Ever since I arrived in Bristol, I’ve been both dismayed and amused in equal amounts by the abysmal standards of English in the local press.
This ancient tradition’s greatest proponent has been the alleged local paper of record, the Bristol Evening Post, whose publication is now reduced to 5 days a week as sales of the dead tree edition decline; its name has likewise been truncated to the Bristol Post.
Today the Post revealed an exclusive. Bristol has a literate cricket ground, presumably able to speak and write, as evidenced by the following Post quote:
The ground, in Nevil Road, St Andrew’s, released a statement this morning.
If the ground really does talk, Gloucestershire [County] CC should be very proud of it since this particular skill is far more impressive than its cricketing record. 😉
Update: 6th November 2012: Jon Eccles has since remarked that the County Ground is “the first sports facility of any kind to pass the Turing test“.
I too am concerned about standards of grammar within Bristol’s media, but it’s a tricky one to attack as it more often than not makes one look foolish for one’s own unintentional grammatical errors. A case in point; your tweet from earlier today:
@bristol247 the man for the job? Only because they aren’t enough decent women standing for #bristolmayor. 🙂
Also, it was The Post’s Saturday edition that was recently scrapped. It is now published five days a week, not six like you write above. And unless you are talking about Gloucestershire County Council, I think you must mean Gloucestershire CCC should be proud of their talking ground.
Keep up the good work. Subscription not cancelled. People in glass houses etc.
Thanks for your comment, Martin.
I think it’s an unwritten rule that any comment on the standards of another’s English should always contain at least one error.
It’s also been pointed out to me by another that the Post is published 5 days/week, not 6; this has likewise been amended.
As regards the tweet, I hold my hands up and cannot blame predictive text interference as I was writing from my desktop machine with a full QWERTY keyboard and no mind of its own. 🙂