Tesco is to change the wording of signs on its fast-track checkouts to avoid any linguistic dispute.

The supermarket giant is to replace its current “10 items or less” notices with signs saying “Up to 10 items”.

Tesco’s move follows uncertainty over whether the current notices should use “fewer” instead of “less”.

(source)

Whilst ‘10 items or fewer’ is more linguistically correct than ‘10 items or less’, ‘up to 10 items’ does not just ‘clarify’ the meaning (who was unclear?) it actually changes the meaning.

‘10 items or fewer/less’ implies the number of items can be 10. ‘Up to 10 items’ implies that anything from 1 to 9 is okay, but 10 is too many.

With the change, it’s possible that jobsworths on the till might have a resurgence. I hope not! I haven’t had one of those in some time.

All this is just fussing round the edges - appealing to the grammar pedants. I’d much prefer it if Tesco could sort out its pricing policy, that’d be a useful change.

Amitabh Bachchan un acteur indien a gagné la Legion d’honneur. Bachchan ‘est une véritable légende vivante dans son pays avec quelque 140 films à son actif’. Aussi, Bachchan était le presenteur de कौन बनेगा करोड़पति - Kaun Banega Crorepati. C’est le versionne indien du ‘Qui veut gagner des millions?’

Amitabh Bachchan, an Indian actor has won the Legion of Honour. Bachchan is a veritable living legend in his country with some 140 films to his credit. Also, Bachchan was the presenter of कौन बनेगा करोड़पति - Kaun Banega Crorepati. This is the Indian version of ‘Who wants to be a millionaire?‘

(If there are errors in the French or Hindi, please let me know).

I’ve just got back my results for TMA number 4, for my French course, L120.

It’s 70%, making my average 77%.

Miraculous really, all things considered.

I got the result in the mail, but it has yet to appear on my student page. I entered it into the predictor to get the above score.

TMA 4 is in the bag, and just needs delivering to the tutor. The deadline is tomorrow, so I am currently trying to establish whether I should post it (and be overdue by a couple of days), or hand-deliver it (this’d take several hours).

It’s done. Crikey.

Massively late, (cut-off date tomorrow), I sit down to do my final TMA for L120 (French Open University course). I’m so far behind it’s unbelievable. I want to take a deferment, but if I understand it, this means paying for virtually the whole course again - I may as well see if I can get through and then resit if needed.

I really don’t like this one little bit. If I do get through I’ll have the points, but won’t feel like I’ve learned much - which rather defeats the object of the exercise. If I don’t get through, then I’ll feel I’ll have wasted the time. It’s a lose-lose proposition.

Still, I’ll get the TMA in (even if I have to hand-deliver it), and then will have to think about the following ECA.