Apparently I'm a pedantic old git.

When does fatherly concern change to whinging ?

   Last evening my beloved daughter (allegedly) was busily regaling us with the intrigues and gossip from the cesspit that is her life at the stables. Most of it I ignored since the heinous acts of female malevolence are far too awful for my delicate ears - and I've been to war. Yet it was as I heard one sentence emanating from my chattering offspring that my attention was finally drawn.

   After she got to the part: (proudly displaying her limitless reach of gramma) "she had a myriad of.." etc etc when I politely stopped her to say that the " a" before myriad and the "of" after were redundant.


   'You're always whining about the way I talk,' she said moodily, 'and when I try to talk proper all you can do is moan!' (Yes she does speak in italics when she's angry.)


   'It's not that,' I tried to interject, 'but you said you didn't want to talk like a chav. All I'm doing is trying to help you. People will judge you by the way you speak, so if you get it right when it doesn't matter, you'll do it fluently when it does.

   'Well I don't care, and furthermore, father dear,' she said in that voice which promised death and mutilation were I foolish enough to sleep ever again, 'stop being so pedantic you old git!'

  My wife busily absorbing the crucial elements of another soap and clearly the most important thing in the universe, waved us both to silence. That carving knife was nearby so I held my yap.

   'Mum. Dad hates me and wishes I was dead.' 

   I think we've been here before.