Your Letters
17:22 UK time, Friday, 5 September 2008
How do the facts in justify the headline? This is something the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has done repeatedly - sum up the sentences of all the guilty parties and present them as a total. These youths were sent to jail for 3 and 2 years respectively - anyone scanning the heading would assume they had been sentenced to five years. If ten people are sentenced to six months each, the sentence is six months, not five years. And do you know what? I don't even think I am being pedantic here - this is simply misreporting the facts.
Kevin Friery, Portsmouth UK
In your , Maria McCaffery of the British Wind Energy Association says: "We don't have to pay for wind power it just comes to us naturally". What a load of Tosh! We DO have to pay for wind energy, just like we pay for our Water! It costs to harvest it, turn it into an energy source we can use and distribute it to our homes and factories.
Mike, UK
Given all the talk about grammar lately, shouldn't the headline for be "Footage shows bus hit by boy". From watching the video it is obvious that the bus is the object and the boy the subject.
Aidan Folkes, Reading
. Next professor North will be trying to prove a link between personality and the clothes we wear or some such rubbish.
David, Hong Kong
To Georgina James (Thursday's letters) - there are only five stories that it is acceptable for UK journalists to write in December, and they are:
(1) Will there be a White Christmas this year? (No)
(2) Gosh, haven't the sales started early this year!
(3) Meet Joe Bloggs, he celebrates Christmas EVERY day of the year!
(4) Here's Phil from Dudley, who's put £25,000 worth of illuminated decorations on the roof of his 3 bedroom semi.
(5) Your Christmas dinner - how many calories does it REALLY contain? (Lots)
I suggest you pick one of the above. That's all anyone else will be doing!
Nicky Stu, Highbury, London (I've moved house)
Georgina, no matter which city you visit, I'd suggest you bring a pedant's guide to English grammar, a conversion table for measuring large objects in terms of double decker buses or the country of Wales, and read up on nominative determinism. Oh, and don't forget your coat.
Rob, Worcester, UK
Was sadly disappointed to discover wasn't about the Minister for Schools, although it did give me a very good caption for Guido's Friday caption competition.
Silas, London, UK
As a fellow pedant, I feel I must point out to Chris Melville (Thursday's letters) that SPAM is also not actually an acronym, rather it's a backronym. Like the computer mouse (see past letters), both spam of the meat variety and spam of the electronic variety have been attributed false etymologies. Spam the meat was just named Spam to help with its marketing. As for the electronic type of spam, it got its name because a Monty Python's Flying Circus sketch set in a cafe in which nearly every dish involves spam, inspired people to use the word to disrupt conversations in internet chat rooms. The term then went on to cover all unsolicited internet communication.
PS, Newcastle, England
At the risk of seeming a pedant, surely CHMSL is neither an acronym nor, as Chris suggests, an abbreviation - it's an initialism.
Ben Goudie, Leeds
Chris - I hate to uber-pedant your pedantry, but Spam (in its tin-based meat, Monty Python or email forms) isn't an acronym, it's a contraction of SPiced hAM. An acronym doesn't necessarily have to be pronounceable (and you can have quite a few arguments about the correct way to say those that are - see GIF as a good example), but it does need to be made up of the initial letters or initial parts of a series of words, so Spam doesn't quite qualify...
Dan, Cambridge
What a way to begin the weekend!
Darren McCormac, London
The 
