Why do people work part time ? I've never understood it...

[mozhe]

I never have, but lots of colleagues in NHS did....you end up doing 3/4 of the work for 1/2 the salary, and get passed over in the promotion stakes...And have you noticed that it's nearly always women who do this ? Why ? I actively discourage junior staff from doing this but lots seem to....

I retract my former kids statement and will henceforth refer to my offspring as the fruit of my loins

Actually the term 'the quality' is entirely apposite and correct. It is a fairly well known phrase meaning people of high social status, which is associated with a Victorian, cap-doffing mentality and so is used here in an ironic way.
It is also, btw, perfectly correct to say 'quality meat' or 'quality shoes', meaning they are excellent.

It still sounds very wrong to me. What about poor quality? Quality just means the qualities someone has - someone might be wicked or good. How can quality mean good quality? I realise it's become used as that by some people but it still makes me cringe.

I'm getting some good laughs from this thread at long last!

I'm imagining you, Xenia, as a cross between Anne Qiddicomnbe ('Burn all women who aren't as unhappy as me!') and and David Walliams dressed up in a Little Bo Beep bonnet ('Please don't use that language around me - I'm a laaaaaaayyyy-deeeeee').

Come on, crack a smile. You've got loads to be happy about. For starters, you've got a job that allows you to be on MN full-time (not just part time like me boo hoo). That's gotta be something worth celebrating.

*Widdicombe, obviously

Quality is a word that has several meanings, not just one. 'The quality', the phrase you picked up on and mistakenly thought was wrong, is a short form of 'people of quality'.
The meaning of quality in 'the quality of mercy is not strained' is different to the meaning of quality in 'Quality shoe repairs'. But both are correct.

Now I understand about Quality Street! The sweets! With all the posh Victorian people on the tin!

Yes, exactly!

Cor stone the crows guv, I wouldn't want to say a filfy word like 'kids' in front of the quality, no ma'am etc etc

pmsl@tinymum !

Actually there is a book called Quality Street by JM Barrie

Is it about chocolate?

No, it's a play, a romance.

Oh, well I've learned something today. I will look for that...didn't he write Peter Pan?

I love that phrase "the Quality"

Quality meat etc. is correct usage of the word. What I really hate since we're on it, is "comes from selected farms"

Well what the f*k other farms would it come from? Unselected, random ones that the buyer just happened to be driving past that day?

Gets my pedantometer going every single time

I think they've used the wrong word. Perhaps they meant to use 'select'? Pig farmers aren't generally very bright (or so Xenia tells me).

LOL at Xenia recoiling in horror from her keyboard on seeing the word kids

Fabulous image

Oh no it's not kids is it, it's mums

I have to say I'm sort of with her on that one

(Have trained myself not to recoil though)

Xenia shudders in middle-class horror at "kids" and "mums"... but she uses "toilet"...

Oh now toilet I do recoil at

Yup, toilet is awful

Surely only a common street urchin would use anything other than 'cloakroom'?

loo? lavatory?

'Loo' is ok, I suppose, in an aunty-ish sort of way ("Ooh , you must excuse me, I just need to use the stage whisper loo..."

Lavatory sounds very pre-WW2.

WE've done this one before. Loo is posh, toilet is common. Not that it matters.