Di-ve (Gaffe Incorporated) have pounced upon the opportunity of reporting the Queen's visit to display their wonderful repertoire of English as it is written. It appears that the Queen was given an "Exceedingly Warm Welcome". Exceeding what exactly? Warmer than a ftira (Maltese bread) but cooler than a hot iron? It's English Your Majesty... much as we speak it....
From di-ve.com's special CHOGM page:
Exceedingly warm welcome to the Queen
November 24 2005 1330 CET
The Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh received an exceedingly warm welcome at the Cottonera Sports complex this morning, when they met some 2,500 children who convened for the official celebrations to mark Children’s Day 2005.
13 commentaires:
You should thank di-ve for providing a largish chunk of the GoogleNews "results" you mentioned earlier, rather than lambasting them for their poor English...
bassu... the first six (6) pages of the results did not include any di-ve reports... I would have kept on turning but I do not feel like!
Besides... most of the references to CHOGM turn out to be australian mullings over using CHOGM as a lobby forum to lobby against a judgement in Singapore condemning an Australian citizen to death.
No media coverage = no boost in tourism derived from that Lm 2.5m budget, as promised
Ah and there was this too about the CHOGM in Oz. At least Malta set up a spanking new "state-of-the-art" media centeR...
COOLUM, Australia (CNN) -- There's a cruel joke doing the rounds of the barn-like media center at this year's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
It goes: Question: What does CHOGM stand for? Answer: Coolum Holiday on Government Money.
While that seems a pretty harsh assessment of the event, so far a considerable amount of effort at Coolum seems to have gone into the Commonwealth justifying its existence.
Hmmm...
Re The Commonwealth
taken from a biography of Her Majesty;
"perhaps the Commonwealth's greatest achievement is that this entirely voluntary organization has survived"
(pg 221, Her Majesty - Fifty Regal Years)
Re Di-ve
http://gallery.di-ve.com/Arrival_at_the_airport/slides/QE2_23112005_02.html
The British High Commissioners surname is Fean and not Fein
Okay I've looked at the sentence from all angles... what the heck is wrong with it? What are you trying to say? "Exceedingly warm welcome" may not be how I'd put it, but it's still perfectly acceptable, much as it pains me to have to jump to Di-ve's defence...
So, Zemploid and wwwitchie are both aware of the meaning of "exceedingly". In fact the Zemp was kind enough to give us a parallel example "Ridiculously long". What I was, and still am, criticising is the choice of descriptor. "Exceedingly" implies "more than is necessary".
So if, insofar as grammatical form I never had any doubt that Gaffe Inc (both of you) are correct, I tend to disagree that the meaning conveyed is the right one. It is very much like the common misconception on the use of "notorious"... di-ve has done it once or twice.
Lorna's and di-ves of this world tend to make mistakes falling in this category. It is not the grammar that is wrong in this case, but the choice of words used to convey a meaning. It is our "English as it is spoken".
A false stick, I would say. :)
and therefore, no... it is not perfectly acceptable.
unless you aspire to work for di-ve of course.
Bongu nies.
"An exceedingly warm welcome" means that the welcome was warmer than necessary. Despite the English tendency to use "exceedingly" as a synonym for "exceptionally, greatly, hugely" and other emphatic adverbs, the people at Oghdos have (no doubt unconsciously) made a point: the parafernalia is exaggerated.
Thanks antoine... zemp and sharon can compare the di-ve header to:
Times: "Enthusiastic Welcome for the Queen"
Indy: "Kid's bring the house down for Queen's Visit"
you see....
Can't resist muscling my way into this debate, but dive and Jacques are both correct. Considering the global status of the Royal Family these days, the welcome given to the Queen WAS warmer than necessary...
oooh i had forgotten about this... imma insomma jacques, how the heck do you know what they "meant" to say?
in this case, after reading all the comments left on this post, i think i agree with raphael *grin*
what i would now love to know is how you expats explained to people why we make such a fuss of the queen... i must admit i got a bit stuck!
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