Have M&S got fewer standards than they used to?

I went to Chester at the weekend and saw this remarkable sight:

What’s going on there then? What’s the situation in Doncaster M&S? What about the supermarkets/shops that you use or work in?

There’s plenty of online discussions of this issue, which is a favourite of the prescriptivist brigade.

What about the grammatical status of the title of this post?

This entry was posted in Attitudes to Language, ENB2 - Language and Occupation, ENB6 - Language Change, Grammar. Bookmark the permalink.

4 Responses to Have M&S got fewer standards than they used to?

  1. yr 13 combined class says:

    an easy way to solve this debate – don’t shop at marks n spencer or just don’t by less than 5 items!it’s not rocket science!ya get me?!

  2. Mr Heald says:

    Sharp as a tack, as always, Mr Matthews!

    Now how about really impressing me by showing what grammatical issues might be raised with regard to the title of the post?

  3. Mr Heald says:

    Hrumph. No-one ever did spot the ‘have/has’, ‘it/they’ dichotomy (actually not strictly a dichotomy at all; dilemma maybe?), or question whether there should perhaps be a ‘do’ at the end.

  4. rliberni says:

    Hedging their bets against the Mr We-were-educated-properly from Tunbridge Wells no doubt! I hate the use of less with countable nouns but fewer is more cumbersome to say and write so I suppose it has to go!!

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