Estate agents and capital letters - just irks me

N79

mostlycheerful wrote: »

N79 : “English tenancy law supports both statutory and common law tenancies with periods of "calendar" months or "lunar" months.”

A lunar month tenancy? Oh yeah? So who does them and when? Can you cite any examples? Or is this archaic or so obscure that hardly anyone ever comes across it? As nearly all residential and commercial tenancies are done with “calendar” months there is no need to keep saying the word redundantly.

Oh I agree that lunar month tenancies are not that common anymore. However, I have seen a number of commercial tenancies with a period of 4 weeks (ie a lunar month) so they do still exist.

The most obvious example of their lingering effect is that LHA payment is based on a lunar month (in arrears).

I'm also not sure that I can agree that "nearly all residential tenancies" are calendar monthly tenancies as a large proportion of tenancies at the bottom end of the market are weekly period tenancy (which leads to a notice period based around lunar months!)

It is also worth noting that all the recent housing acts have used "month" to mean "calendar month" so it could be argued that a calendar month is becoming the default.

However, legally, if you want to be certain to avoid an adverse ruling, there is a need to keep the distinction until such time as the law is changed to make "calendar" month tenancies the norm by default (in the same way that ASTs are now the default type of tenancy, whether specifically declared as such or not).

sonastin

Just because you know that "nearly all residential tenancies" are calendar monthly tenancies, doesn't mean that it is common knowledge. I operate in a world where both lunar month and calendar month are used at different points and I have no experience of renting. Now I know that if I wanted to start renting, I could ask the letting agent whether we are about 12 or 13 months per year but it does simplify things if he puts it in the advert. I mean, I could ask him about how many bedrooms the house has as well, but I'm sure most folks agree that that sort of info should be in the ad!

googler

bryanb wrote: »

Didn't have time to read all your post, but the other type of month is the Lunar month.

I'm sure you've realised by now that you didn't have to quote all of it as well.......

You can hit 'quote', then EDIT the text within the quote marks to include just the relevant bits......

tbs624

googler wrote: »

I'm sure you've realised by now that you didn't have to quote all of it as well.......

You can hit 'quote', then EDIT the text within the quote marks to include just the relevant bits......

Please do - saves us a double dose of the Garrulous One

tbs624

N79 was very patient withan explanation of "lunar month" tenancies.

Most of totally get that if something lies outside the bounds of Mostly Cheerful's personal experience then this must mean that it does not in fact exist

There are, as N79 says, still lunar month tenancies available - hell, some people even have their salary paid on a lunar month basis.

Although RM list this as pcm at the top of the page, presumably through laziness with their template , here's an example of a lunar month tenancy

2nd floor flat here ( note that peppercorn rent on the other one )

Another one here..........

pimento

One of our local agents can't spell the name of the village he's located in and another one can't spell accommodation.

I'm assuming the office junior does the typing.

ericonabike

Intersting thread! Once upon a time, there was no 'Standard English' so that it was impossible to be snooty about it. Comprehension was all, and as long as you could make yourself understood, spelling and grammar were fluid. Chaucer spelt words pretty much at random and used either 'subject, verb. object' or 'object, verb, subject' as he pleased. Yet it's generally accepted he could write a bit. Shakespeare too made words up, adapted them, and used grammar as he saw fit. Yet i's generally accepted he could write a bit too.

For perhaps the last 300 years we've had the pleasure of an 'accepted standard' of English, giving everyone the chance to look down on someone else [believe me, if you think your use of English is perfect, you've got a lot to learn]. I can't resist either, but I do try to get it in perspective. And I agree that Estate Agent English is amongst the more irritating variants!

One final thing on 'Americanisms'. A lot of words that we think of as American were actually exported by us with the Pilgrim Fathers. Many years later, after we've abandoned them, they return to these shores. Take 'gotten' for instance, which every purist instinctively recoils from. Now look at 'misbegotten' to see where it originated...

googler

Off topic, but song titles just don't look right without capitalising. Just finished a Sinatra compil;

Taking a chance on love,
taking a chance on love both look wrong, but

Taking a Chance on Love is the only one that looks 'right' .....

PasturesNew

mostlycheerful wrote: »

One that often irritates me is per calendar month. Well, what other kind of month do you think we might be confusing it with? What, non calendar months? So what are they when they're at home? There's only one kind of month, isn't there, and 4 of them are 30 days, one is 28 days or once every 4 years it's 29 days and the rest are 31 days, aren't they. So why on earth say this redundant word calendar all the time? Duh? The rent is monthly, isn't it, and everyone knows that that means that the number of days varies a bit so there's just no need to say it, is there. But loads of them do, mindlessly, stupidly.

Well, yes, indeed, there are intelligent people and there are thickies and ignorami. There’s proper English and then there’s estuary and Jafaker, sales-talk and journalese, great terms if ever there were.

And the secondary point about honesty : there’s a few people who are honest and moral and have high standards and are accurate but the majority are just plebs and lie and cheat and thieve compulsively all the time. And are sloppy and slapdash. And, yes, reveal how low quality their mentality and behaviour is via their appalling bent self expression.

And coupled with the inanity is the failure of the workers to check their work or use spell checkers. The lack of self awareness is often surprising. If I was a dunce writing advertising copy then I’d be aware of my lackings and do something about it. And get help. I wouldn’t just put out substandard cack. But these days morons and thugs just happily talk low quality rubbish and show off in the most irritating and ridiculous ways and no one curbs their natural vile idiocy.

Indeed, rubbish people are actually encouraged to assert themselves and boorish behaviour is often rewarded. Standards have been slipping for a long time, since, what, about 1930 or even since Roman times, and surprisingly still haven’t hit the floor, every year it just gets worse and worse with no sign of ever coming to a halt. In the 19th century plebeian self expression wasn’t allowed or tolerated. Indeed, a lot of natural vile behaviour was mostly vigorously suppressed. But these days anything goes. So is it better that we are oppressed by standards and our elders and betters or is it better that we are free and so therefore anything goes and so we are instead oppressed by a tidal wave of ignorant filth and ignorant thick people? It’s still oppression so perhaps it’s not much different really. So which would you prefer, oppression from above or oppression from all around you?

Then also part of the problem is that you get the casual lazy amateur bosses with low standards or no standards who fail to supervise work, edit and subedit it and make corrections. So you get an endless stream of crass inanity. But that’s just how the world is so there’s no point getting irritated by it. Most people are stupid and ignorant and it’s a miracle that many of them can read or write at all. And perhaps it’s worth bearing in mind that a lot of people come from underprivileged backgrounds and many people are foreigners and come from totally illiterate backgrounds with little or no encouragement to read or write. So you just have to note their gross failings but not let it get in the way of achieving your ends. However, I tend to immediately refuse to do business with plebs as soon as they demonstrate their inferiority. Often I’d rather just not bother than have to go through the wretched experience of trying to get sense out of thickies and ignorami and liars and thieves.

This appalling rubbish written by estate agents and various other second rate sales twits is similar to the endemic misuse by the populace of words such as literally. And the universal misuse of the word vow by hundreds of thick journalists in the gutter press. Then you also get abominations such as innit and fella and gangsta and solja and such like by the absurd mindless subhuman filth.

However, these days I’ve not only got used to it but I quite like innit and use it frequently, it’s got a quite useful ring about it, innit. It sort of conveys a contrariness, a sort of I can be a thickie pleb as well, you know, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. And it’s quite assertive, quite thuggish. It adds a dash of emphasis which is quite fitting sometimes, innit. Quite annoying as well, innit. Especially when used to excess, innit. Yeah, Gordon Bennett, that’s enough of that, innit. Oh, I just had to slip another one in but I’ll restrain myself with this sentence despite quite a strong impulse to do it yet again.

Yes, I have a sort of tourettes about some words, especially, for instance the c word and the f word which are just so universally satisfying. I like tomato ketchup with nearly everything and in my natural speech a lot of sentences and sentiments are incomplete without some cs and fs to season them. Of course when typing on a forum such as this you have to restrain and edit yourself otherwise you just get deleted or even banned.

Yes, some of these awful wretched sayings are addictive. I used to hate Americanisms such as dude and man and I managed to resist them and others of their ilk for a long time but sadly they somehow got into my subconscious and so I got addicted to both of them a long time ago and so now my discourse is littered with idiotic nastiness such as these dreadful terms.

Yes, take it further and you get American with loads of English words misspelled and misused. And horrible Americanisms. With their awful wretched inferior mentality. Some of my favourites are the obvious ones such as pants and fags. It’s endlessly risible the way Americans talk about people wearing pants. Yeah dude, it’s pants, innit. Kinell. Tell an American that you were walking down the road with a fag in your mouth and they will laugh or give you a funny look. Gawd. Automobiles on the sidewalks. Yer wot, mate? Come again? Wot you on about, geezer? What, cars on the pavement, well, just say that, just use the English language as it is will you, don't just make up stupid words when we've already got plenty of normal ones to use. Oh, alright, language is constantly evolving and there are no governing standards, it's always changing so you just have to go with the flow. Ok.

Except that some people try to take a stand against the rot. Some people sit on the beach and tell the tide not to come in. There's the plain English campaign or whatever it's called. And the French, for instance, have got a bee in their bonnet about Franglais, the inevitable invasion and corruption of their language with bits of English. Apparently they’ve even legislated against it although quite how much effort, if any, that they actually put into nicking people for using foreign words would be interesting to know. Probably not much, surely people have got better things to do with their time and money. And is it only English that they’ve got it in for or do they also try to stop German and Spanish words creeping in. Some of the words are quite choice though. Le anti gang squad is a great one that stuck in my mind. Lists of them are published from time to time and generally make quite amusing reading.

Of course take it yet another step further and you get dialect and pidgin and patois with a spectacular mashing of the English language. What some English people and foreigners can do with English is fantastic. Over the years I’ve had fun on quite a few occasions reading some of their stuff and some of it’s great. Can’t think of any examples off the top of my head. Maybe I’ll look some up in a min and if there’s any worth repeating for a laugh I’ll do another post. Language is quite an interesting subject and there’s often more to say about it.

Know wot ah min? Dya feel me? Literally, innit. Kinell. I vow not to write innit too often. Well, er, maybe.

I do LOVE your input.
You're very amusing.

Have a happy Xmas MC.

PasturesNew

mostlycheerful wrote: »

Some people here have said they like my writing and the other day I got a big compliment from one of the regulars who said that my long pieces are the only ones she reads cos they’re so good.

£1 says that was me