No Longer Fit For Purpose?

[choux]

If applied here, would the guidance issued to his staff by Jacob Rees-Mogg rule you out of posting?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7290591/Jacob-Rees-Mogg-BANS-staff-using-got-equal-new-Leader-Commons-office.html

[ichkeria]

Reed Mogg on his way to his new office

https://giphy.com/gifs/monty-python-john-cleese-the-ministry-of-silly-walks-TVupcr33Jpg7C

[anneasquith]

LOL @ icy.

[Davemano]

He is simply setting a standard of professionalism, something which the reporters of The Mail are lacking in.

[pixie374]

He has always been a dinosaur at best. Just amazed he still has a job.

[Peter Pedant]

o god dammit

if the MP for the eighteenth century is gonna turn da clock back then it really should be correct

esq is used an address - sqad esq MB FRCS etc
and Mr is used as a reference Mr Sqad.

Dear SO and so
I met Mr Sqad in the corridor/bog/gin palace....

Jacov might at least have got it right

[Peter Pedant]

// He is simply setting a standard of professionalism, //

no he is making up instant tradition and saying it is old stuff really ( he knows you know)

[Prudie]

Well good for him, at least he has principles even if I don't agree with all of them. We need to keep some old school along with this modern young rabble. He's a fascinating character.

[tonyav]

He comes over like a Charles Dickens character to me ( he even has a Dickensian type name ).

[albaqwerty]

can you imagine someone rushing into his office and shouting (one strike) I've gotten an idea (strike 2 and 3)
no-one will never know what the idea was :-))

[Peter Pedant]

no he wants to lay out his stall so that instead of

The PM has given that moll one - you know the trollop - the one the tax payer bought the bed hur hur hur for. God teh squawking at night ! Lucky, the occupants of no 11 (next door readers !) know him and his dirty habits and didnt ring the police but did video it instead....

into

Our blessed and blest PM Mr Johnson, well known in Whitehall and environs, is expecting his third child. 'It' (*) will arrive in late March 2020, the blushing mother Miss Plonketty later commented ....

(*) children were never identified by gender until the mid 20th century, a habit Boris the Beater said we should go back to pronto ....

[Peter Pedant]

// ( he even has a Dickensian type name ).//

yeah like that awful Steerforth in David Copperfield who ruined Rosa Dartle(*) and ended up drownded ....

(*) yeah baby involved

[choux]

Davemano, other newspapers are available:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/26/the-comma-touch-jacob-rees-mogg-sends-language-rules-to-staff

[Peter Pedant]

that my little shoo-shoo has said it is proof enough for me

[Cloverjo]

Ridiculously old-fashioned. Who uses Esq nowadays?

[Prudie]

I do occasionally, depending on who I'm writing to.

[Cloverjo]

However, I agree with him on some things. ‘Due to’ should almost always be ‘owing to’; ‘yourself’ as in ‘I’d like to bring this to the attention of yourself’ is horribly wrong.

So, ok let him have his way on Esq.

[Peter Pedant]

yeah envelopes
if its not a gurl that is !
and dont forget the thruppence stamp !

[albaqwerty]

Clover, probably the same type of person who addresses the envelope of greetings card to one's 6 year old nephew as 'Master' :-)

[pixie374]

Well, yes, albs :-)
If he chooses to do that himself, fine.... but to make it a rule for others?

[albaqwerty]

well, Pixie, one has standards to maintain and not get riled about things DUE to others who don't get it :-)

I can't complain about him calling a son Sixtus when I've found a Septimus in my ancestry search lol x