shit, call me old fashioned.

[MightyWhite]

I don't really get why anyone would still read newspapers if I'm honest. The news within them is freely available instantly on the web and largely out of date by the time you get your hands on the hard copy the following day. And - as has been mentioned - nearly all of them have a pre-defined agenda (usually political) that makes a lot of what they put out pretty much useless.

Seems a very outdated media form to me.

I like a newspaper to flick through when I'm having a shit, call me old fashioned.

Old fashioned cunt

Nah, my main issue is the partisan nature of the papers. I'm pretty much as non-political as they get (I've voted Labour-Tory-Tory in the 3 general elections I've been eligable to vote in, and I don't think I looked at a manifesto in any of them), I hate the whole idea of folk arguing completely for one side of an argument and completely against another - purely based on pre-defined ideal that they've chosen to adopt. From my neutral (and somewhat uninformed) position there doesn't seem to be that much difference between the middle aged blokes in blue and the middle aged blokes in red anyway.

And that brings me to the papers. I don't like reading something and knowing that it comes from a specific angle. That I'm being led towards a conclusion, if you will. It borders on indoctrination imho. I know it's a tradional thing and it would be very boring if every paper was straight down the middle, but I don't like it none the less.

[eric olthwaite]

Nah, my main issue is the partisan nature of the papers. I'm pretty much as non-political as they get (I've voted Labour-Tory-Tory in the 3 general elections I've been eligable to vote in, and I don't think I looked at a manifesto in any of them), I hate the whole idea of folk arguing completely for one side of an argument and completely against another - purely based on pre-defined ideal that they've chosen to adopt. From my neutral (and somewhat uninformed) position there doesn't seem to be that much difference between the middle aged blokes in blue and the middle aged blokes in red anyway.

And that brings me to the papers. I don't like reading something and knowing that it comes from a specific angle. That I'm being led towards a conclusion, if you will. It borders on indoctrination imho. I know it's a tradional thing and it would be very boring if every paper was straight down the middle, but I don't like it none the less.

Translation:
I understand fuck all, I'm not interested in trying to understand, but nevertheless I vote.

A fine, upstanding member of the electorate, then.

NEWSFLASH: There is no such thing as value-neutral news, in any media format. It is, however, actually possible to read something, understand the bias of the author, and reach your own conclusions.

Don't go putting any effort in on my account, mind

[MightyWhite]

It's bollocks though isn't it. "I'm labour so what my leader says is correct and what their leader says is bullshit".

You may be better educated than your average Question Time viewer, Eric, but that's what is boils down to at the end of the day. Not my cup of tea at all.

[eric olthwaite]

It's bollocks though isn't it. "I'm labour so what my leader says is correct and what their leader says is bullshit".

You may be better educated than your average Question Time viewer, Eric, but that's what is boils down to at the end of the day. Not my cup of tea at all.

Don't vote then.

EDIT: The point is that we live in a representative democracy, not a participative one. There will never be a political party which entirely coincides with the view of one individual. As Gaz says below, party manifestos don't even represent the views of their members. So all that anyone can do is listen to everything and try to decide which view most closely matches theirs.

But, as I say, if you can't be arsed to reach your own conclusions, you shouldn't be voting.

[gazurtoids]

It's bollocks though isn't it. "I'm labour so what my leader says is correct and what their leader says is bullshit".

Actually, it would be fair to say that half of the Labour party, and their supporters, don't think what their leader says is correct. Same with the Tories. People have slightly more developed critical faculties than you give them credit for, MW.

Yes, some are tribal, but not all.

[Mustafaster]

You might be right about the language here Musta, but you're one hundred per cent wrong about the job of a sub editor, which is the whole point I'm trying to make.

Sub editors are not employed to enforce the English language. They are employed to enforce the style guide of whatever magazine or newspaper they work for. It's why the New Yorker reads like the New Yorker, The Guardian reads like The Guardian, and The Sun reads like The Sun. If any of the sub editors at any of those organs were to put the OED above their style guide, they wouldn't be doing their job.

Edit: so of course The Sun has sub editors, and bloody good ones too - but they deal with a language and grammar that is entirely The Sun's. You might as well criticise the poor English in Paris-Match.

You are right.
Every paper has its own house style, and quite right too. I haven't seen The Sun's style manual so it may be that they don't give too much importance to stuff like grammar, semantics and punctuation, wouldn't be surprised, tbh. They don't give too much importance to news, either.

Apologies to The Sun's subs if they are just following house rules.

[Quiffy]

Page 3 lurvelies, bet you cant get them on your interweb thingy.

you not hear of page 360?

[tommydski]

Noticed this on the back of the Scottish Sun today -

Why do you keep snubbing me Craig?

RAGING Ross McCormack has blasted Craig Levein over his latest Scotland snub.

The 16-goal Leeds striker has again been left out of Levein's squad for next week's friendly in Slovenia. And fuming McCormack revealed he has even been snubbed when he has tried to contact Levein's staff to discuss his continued absence. The seething striker told SunSport: "I don't feel as if I will be in a squad no matter if I score goals or not. It is hard to take as people keep telling me I am going to be in the next squad or should be in it.

[MightyWhite]

But, as I say, if you can't be arsed to reach your own conclusions, you shouldn't be voting.

I voted for the tories the last two elections because I like the candidate (Patrick Mercer). I found him to be honest, charismatic and I thought he'd be a good representative for the town. That's how I decide. Does that make my vote any less worthy than someone who always votes one way purely because their dad did? At least I actually had a think about it first.

Party politics does my head in, but it's been that way for hundreds of years and it works very well, so who am I to moan. I certainly don't have any better ideas.

[Blackwhite]

Nice to see The Sun learning its lessons: asking readers to identify this transsexual guy who just had a baby. Public interest: nope. Likely to ruin their life: yep. Wonder why folks hate this fucking rag: you're dumb.

[MightyWhite]

Nice to see The Sun learning its lessons: asking readers to identify this transsexual guy who just had a baby. Public interest: nope. Likely to ruin their life: yep. Wonder why folks hate this fucking rag: you're dumb.

My dad used to get The Sun every day. I'd look forward to coming home from school and checking page 3, before flicking through to see which celebrity had been papped on a beach with her tits out.

Sums it up really.

[Quiffy]

Noticed this on the back of the Scottish Sun today -

Why do you keep snubbing me Craig?

RAGING Ross McCormack has blasted Craig Levein over his latest Scotland snub.

The 16-goal Leeds striker has again been left out of Levein's squad for next week's friendly in Slovenia. And fuming McCormack revealed he has even been snubbed when he has tried to contact Levein's staff to discuss his continued absence. The seething striker told SunSport: "I don't feel as if I will be in a squad no matter if I score goals or not. It is hard to take as people keep telling me I am going to be in the next squad or should be in it.

there's more and more of me thinking that mccormack's actually a bit of a twat who keeps getting snubbed because he's shite for morale. i think this started when he started pointing to his name as he celebrated goals by himself. this may also be part of the reason for him getting limited opportunities last season.

it'll be interesting to see how he gets on with colin. i'd wager he's out of the team by the end of the season.

[moscowhite]

You might be right about the language here Musta, but you're one hundred per cent wrong about the job of a sub editor, which is the whole point I'm trying to make.

Sub editors are not employed to enforce the English language. They are employed to enforce the style guide of whatever magazine or newspaper they work for. It's why the New Yorker reads like the New Yorker, The Guardian reads like The Guardian, and The Sun reads like The Sun. If any of the sub editors at any of those organs were to put the OED above their style guide, they wouldn't be doing their job.

Edit: so of course The Sun has sub editors, and bloody good ones too - but they deal with a language and grammar that is entirely The Sun's. You might as well criticise the poor English in Paris-Match.

You are right.
Every paper has its own house style, and quite right too. I haven't seen The Sun's style manual so it may be that they don't give too much importance to stuff like grammar, semantics and punctuation, wouldn't be surprised, tbh. They don't give too much importance to news, either.

Apologies to The Sun's subs if they are just following house rules.

Closely guarded thing, your Sun style guide, I think. Maybe FaxMan can tell us more, because I was piecing all this together from reading years ago about how difficult Trevor Kavanagh found distilling complicated political stories into proscribed Sun language. The nearest I can find now I'm home is the Times Online Style Guide via archive.org.

Also, nowadays there is the handy Google method of checking for common usage. "lay on file" = 5,020 results; "lie on file" = 96,900. Of course the latter benefits from the other meaning of "mistruth on file", but the Law Pages website's dictionary of legal terms has a specific definition for "lie on file"; while this page on the Crown Prosecution Service website refers to how an order can be, "made for the count(s) to lie on file at the adjournment hearing"; and in this BBC report a judge instructs that, "a separate charge of assisting another person to cheat at gambling was ordered to lie on file." All of which suggests that in legalese, "lie on file" is the correct term.

[Fax Man]

You might be right about the language here Musta, but you're one hundred per cent wrong about the job of a sub editor, which is the whole point I'm trying to make.

Sub editors are not employed to enforce the English language. They are employed to enforce the style guide of whatever magazine or newspaper they work for. It's why the New Yorker reads like the New Yorker, The Guardian reads like The Guardian, and The Sun reads like The Sun. If any of the sub editors at any of those organs were to put the OED above their style guide, they wouldn't be doing their job.

Edit: so of course The Sun has sub editors, and bloody good ones too - but they deal with a language and grammar that is entirely The Sun's. You might as well criticise the poor English in Paris-Match.

You are right.
Every paper has its own house style, and quite right too. I haven't seen The Sun's style manual so it may be that they don't give too much importance to stuff like grammar, semantics and punctuation, wouldn't be surprised, tbh. They don't give too much importance to news, either.

Apologies to The Sun's subs if they are just following house rules.

Oh dear... I honestly thought you were joking about our subs before but clearly not. Moscowhite has it spot on. Everything you see in The Sun is like it is for a reason. Every headline, subdeck, intro or turn of phrase has been selected because it fits Sun style. There may be an odd typo here or there but you get that in The Times, Guardian, Indy etc too but they rarely get scrutinised for it. If you're interested, although it's quite difficult to say because I've only ever seen it on screen, I'd guess our style guide is around 50 pages of A4 long - and that's just the one for the sports desk. I'm not sure how long the overall style guide is, to be honest. There's a common misconception, which I fear you may have fallen for, that because we produce a product that a 12-year-old could understand, we're all thick numpties who can't string a proper sentence together. In truth, a large number of our subs are Oxford or Cambridge educated (I'm not... obviously) and could work on any newspaper in the world. A sub at The Times on the other hand would find it almost impossible to work on The Sun though. There are plenty of books about subbing and the art of subbing for The Sun which would say exactly this. If you're interested, I'm sure I could find a couple for you to read.

[Ontolly]

There's certainly more to this sub editing malarkey than yer average lie person might realise.

[SmithyHK]

Apologies to move away from the content Vs target audience Vs grammatical style media debate during the last 20 or so posts...

Simon G:
You genuinely deserved better treatment from a Club you clearly love, and please accept my sincere wishes that with your new, (hopefully) untethered role, you can show us all how good you really are.
Thanks

[Mustafaster]

You might be right about the language here Musta, but you're one hundred per cent wrong about the job of a sub editor, which is the whole point I'm trying to make.

Sub editors are not employed to enforce the English language. They are employed to enforce the style guide of whatever magazine or newspaper they work for. It's why the New Yorker reads like the New Yorker, The Guardian reads like The Guardian, and The Sun reads like The Sun. If any of the sub editors at any of those organs were to put the OED above their style guide, they wouldn't be doing their job.

Edit: so of course The Sun has sub editors, and bloody good ones too - but they deal with a language and grammar that is entirely The Sun's. You might as well criticise the poor English in Paris-Match.

You are right.
Every paper has its own house style, and quite right too. I haven't seen The Sun's style manual so it may be that they don't give too much importance to stuff like grammar, semantics and punctuation, wouldn't be surprised, tbh. They don't give too much importance to news, either.

Apologies to The Sun's subs if they are just following house rules.

Oh dear... I honestly thought you were joking about our subs before but clearly not. Moscowhite has it spot on. Everything you see in The Sun is like it is for a reason. Every headline, subdeck, intro or turn of phrase has been selected because it fits Sun style. There may be an odd typo here or there but you get that in The Times, Guardian, Indy etc too but they rarely get scrutinised for it. If you're interested, although it's quite difficult to say because I've only ever seen it on screen, I'd guess our style guide is around 50 pages of A4 long - and that's just the one for the sports desk. I'm not sure how long the overall style guide is, to be honest. There's a common misconception, which I fear you may have fallen for, that because we produce a product that a 12-year-old could understand, we're all thick numpties who can't string a proper sentence together. In truth, a large number of our subs are Oxford or Cambridge educated (I'm not... obviously) and could work on any newspaper in the world. A sub at The Times on the other hand would find it almost impossible to work on The Sun though. There are plenty of books about subbing and the art of subbing for The Sun which would say exactly this. If you're interested, I'm sure I could find a couple for you to read.

Yeah, fair enough, The Sun's subs are clearly following their style manual.
It's shit, though.
I'm not going into the details of lie/lay here, it's far too technical, has to do with ergative verb constructs, and it would send a brave man to sleep gibbering about transitivity and false inverted subjects.
Once again, apologies to The Sun's subs if they are instructed to fuck about with grammar and semantics. Only doing their job. I know that all the subs will have decent English degrees and they must know about the stuff they are doing "wrong". They have my sympathy.
Please, please don't send me a copy of their style manual. Pretty please.

[welshwhite]

good luck to grayson and i for one do not believe the lyes bates said about him.

[MightyWhite]

As I said on Twitter the other day, I feel a bit funny about Grayson going to Huddersfield, in the same way you do when you dump a bird and then find out she's got a new fella just a few weeks later. You know it should bother you, after all it was you that did the dumping, but, you know...