I'm a pedant when it comes to grammar.

I received this in an email today, and being so pedantic about grammar (thanks to my mother!) I laughed out loud at this one....



Here's a good story.

Proper grammar

On my birthday, I got a gift certificate from my wife..

The certificate paid for a visit to a witch doctor living on a nearby reservation who was rumored to have a wonderful cure for erectile dysfunction. After being persuaded, I drove to the reservation, handed my ticket to the witch doctor, and wondered what I was in for.

The old man slowly, methodically produced a potion, handed it to me, and with a grip on my shoulder, warned, 'Mmmm, This powerful medicine and must be respected. You take one teaspoonful and say '1-2-3 'When you do that, you become more manly than you ever been in many moons and you perform as long as want.'

I was encouraged. As he walked away, I turned and asked, 'How do I stop the medicine from working? '

'Your partner say '1-2-3-4,' he responded. 'But when she do that, medicine not work again until next full moon.'

I was eager to see if it worked. I went home, showered, shaved, took a spoonful of the medicine, and then invited my wife to join me in the bedroom. When she came in, I took off my clothes and said, '1-2-3!'

Immediately, I was the manliest of men. My wife was excited and began throwing off her clothes. And then she asked, 'What was the 1-2-3 for?'

And that, boys and girls, is why we should never end our sentence with a preposition.

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Crash of Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 at Amsterdam - the media

I really hate the media fueled frenzy over accidents in the aviation business. I read on one blog that fuel starvation was the reason, which is clearly not true. I read that Turkish Airlines were accused of poor maintenance, why? Because the day before the crash they fixed a faulty master caution light.

I have read that the auto-throttles had gone into retard mode, and that the captain's radar altimeter had suddenly under-read. That could be part of the cause. However, it's all just speculation.

Wouldn't it be nice to expect accident investigation authorities to produce an authoritative report, free of political pressures, free of fears of litigation, and accurate. However the sceptic in me knows that the reports are slow to arrive, are often driven by political agendas of many kinds, and so rarely do anything to prevent similar accidents in the future.

It's so easy to simply say, "pilot error" and be done with it.

It's so easy to blame everyone and anyone.

It's so sad that in the end - all aircraft accidents are preventable. All it would take would be one break in the usual chain of events that lead to the mishap to prevent it. If the above speculation is true, the pressing of one button and flying the aircraft by hand would have prevented this particular tragedy. Too much reliance on technology, autopilots, auto-throttles, GPS or inertial navigation systems.. etc., have caused accidents and will continue to do so. Is it laziness? Is it a lack of attention?

Let's get back to basics, pilots, and for heaven's sake fly the aircraft!

See also Buffalo's accident! They didn't fly the aircraft!

Cheers