“Was”? – Presumably, contrary to the heading he was no longer wanted. This practise is not uncommon with dopey young girls. Consider this.
A few weeks ago I arranged to visit a senior medical specialist mate with a large practise and consequently, 4 receptionists.
I bowled in and said I had an appointment with him, not then noting that expecting me, he’d emerged from his end office and was standing in his doorway laughing at the following exchange.
ME: “I have an appointment with X”.
Dopey Girl: “What was your name?”
ME (with blank face): “I haven’t changed it”.
Dopey Girl (looking puzzled): “What was it?”
ME: “Still the same”.
By now her colleagues were giggling at her, so bewildered, she moved to her next verbal nonsense.
Dopey Girl: “Take a seat”.
ME (still with blank expression): “Where shall I take it to?”
More bewilderment.
My mate then bowled over to collect me but not before I said to the girl, “I’ll give you a million dollars if you can tell me where Belgium is”.
We then duly repaired to my friend’s office where he opened a bottle of red and introduced me to a new specialist colleague.
Half an hour later when we emerged the dopey girl shouted, “Belgium’s in Europe”, her colleagues having told her this.
ME: “That’s not telling me where it is. There’s about 50 countries in Europe. Give me a sheet of paper and I’ll draw a map of Europe and the million is yours if you can even roughly point to where it is”.
She declined this offer.
The pervading ignorance today is mind-boggling. The state school education I received in the 1940s and 1950s was outstanding.
At 12 years of age in my last primary school year, I have no doubt the majority of my 40 or so class-mates could have pointed to Belgium on a map. And most certainly, they did not talk in the past tense.
Sir Bob Jones is a renowned author, columnist , property investor, and former politician, who blogs at No Punches Pulled HERE - where this article was sourced.
I bowled in and said I had an appointment with him, not then noting that expecting me, he’d emerged from his end office and was standing in his doorway laughing at the following exchange.
ME: “I have an appointment with X”.
Dopey Girl: “What was your name?”
ME (with blank face): “I haven’t changed it”.
Dopey Girl (looking puzzled): “What was it?”
ME: “Still the same”.
By now her colleagues were giggling at her, so bewildered, she moved to her next verbal nonsense.
Dopey Girl: “Take a seat”.
ME (still with blank expression): “Where shall I take it to?”
More bewilderment.
My mate then bowled over to collect me but not before I said to the girl, “I’ll give you a million dollars if you can tell me where Belgium is”.
We then duly repaired to my friend’s office where he opened a bottle of red and introduced me to a new specialist colleague.
Half an hour later when we emerged the dopey girl shouted, “Belgium’s in Europe”, her colleagues having told her this.
ME: “That’s not telling me where it is. There’s about 50 countries in Europe. Give me a sheet of paper and I’ll draw a map of Europe and the million is yours if you can even roughly point to where it is”.
She declined this offer.
The pervading ignorance today is mind-boggling. The state school education I received in the 1940s and 1950s was outstanding.
At 12 years of age in my last primary school year, I have no doubt the majority of my 40 or so class-mates could have pointed to Belgium on a map. And most certainly, they did not talk in the past tense.
Sir Bob Jones is a renowned author, columnist , property investor, and former politician, who blogs at No Punches Pulled HERE - where this article was sourced.
14 comments:
'practise' or 'practice'?
'Practise' for the verb and 'practice' for the noun in proper (i.e. British) English. In Yanklish there is only the -ice- word for both the verb and the noun.
Turn your spellcheck onto English (UK) as its default setting is English (US) which ain't kosher.
People make mistakes with grammar every day, even you Bob. It's the kind of thing grumpy old people moan about.
Blogs on this site are no exception, including yours.
Not sure it warrants a blog making fun of a girl who asked you a reasonable question, albeit not grammatically correct, that anybody else would have answered straight off.
As for the "take a seat joke", that's as old as the hills and rather than showing the girl as "dopey" just shows your age.
And the relevance of knowing where Belgium is .... what exactly? Who the hell wants to go to Belgium.
She could just as easily have asked you the title of Ariana Grande's last single then called you dumb for not knowing.
DeeM - practise or practice, break or brake, to-too-two - the list is endless, but Bob was making a point, and a valid one, that English language follows rules. Without them, there is linguistic anarchy or, in Cole Porter's enduring words, 'Anything Goes'.
I might add that Belgium consists of friendly people, terrific meat and/or cheese dishes, and great beer!
Bob funny. I too, am not a great speller, my grammer is average but I sort of think I manage to get my point across and life is very good to me.
So can you extend you 'where is Belgium ' offer to me, I will happily relieve you of a bit of pocket change. :)
I went to Belgium and loved it. And no, I am not and never was a dentist.
Isn’t it normal protocol on arrival in Doctors’ rooms to state your name, your appointment time and the name of the doctor you are seeing? Or maybe that would make life too easy for a busy receptionist and what fun would there be in that?
Tell you what DeeM they have great french fries in Belgium and their football team is pretty useful as well. On those two counts alone I think it's a great country.
Hugh
Linguistic anarchy - that's priceless!! Wait till the poor girl realises what she's done. Imagine if she'd used a double-negative!!
Well, I hope Bob don't go to the East End of London where they mixes up there was's, were's , is's and are's like nobody's business, me old china.
He'd have a fit!
You can be concerned about a minor grammatical error without taking the piss out of someone who is just trying to do her job and earning a lot less than Bob does.
Sounds like he went out of his way to embarrass a complete stranger in front of her work mates and then boast about it online.
Now, that ain't proper, innit?
The prevalence of dopiness is so-oooooooooo dangerous..... !
DeeM.
Brugge and Antwerp are fantastic. You should visit!
I love the war history in the bulge too.
To the Belgian Appreciation Society
Sincere apologies for offending your favourite holiday destination.
Actually, I've been to Belgium. Admittedly I didn't have the best weather so that put a dampener on it, but it wasn't what I'd describe as a European highlight. No offence - but that's just my opinion.
If you're into war history I'm sure it's fantastic. They did get invaded twice in recent times and were at the centre of the action.
Haute cuisine too - "the french fries are great" and they've got "great beer, meat and cheese".
And a fairly good football team. Go Belgium!
Belgium's attractions are not really the point though.
Why did Bob not ask the grammatically offending girl to point out the UK or the USA or even Australia.
I guess he thought she'd never know where Belgium was because it's small and not that popular. He had bet a million dollars on her not finding it so no way was he paying that out.
And remember, Bob did have the advantage of being schooled around the time of WWII so of course he would know where Belgium is.
DeeM- need to knock Belgium. I am sorry you had bad weather. The country was raised as a joke in an article which I am sincerely hoping was a tongue in cheek (albeit not particularly amusing) poke at grammar and education today.
NZ is a joke and I bet most people in the world have no idea it exists, where it is or, if they have heard of it, think of Adern as the poster child.
What a supercilious and borderline sadistic way to treat a young person.
A better example of bullying would be difficult to find. We know who the dopey one is here.
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