AIBU to wonder if the Queen made a grammatical error?

[deardiary66]

The Queen has written a letter to Gareth Southgate ahead of tonight’s football game that includes the words:

“I want to send my congratulations and that of my family to you all”

Is “that” correct here or should it be “those”, as “congratulations” is plural?

I don’t mean to nitpick, but I saw the letter and genuinely wondered what was technically correct!

Hungarian . Sounds fun .

I'll be interested to see how well I cope with Spanish tv though. I listen to Spanish podcasts and audiobooks with no subtitles (obvs ), but tv is a bit different.

it's a unique & complicated language but at least the pronunciation is difficult 🤣

[quote ZingDramaQueenOfSheeba]@Geamhradh

🤣🤣
I can't wait to find out what boom boom ciao is in Spanish!
is it just me or do other fans choose their bank robber name too? I'd be Venice[/quote]
🤣 I've watched MH 4 times too, the last time in Spanish (with subtitles) in readiness for Sept 3rd when series 5 comes out. It is absolutely the best thing I've ever seen in any language.

It is absolutely the best thing I've ever seen in any language.

Ok I'm in! What platform streams it and is it suitable for my 16yo dd who's starting Spanish A Level in September? (She's the only person I ever get to speak Spanish to!).

it's a unique & complicated language but at least the pronunciation is difficult 🤣

You see, that might put some people off, but...

@lazylinguist

It is absolutely the best thing I've ever seen in any language.

Ok I'm in! What platform streams it and is it suitable for my 16yo dd who's starting Spanish A Level in September? (She's the only person I ever get to speak Spanish to!).

@lazylinguist

I can't find the post you are referring to but if you mean Money Heist it's on Netflix.

my 14 yo watched it but then he saw Jaws when he was 3 by accident and when I realised that & switched off the tv he cried his eyes out because "mummy, I love sharky! I want to see sharky!" 😳🤣

it does have violence, drugs, death, sex & rape etc so look up ratings info to decide if you are comfortable with her watching that.

@lazylinguist

It is absolutely the best thing I've ever seen in any language.

Ok I'm in! What platform streams it and is it suitable for my 16yo dd who's starting Spanish A Level in September? (She's the only person I ever get to speak Spanish to!).

It's on Netflix, and it's melodramatic and nuts, but it looks extraordinarily beautiful, and has some excellent characterisation and performances from a big cast of characters -- I suspect I would find it sillier in English, but I was deeply charmed by the Spanishness of it all.

It has definitely improved the Spanish vernacular in this household -- we now routinely tell one another (including my nine-year-old, who obviously wasn't watching Casa de Papel, and DH, who speaks no Spanish beyond a few words) 'No me toques los huevos!' in moments of stress.

(My previous Spanish TV love was Sé quién eres, which was on BBC4 about three years ago, but in part because I adore Blanca Portillo.)

But yes, it is violent (albeit in a cartoonish kind of way), major characters die, etc. Having said that, I watched it perfectly happily, and I am someone who could not stomach, for instance, the level of gore and sexual violence in Game of Thrones. It's nowhere near that level, and doesn't use rape as a narrative impetus. And has countless strong, interesting, complex, morally ambivalent, female characters.

It’s really clunky, whether or not it’s correct.

I’d have paused in my royal dictation, gently removed the spliff from her hand and said, “Liz. Come on. Let’s put, ‘My family and I would like to send our congratulations.’ Time to lay off the Take A Breaks and start re-reading the classics.”

it does have violence, drugs, death, sex & rape etc so look up ratings info to decide if you are comfortable with her watching that
Goodness, I got Money Heist confused with The Heist (ten law abiding citizens from sleepy Alnwick attempt to get away with ‘robbing a bank’) and got very confused there.

@Fountaining

But yes, it is violent (albeit in a cartoonish kind of way), major characters die, etc. Having said that, I watched it perfectly happily, and I am someone who could not stomach, for instance, the level of gore and sexual violence in Game of Thrones. It's nowhere near that level, and doesn't use rape as a narrative impetus. And has countless strong, interesting, complex, morally ambivalent, female characters.

It was my DD who introduced me to it, she had seen the first two series, then we went to Madrid and had the obligatory pics outside the real Mint, and at Callao etc so I gave it a go. She would have been 15 then.

@DentonsFringeArnottsWaistcoat

it does have violence, drugs, death, sex & rape etc so look up ratings info to decide if you are comfortable with her watching that Goodness, I got Money Heist confused with The Heist (ten law abiding citizens from sleepy Alnwick attempt to get away with ‘robbing a bank’) and got very confused there.

@DentonsFringeArnottsWaistcoat

🤣

people always try to correct me when I bring up the film "Alive".
They insist that it's a song titled "Stayin Alive" and from the film "Saturday Night Fever".

Seemingly nobody has heard of the true story of the plane carrying the Uruguayan rugby team crashing in the Andes in late 1972🤷‍♀️

My dd is pretty unshockable so that sounds fine. Dh might want to watch it too.

Congratulations isn't necessarily plural - I do send my congratulation to the team

Meant - I don't send my congratulation.

We sent our congratulations to the team

Thank you it was well received

Or

They were well received

Congratulations isn't necessarily plural

Yes it is. It is categorically a plural noun. How on earth does "I do send my congratulations to the team" show that the word 'congratulations' isn't necessarily plural?

We sent our congratulations to the team

Thank you it was well received

Or

They were well received.

Correctly, 'they were'. I guess you could argue that 'it' could mean 'the fact that you sent your congratulations'. But that still doesn't mean the word 'congratulations' can be anything but plural, or make the use of 'that' in the queen's statement correct.

I send my congratulation to the team - without the S it doesn't make sense. We don't use it in the singular.

@Weebleweeble

Meant - I don't send my congratulation.

So then it is plural.

A very cursory google will confirm that ‘congratulations’ is plural. The first clue is the ‘s’ at the end.

Yes, exactly! We use it in the plural, which is why it should be 'those', not 'that'.

Yes ^^

@Weebleweeble

Congratulations isn't necessarily plural - I do send my congratulation to the team

No-one ever says they send their congratulation. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a plural noun.