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

[CruCru]

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).

Bourdic

daisypond Of course he's never applied for a job - Nanny does that for him, and she does it very well.

Quite worried to find I'm in agreement with him about some things - I don't like the Oxford comma or 'due to', but I am a pedant. I pass as normal but my internal monologue occasionally escapes into the wild.

Yes, another plan by mastermind Cummings to appeal to the older Conservative voter, a disappearing species - along with the standard wealthy Brexit jingoism that has betrayed the country. Add spaces while the UK burns.

Using imperial units for scientific briefings would be insane. Although some imperial measurements persist in casual usage I can’t think of anyone I know under that even if 60 who would use feet and inches for anything other than height or anything other than litres and millimetres for actually measuring volume - other than to say ‘a pint of milk.’

Are those emails to colleagues or customers?

Just had a quick look through my personal email inbox and "Dear" and "Hello" dominate. One of the "Dear" emails is from Student Finance England (so a government website ?)

Top tip for those of you who, like me, have to correct the work of two-space idiots- you can use the find-and-replace feature in MS Word to find ‘full stop-space-space’ throughout a document and replace it with ‘full stop-space’. You can also insist that your junior who claims he ‘can’t help it and it’s just the way he learned’ do it himself to his own documents before submission.

I'm an editor and the first thing I do when I get a new piece of work is do a search and replace to remove all the double spaces Modern typography doesn't need it – typefaces are designed to have the correct spacing. Extra spaces just look gappy and aren't the style for any of the many publications I've worked for.

Doesn’t his nanny look after his 6 kids?

I’m not in favour of JRM esq, particularly, but why use the nanny argument? I know plenty of people who are in their 40’s and their nanny still works for the family. It doesn’t seem odd to me.

serenoa I agree about fully justified text. I refuse to accept "computer knows best" thinking as expressed so eloquently by Ellision when such an aberration exists.

Finding and acquiring a job for a grown-up Oxford-educated man is not surely a nanny’s job. But a job will have been found for him and he, no doubt, will think He achieved it all by his own merits and hard work. The public school system and university have really let him down. Or perhaps he’s just not very bright. He has no ideas. That’s why he needs to fill his speeches with extra spaces and dots between “M.P.s”.

The rule about imperial units is ridiculous.

Indeed, they haven't been standard in UK for 40ish years. It's like mandating the use of Latin for his department.

I note he has banned the word 'equal'. I appreciate that he has political objections to it but that seems a little much.

Can't be much important business to attend to if those are his priorities upon taking office.

Should his staff even be using word processors, or typewriters. Shouldn't they be using quill pens and ink and work by candlelight?

He’s a jumped up middle class twat who carries on like he’s cousin to the queen. He can fuck if.

I wouldn't care if he was a cousin to the queen. He can still fuck off. This guy is a total arse wipe. WTF is going through anyone's head when they let him have any power? If you've lived such a sheltered life you've got time to get worked up about how many spaces after a full stop there should be no place for you in politics.

Another fan of the Oxford comma here, and I never use 2 spaces after a full stop. My grammar checker won't let me.

I think most people use a mixture of imperial and metric
while small distances maybe in centimetres; a tile might be 15cm or 6" square; but no one says it is X kilometres anywhere it is miles
we buy fuel in litres but express fuel economy in mpg (miles per gallon)
most people describe height of people in feet and inches like 6'2" or 5'2" and weight is often in stones I would know instantly that someone 5'2" and 12 stone was overweight I would have to think about 158cm and 76kg
we use half and whole pints in pubs

Why are people fussing about his fairly inconsequential preferences for communications? I am more than happy to see Not Fit For Purpose eliminated from all usage outside the requirements of the Consumer Goods Act - and would dance a joyful dance if 'Lessons will be learned' falls into similar obscurity.

Worry about what he's actually going to do, not how the releases announcing them are going to be formatted.

I use imperial measurements every day, all the suits sold in the shop I am the tailor for are sold in chest measurement that are all imperial. The trousers are also all inches and collar sizes on shirts. If someone brings in something that needs 2.5cm taking up the lady that does the chalking used to have to check what that was and change it into inches. All the fabric I buy from the supplier is bought in yards not meters and buttons are bought in 8ths of an inch, waistcoat buttons I use are 5 8ths of an inch. So there are some of us quite happy with imperial measurements.
Also surely If you are making a cake it's all weighed out in pounds and ounce isn't it?

I'm a two spaces person too. MSword accepts it.

What's wrong with Dear?

If someone starts an email with just CleverLoginName then I think they are rude. Dear CleverLoginName is correct

You beat me to it, Peregrina And what on earth's he got against "speculate", "disappointment", "unacceptable" and many of the others?

As for insisting on the use of Latin … wait

Why are people fussing about his fairly inconsequential preferences for communications?

Because I'd rather civil servants were able to focus on improving things that are "not fit for purpose" than having to spend their time thumbing through a thesaurus to pander to the petty whims of a jumped up little arsewipe.

If I were one of his civil servants forced to use Imperial, I would quietly rebel by using really obscure units, eg "the speed limit is 40 chains per minute" or "we've rented an office with 1.5 perches of floorspace" or "the ferry we have commissioned in the event of No Deal has a capacity of 1500 cubic fathoms".

(As I am sure you all know a cubic fathom is about 6.1 cubic metres).

Two spaces here but I'm old. Yet I'm pretty sure its not ok to say ok? 100 handwritten lines for you OP. "Mr JRM Esq., is an entitled and pompous tosser".

I learned the metric system when I was on school and that wasn't even that recently. It's The international standard.

Yes, of course. We were learning metric, and using SI units for science and maths when I was at school - I'm 58. My DM (born in 1923) was a primary teacher, she happily adapted to using metric.

The rule about imperial units is ridiculous. Should be both imo.

Depends on the context. If it's road distances then we still use miles - that's ok. Some other contexts eg temperatures, Celsius with Fahrenheit in parentheses might be helpful to some - though I don't know anyone who quotes freezing point in F rather than C nowadays, or the boiling point of water.

So if he's given a scientific document to read, he's going to ask it to be edited to have imperial measurements inserted?

I'll guess that despite the excellence of his schools, he may be pretty much functionally illiterate when it comes to science, but it could be hilarious if people did this. How should they translate eg 'nanotechnology', 0.000000000000621371miletechnology?[grin]

I don’t like the man and I don’t share his politics.

However, he has his particular communication style and wants the people working for him to use it. I’ve had to change my style to suit whoever I was working for at the time - I once had a boss who wouldn’t let anyone write “I feel that ...” because he said that our opinions and decisions should be based on logic rather than feelings.

The rule about imperial units is ridiculous.

It's against the law to use only imperial units. You can show both or just metric, but not only imperial. And the purchase transaction must take place in metric (with a few exceptions). A law enacted by the, guess what, Conservative Government in 2000.