Use of the Definite Article, ex FS thread.

Sometimes I suspect they delight in doing this just to wind up gricers and 'trainspotters'.

 

M'yes, but that would imply a modicum of intelligence being present. From some of the tabloid rantings one sees, it's probably just as well that breathing is an automatic function, else quite a few 'journalists' would be in serious trouble...

 

No. Generally they know what they're doing (PPE degree at Oxford as standard) and are manipulating the views of their readers in order to facilitate the perpetration of political control by the financial elite.

 

A Degree doesn't guarantee having life experience or common sense though. I have sailed with someone who had achieved a cornucopia of academic successes, including a PhD - but was totally clueless about basic, practical things. Example - cutting through a securing device clearly marked with a symbol of a pair of scissors inside a red circle, with a red bar across the circle. A Prohibition sign, if you will, similar to road signs of that ilk. When, during the course of the investigation, as this act had cost the Company a lot of money, I asked him what he thought that this symbol meant. He correctly said that it shouldn't be cut with scissors. Sadly, he then went on to say "But Chief, it's OK, because I cut the strap with a knife". This bloke was a Brit, by the way...

 

That's a funny anecdote but I'm not sure it's entirely relevant in a general sense. Even allowing for factors like the Peter Principle, Old Boy Networks, and Tory parliamentary safe seats where the local party constituency members pick the most right-wing candidate they can find knowing full well he simply cannot lose, to get to top management in society you've got to at least give the general outward appearance of being reasonably competent.

 

I hate the loco being referred to as 'The' Flying Scotsman (regularly reminding the BBC that 'The Flying Scotsman' was historically the 10am departure from King's Cross, 'Flying Scotsman' is the locomotive), but what irks me almost as much is the way journalists always refer to 'the tracks' (plural). And don't get me started on 'train station'.

Hypocritically, I always use 'train set' - but only to wind up the kind of railway modeller who tends to take the hobby just a bit too seriously

 

Ironically, "No.9 revving its engines" will be correct use of the lingo with regards to the Tweedbank Siding in April and June... http://thedps.co.uk/delticborderer/ http://thedps.co.uk/deltic-borderer-ii-saturday-18th-june/