Shadow, you can place an ORDER for books, shoes, handbags, fridges, cars, anything - some time before they're available for despatch. I find that happens quite a lot with catalogue ordering. But there is no such thing as 'pre-ordering' unless you buy into marketspeak, which clearly infests the English language more and more! You can't order something before it's ordered, which is what the term would have to mean if it were able to make sense - which it doesn't. I know that the marketers who dream up this sort of commercial shorthand think 'pre-order' means something, but it's meaningless. They only need to call such orders 'advance orders' like we used to, not that long ago, when our language wasn't being murdered by AmericaniZations and textcrap.
Shadow Leader
At the Start
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2003
- Messages
- 9,884
Yes, I know you're right in a pedantic kind of way! Amazon call it pre-ordering though when you are putting in an order for something that has yet to be printed or available for despatch, I am merely repeating what they (and others) call it!
I knew you'd see if for what it was, Shadz - my compulsive addiction to poking holes in those sort of things! Mind you, if I'm to comply with your desire to see American-style zeds disappear, I'd better shorthand you into 'Shads' from now on! 
I agree with you on the issue, though - it's become very irritating to see more American pronunciations take over in everyday life, too: many people now 'skedule' their work, but I hope we never have crims getting round to 'burglarizing' houses!
I agree with you on the issue, though - it's become very irritating to see more American pronunciations take over in everyday life, too: many people now 'skedule' their work, but I hope we never have crims getting round to 'burglarizing' houses!
Shadow Leader
At the Start
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- Nov 9, 2003
- Messages
- 9,884
Don't - if I see words like 'burglarizing' appearing in British print I reckon I will spontaneously combust!!!!! :lol:
R
rumoursabound
Guest
WHERE THE SUCKERS MOON.
The life and death of an advertising campaign.
by Randell Rothenberg
"Fortune swims, not with the main stream of letters, but in the shallows, where the suckers moon.
-A. J. Leibling,
The Honest Rainmaker
The life and death of an advertising campaign.
by Randell Rothenberg
"Fortune swims, not with the main stream of letters, but in the shallows, where the suckers moon.
-A. J. Leibling,
The Honest Rainmaker
A
Ardross
Guest
In the sixth form - I felt I needed a degree in theology !
A.J. Liebling is a hero of mine - great New Yorker journalist whose memoir of Paris " Between Meals " is marvellous . A wonderful writer on a number of things including racing and boxing . I love his line when asked why he was successful - " because I write better than anyone can write faster than me and faster than anyone who can write better than me "
A.J. Liebling is a hero of mine - great New Yorker journalist whose memoir of Paris " Between Meals " is marvellous . A wonderful writer on a number of things including racing and boxing . I love his line when asked why he was successful - " because I write better than anyone can write faster than me and faster than anyone who can write better than me "
BrianH
At the Start
Yes, far more sex and violence than in the Milton
A
Ardross
Guest
Good old Geoffrey .
Shadow Leader
At the Start
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2003
- Messages
- 9,884
I'm reading Mo Hayder's Pig Island at the moment and I'm enjoying it, depiste all the negative reviews I have read of it.
Euronymous
Senior Jockey
Any Stephen Kings fans?
I`ve read around thirty of his novels and it`s a good world to retreat into when things aren`t so bright in normal life. This Ebor meeting has been the worst three days of my punting life and i need to be taken somewhere where i`m not wallowing in self-pity and melancholy.
Anyway, King`s Magnum Opus is his spic Dark Tower series. I read volume 1 in 1991 and was a tad underwhelmed if memory serves. Volumes 2 and 3 followed later in the decade and they were amazing, esaily amongst his finest work. Somewhat annoyingly these volumes were very long in the waiting, i read the fourth in the seven book series in 2001 ten years after the first one appeared but Stephen had a bad car accident a few years ago and it made him realise that he needed to get out his life`s work. So volumes 5, 6 and 7 have been released over the last two or three years.
I`m about to start volume 5 and for any King readers who haven`t been involved up to now i strongly urge you pick up the first book, you wont regret it.
I`ve read around thirty of his novels and it`s a good world to retreat into when things aren`t so bright in normal life. This Ebor meeting has been the worst three days of my punting life and i need to be taken somewhere where i`m not wallowing in self-pity and melancholy.
Anyway, King`s Magnum Opus is his spic Dark Tower series. I read volume 1 in 1991 and was a tad underwhelmed if memory serves. Volumes 2 and 3 followed later in the decade and they were amazing, esaily amongst his finest work. Somewhat annoyingly these volumes were very long in the waiting, i read the fourth in the seven book series in 2001 ten years after the first one appeared but Stephen had a bad car accident a few years ago and it made him realise that he needed to get out his life`s work. So volumes 5, 6 and 7 have been released over the last two or three years.
I`m about to start volume 5 and for any King readers who haven`t been involved up to now i strongly urge you pick up the first book, you wont regret it.
Has anyone read House Of Leaves? I don't often read books/novels unless Clarkson is th author but I stumbled accross this on Wikipedia and it looked interesting. Also have a four hour bus journey tomorrow so something a bit longer than pc gamer might be useful.
A
Ardross
Guest
Just to my shame started " Dubliners " - amazingly modern
I'm the sort of person who'll sit and read the telephone directory if there's ntohing else available... so where to start?
I'm currently reading [in translation] Arturo Perez-Reverte's "The Sea Chart", which is wordy - literary even - but is a ripping good yarn too... It's kind of a sea-story, but not. A sort of modern update of the buried treasure theme, with a love story thrown in.
I'm keen on naval/historical fiction - the best of which is Joseph Conrad. You could read his works for the rest of your life - wonderful novels of action, but also deeply psychologically acute, brilliantly written, and fascinating in the historical sense. Two of my favourites are 'Chance' and 'Almayer's Folly' - not quite his usual sea yarns so maybe more appealing to women readers than eg 'Lord Jim' of 'The N*gger of the Narcissus' - which are of course great novels by any standard
[*I've asterisked that in case we get a server-block]
I'm currently reading [in translation] Arturo Perez-Reverte's "The Sea Chart", which is wordy - literary even - but is a ripping good yarn too... It's kind of a sea-story, but not. A sort of modern update of the buried treasure theme, with a love story thrown in.
I'm keen on naval/historical fiction - the best of which is Joseph Conrad. You could read his works for the rest of your life - wonderful novels of action, but also deeply psychologically acute, brilliantly written, and fascinating in the historical sense. Two of my favourites are 'Chance' and 'Almayer's Folly' - not quite his usual sea yarns so maybe more appealing to women readers than eg 'Lord Jim' of 'The N*gger of the Narcissus' - which are of course great novels by any standard
[*I've asterisked that in case we get a server-block]
Bar the Bull
At the Start
I have just finished reading The Sea, The Sea by Irish Murdoch, which was excellently written.
I am now reading The People's Act of Love by James Meek, which is very good. I missed my tube stop this morning as I was so engrossed.
I am now reading The People's Act of Love by James Meek, which is very good. I missed my tube stop this morning as I was so engrossed.