Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that some (not all) of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s rules for communications are okay?

284 replies

CruCru · 27/07/2019 14:13

I am not a fan of Jacob Rees-Mogg. I would hate to be made to refer to Imperial units because I don’t think in Imperial (presumably he does) and the Esq. thing is alien to me.

However, things like “Check your work”, having two spaces after a full stop and no comma after “and” are fair enough. I’m not sure about all the banned words or phrases but perhaps they are overused (to the point of being sloppy).

OP posts:
PolkadotsAndMoonbeams · 28/07/2019 12:44

I don't think I'd write that. I would do it like this:

JRM is tall and (despite his expensive education) not as clever as he thinks he is.

If you want to use commas, this looks better to me, but changes the emphasis.

JRM is tall, and, despite his expensive education, not as clever as he thinks he is.

With the second it does look (paraphrasing Lynne Truss) as though the words have all been herded neatly into pens by good old Comma the sheepdog!

Peregrina · 28/07/2019 12:59

Miss out the and altogether:
JR-M, despite his expensive education, is not as clever as he thinks.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry, or should that be Tom, Dick and Harry know that? That's the thing - sometimes we don't know whether Dick and Harry are one unit or two.

Rainforevermore · 28/07/2019 13:03

It's not some fucking vintage tea shop FFS
Ah but wouldn't it be great to open a pedants' tea shop, with perfectly punctuated menus. Perhaps some examples from other establishments for people to correct with a red pen.
They have cat cafes, this doesn't seem unreasonable to me!

beccarocksbaby · 28/07/2019 13:11

Sub clauses (comma after and) are an accepted grammatical thing though so I'm not cool with that one. The double space is a very formal way of writing, grammar schools still teach it I think.

IMHO it shows the priorities of the party and their relationship with modern life and the people in this country. Whether you agree with their priorities or not is a personal thing I guess and reflects on the individuals.

DadDadDad · 28/07/2019 13:21

I'm no defender of JRM, but are we sure that his "rules" have been reported with the precise context? All we have is the ITV news article near the top of this thread with a set of bullet points. Is that JRM's actual list? What if he was giving certain situations where it is would be incorrect to put a comma after "and"?

Isatis · 28/07/2019 13:36

I wonder how his ban on imperial measurements works when he's dealing with contractors who only sell things in metric measurements? Surely in his book it's wrong to order A4 paper, you must either order foolscap or paper at size 8.3 x 11.7 inches?

howabout · 28/07/2019 13:51

"The statuesque JRM is stupid despite his expensive education".

Imho sub clauses tend to obfuscate rather than elucidate. This is especially the case when used with conjunctions. I also don't like the inference that height is related to intelligence from the use of "and" in the quote.

If I were using JRM as an example of the failings of expensive education rather than attacking him personally I would rephrase as follows:

"Despite his expensive education the statuesque JRM is stupid".

I suspect poor old JRM is in fact a victim of tall poppy syndrome.

Peregrina · 28/07/2019 14:30

I saw a better example on twitter about where a comma is helpful:

I had eggs, bacon, toast and marmalade, and tea for breakfast. This is to back up my point about the and being used to specify something as one unit, as toast and marmalade is.

Rees Mogg would really like to have toast and marmalade and tea all on the one plate would he? I don't think so. It shows what a pompous oaf he is.

Nanny0gg · 28/07/2019 14:39

He wants to ban 'yourself'.

That's ok in my book.

merryMuppet · 28/07/2019 14:48

The double spacing thing is bonkers and also technically incorrect - it's the equivalent of saying nobody should have glass in windows as they didn't used to when castles were built (i.e. just because we didn't have the technology back then to do it it doesn't make it correct not to do it now.)

When typewriters first came out, they had courier as a font which is a monospaced font, also called a fixed-pitch, fixed-width, or non-proportional font, is a font whose letters and characters each occupy the same amount of horizontal space. When you type with this kind of font such as on the old manual typewriters then you would need two spaces after a full stop to make the type easier to read so you could see the break between sentences.

With modern day technology, the fonts aren't monospaced and even have the information stored within the font as to what kerning to use between letters (the space between each letter). Some modern fonts even automatically put in special ligatures as you type - say when you have an i after an f, it has a special 'fi' ligature. To use a double space after a full stop with modern technology is simply unnecessary as well as actually destroying the proper kerning and spacing between the letters. It's making something worse rather than better like leaving out glass in our windows unless you fancy gales blowing through the house and rain coming in.

Mumsnet is pretty good as it cleans up mistakes in your typing like double spaces. Politics is just crazy sometimes...

howabout · 28/07/2019 14:48

"Eggs, bacon, toast with marmalade and builders' tea for me".

DadDadDad · 28/07/2019 14:49

Nanny0gg - surely you couldn't blanket ban it as it has some uses that are perfectly fine: "You said it yourself", "Did you get any time to yourself on holiday?", "I think you will end up blaming yourself if it goes wrong".

howabout - that seems a massive generalisation, can explain what you mean by a sub-clause being obfuscating? If I write the following, surely the sub-clause (underlined) provides helpful detail: You should claim it regardless even if one of you is over the earnings limit, to protect your NI record.

TheInebriati · 28/07/2019 14:49

The rules on spaces have changed because spaces increase the file size of a document on a computer without adding anything to the formatting.

He's not as clever or well informed as he thinks he is, and he is a stickler for small, unimportant rules.

NeverSayFreelance · 28/07/2019 14:51

Absolutely do NOT use two spaces. It looks awful.

ErrolTheDragon · 28/07/2019 14:53

Nobody has used two spaces after a full stop since the invention of the electric typewriter.

Clearly that's not true.

I actually don't know, or care, what my company's 'house style' is on spacing. It's about the least important issue conceivable. I can't imagine why JRM or anyone else thinks it's worth getting dogmatic about.

DadDadDad · 28/07/2019 14:55

The menu offers soup, fish and chips, and ice-cream, and, if I'm reading it right, you can have three scoops: one each of rum, raisin, and rum and raisin. Grin

SwedishEdith · 28/07/2019 14:55

JRM is neither poor nor old. But, he does show that cap doffing syndrome is alive and well. A significant proportion of this country are still impressed by a man with a posh accent who uses obscure words. Accent and vocabulary can be learned - neither are indicators of great intellect.

AnneElliott · 28/07/2019 14:55

Agree MsGimpy - this is totally normal and a non story. All Ministers have these.

I think Liam Byrne's were leaked once. I'll see if I can find those online - they were 3 pages long and much more exacting.

But that won't be so interesting to mn as he was a Labour Minister.

Alsohuman · 28/07/2019 15:06

It is a non story and makes me wonder what it’s being used as distraction for. This perhaps.

Dwww.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49131685

howabout · 28/07/2019 15:12

Actually the breakfast example is not in breach of JRM's edict as the comma is before the "and". It does highlight the inelegance of the Oxford comma though.

SerenadeOfTheSchoolRun · 28/07/2019 15:14

These are the rules for the letters that he is going to sign as though he had written them himself. They will be from him. I think it is fine to say how he would write a letter otherwise he is going to either sign off letters that he is unhappy with or send them back every time and get them redone.

Also most of his rules seem reasonable to me, if a little bit old fashioned. Two spaces after a full stop sounds good to me. Some of his banned phrases could be seen as fairly meaningless and annoying. He doesn't like them and doesn't want them in his letters. Fair enough.

howabout · 28/07/2019 15:31

DadDadDad you are right about sub-clauses adding detail. However my personal preference is step by step, sentence by sentence explanation.

Nanny0gg · 28/07/2019 15:33

@DadDadDad
Nanny0gg - surely you couldn't blanket ban it as it has some uses that are perfectly fine: "You said it yourself", "Did you get any time to yourself on holiday?", "I think you will end up blaming yourself if it goes wrong".

If only it was used in the correct context as above.

But we all know that it's not and it needs stamping out!

(He needs to add Myself to the list too)