Rees-Mogg's "rules"

[andysays]

In a list, the and gets a comma before it. It’s what I was taught, so it’s what I do. But other styles are possible.

(Oxford, Cambridge, Stirling, and Napier are Universities).

OK, I don't think I've particularly noticed people doing that, TBH, but wouldn't feel the need to issue an edict against it if I did.

Also, Rees Mogg probably believes that only the first two on your list are real universities...

 

[existentialist]

Find and replace is useful for sorting double spaces out in one fell swoop.

I did that to a document, and then discovered that the originator had, painstakingly, aligned columns of information using spaces...with entries that ended in dots. Proper fucked the formatting up, that did. I suggested they learn how to set a tab. They made a much ruder suggestion. I ignored them.

 

[equationgirl]

I did that to a document, and then discovered that the originator had, painstakingly, aligned columns of information using spaces...with entries that ended in dots. Proper fucked the formatting up, that did. I suggested they learn how to set a tab. They made a much ruder suggestion. I ignored them.

Why people like that don't use tables is beyond me.

 

[existentialist]

Why people like that don't use tables is beyond me.

Well, this was a few years ago, and I strongly suspect that the culprit had learned to type on a typewriter. There was, and still is, quite a contingent of people who almost defiantly deny the wonderful opportunities for making their life easier, presumably because to do so might mean venturing ever so slightly out of their comfort zone. I've mellowed since, but I used to think that part of my role was to turn that comfort zone into a discomfort zone. Raw misuse of 90s IT techie superpower, really

 

[Saul Goodman]

Agree totally. I have to resist the temptation to rewrite stuff colleagues have wrote wrongly.

Where to start...

 

[isvicthere?]

Also: excising 'got' from the lexicon? That really is redolent of American usage and not something a wannabe 18th Century 'gent' should be aspiring to.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

What is an "Oxford comma" anyway?

It decreases ambiguity in a list eg this sentence badly needs one:

 

[Mr Moose]

This is a style guide for the people employed in Rees Mogg's office - nothing more.

And a signal to the faithful.

 

[Dogsauce]

Perhaps there was some Edwardian principle of the newly-terraced bourgeoisie that it was permissible, indeed aspirational, to have a loose fitting suit so one may grow into it as one becomes a fatter toady to power.

In the post-war austerity years clothes were often cut short to save on material, no generosity in sleeves etc. Suspect having something loose fitting would be a sign of affluence.

 

[Dogsauce]

What exactly is Mogg's role in government anyhow?

Someone posher and weirder than Johnson, just to make him look comparatively less posh/weird.

 

[Mr Moose]

Imperial measurements can be as accurate as the decimal system, arguably more so for non-decimal fractions if you want to be pedantic. The SI system uses meters and kilograms though , so if you want a scientifically literate population reverting to imperial is a bit daft. Apart from farenheit maybe, the subjective stuff is all arbitrary.

It’s also just a part of getting on with the world. Envisaging yourself in stones is fine, but doesn’t work for science or trade.

Imagine if all countries had JRM’s attitude. If they decided doing air traffic control in English was domination by an external power or Asia got miffed with the Gregorian calendar.

Anyone with a thing about imperial measures is a knob.

 

[Saul Goodman]

I know this has been said before and it's irrelevant to fact he's a nasty rw cunt, but for somebody who is posh and tries very hard to be 'refined' and all that shit, why does he always wear such badly fitting suits. They are always shit, too long in the arms and legs, baggy at chest, just really bad. Like a sixth former at an interview.

Are you surprised that his tailor doesn't like him, or that Mogg hasn't noticed?

 

[Manter]

It decreases ambiguity in a list eg this sentence badly needs one:View attachment 178937

Wouldn’t you also use one if you put a sub-clause after an and?

Basically the man is both pompous and surprisingly poorly educated, considering what was spent on it. Misuses Esq., too

 

[Manter]

Actually, what I hate most about it is the ‘CHECK your work’ which is rude and belittling and suggests he is the sort of man that would ignore a memo about the end of the world of it had a spelling mistake.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

Wouldn’t you also use one if you put a sub-clause after an and?

Yes.

 

[Raheem]

Actually, what I hate most about it is the ‘CHECK your work’ which is rude and belittling and suggests he is the sort of man that would ignore a memo about the end of the world of it had a spelling mistake.

'Check your work' by, for example, being sure to have demonstrated a clear understanding of the rules about commas before 'and'.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Also using capitals to add emphasis (CHECK) is surely a worse crime than all his shit rules

 

[fishfinger]

Actually, what I hate most about it is the ‘CHECK your work’ which is rude and belittling and suggests he is the sort of man that would ignore a memo about the end of the world of it had a spelling mistake.

 

[alex_]

An invite to Moggy's christmas party.

At least there would be pints.

 

[klang]

I can't think of a sentence structure that has a comma after the and.

When listing three ands in a row you'd write and, and and and.

 

[Proper Tidy]

When listing three ands in a row you'd write and, and and and.

Also lots of ways you could put a comma after and which might be unconventional but would read well. Eg my mum said you were a dickhead and, while I disagreed, she was right

 

[klang]

my mum said you were a dickhead and, while I disagreed, she was right

She wasn't right though. She was wrong.

 

[eoin_k]

I can't think of a sentence structure that has a comma after the and.

Did he mean the Oxford comma?

I can think of an example and, if you're interested, I'll show it to you.

 

[brogdale]

Check this for mistakes:


LRB · James Meek · The Two Jacobs: The Faragist Future

 

[Steel Icarus]

Also lots of ways you could put a comma after and which might be unconventional but would read well. Eg my mum said you were a dickhead and, while I disagreed, she was right

See I'd have the comma after the dickhead

 

[Proper Tidy]

See I'd have the comma after the dickhead

Yeah. Most of time I probably would too. But my point was that putting the comma after the and still works, it reads fine, it's understandable, it's not too clunky. Fuck rules really, language is about being understood

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

See I'd have the comma after the dickhead

If you were saying that sentence out loud, where would you put the pause? I'd put it after the and.

 

[Steel Icarus]

If you were saying that sentence out loud, where would you put the pause? I'd put it after the and.

After the dickhead. Carries more weight then.

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

After the dickhead. Carries more weight then.

Heh, it seems the other way around to me. Both preferences are equally valid of course.

 

[eoin_k]

Make up a sentence with two clauses that share the same subject conjoined with an 'and'. The grammar fascists won't let you use a comma before the 'and' then, but you can insert a secondary clause between them, introducing a comma after it.