December 08, 2003

QE2 4 JW

Posted by Brian

Normally thinking about either the monarchy or the English rugby team makes me nauseous, but I thought this story was quite amusing.

Scrum-half Matt Dawson revealed that the players had first learned of the invitation as a result of a text the queen sent to her grandson Prince Harry just minutes after Wilkinson’s drop goal clinched their final victory over Australia. Dawson told BBC Radio: “It was quite funny how we found out about it. Harry told us, ‘I’ve just got a text from my nan and she wants to give you a party’.”

By the way, I think if the ‘rules’ for punctuation made any sense there’d be an extra full stop at the end of the last sentence.

Posted on December 8, 2003 05:43 PM UTC
Comments

Actually, wouldn’t there be two more full stops in a logical representation? Since Henry uttered a complete sentence, it should have its own full stop. Then comes Dawson’s full stop. And then the reporter’s full stop. So, we would have:

… she wants to give you a party.’.”.

Maybe, the rules of punctuation that make that sequence a little shorter do make some sort of sense. :)

Posted by Kai von Fintel · December 8, 2003 06:21 PM

Right - unless Harry said something like “she wants to give you a party when you get back.”. I agree those strings look awkward, but the punctuation there could, in principle, so there’s a trade-off between aesthetics and expressive power. I favour more expressive power here, but that could just be me.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · December 8, 2003 07:11 PM

Nice to see that HM is up-to-date with the technology. Probably the only way she can get the grandkids to talk to her….

Posted by Thlayli · December 8, 2003 07:19 PM

alternatively, the punctuation could be to have the full stop, then the closing single inverted comma, then the closing double inverted comma: that way, a single full stop does threefold duty — for Harry, for Dawson and for the reporter. Anyhow, whatever the rights and wrongs of the punctuation, the story’s a good one.

Posted by David Mackinder · December 8, 2003 08:41 PM

If the Queen of England can text message, then by golly why can’t I get my dear Mother to email and chat?

I told the best way to keep in touch with the grandkids is to chat, but she’ll have none of it.

Posted by Tripp · December 8, 2003 09:14 PM

No, it’s definitely still nauseous-making.

Posted by Matthew · December 8, 2003 09:48 PM

For another take on the punctuation question, see the footnote to this recent entry by Ben Bagley.

My comment, towards the bottom, echoes Brian’s recognition of the trade-off but takes the opposite position.

Posted by Danny · December 8, 2003 10:14 PM

Tripp: if the lure of more photos emailed on a regular basis doesn’t get your mom online, try setting her up with video-internet-phone conferencing. Chat requires typing, and in effect learning slang, and newbies hate both of those. But all my son’s grandparents have become real devotees of those frequent adorable photos. (video is the holiday present.)

Posted by sue · December 9, 2003 01:02 AM

Brian — you, nauseous? Never! Nauseated, perhaps, but even in extremis, never nauseous.

Posted by SqueakyRat · December 9, 2003 08:14 AM

I OTOH am extremely fond of the England rugby team. They beat the crap out of Australia. Tasty.

Posted by John Isbell · December 10, 2003 12:45 AM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.