Hello Alan Turing,

Good to see you posting.  However I am concerned that your usually inexhaustible supply of tram pictures may have been depleted for some reason as we’ve already had that one recently in your contribution  here  and I responded with my ever so slightly modified version in  this post.

However, rest assured that insofar as I am concerned you have absolutely no need to post pictures of trams or resort to quotations to establish your credentials as a contributor who should not be idly gainsaid!

Hello A-L,  don’t you think that “Idly gainsaid” is a little like reverse backwards?

Tautology?

Hello Negasman,

You said of your above contribution:

Sorry if it reads like a cheap novel – put it down to my fading writing skills.

Absolutely no problems in that respect I assure you.  However something that I, and I suspect at least one other contributor, would greatly appreciate would be a little paragraphing.  As one’s eyes age large unbroken blocks of text tend to discourage both reading and assimilation.  A little white  space  at appropriate points is a wonderful aid to concentration.

If you prepare your posts in a text editor of some sort and then paste them into the posting box it is sometimes necessary to leave two blank lines rather than one in the original to ensure a blank inter-paragraph line when Tapatalk displays your contributions.

You may be interested to know that my response to dane was backed by personal experience, albeit at second-hand.  When I commenced secondary school age 12 in 1954 I rapidly made friends with a boy who had been a boarder at a small local prep school while his parents were abroad.  Like me he came from the coal mining area of the county, representatives of which were scarce at that school, and we got along very well.

I was a nervous and very well behaved little lad, but my friend was just the opposite and frequently made the close acquaintance of our large and muscular young form master’s size 12 leather soled sandal.  Even one or two whack with this could bring tears to the eyes of those of our other form mates who incurred it but my friend was held in considerable awe by the form because he could take 4 or 6 with complete equanimity.

When pressed as to the reason for his apparent unconcern his response was that when you were used to six of the best on the bare with the cane, a regular punishment at his prep school, the sandal wasn’t too bad at all!

He always said it was to make my bottom muscles relax.  I really don’t think he was over-interested in the view – the same and much more at every swimming lesson.  His intention was to extract every last bit of humiliation, which he expected to improve my ‘attitude to those in aurhority’.  In fact, it achieved precisely the opposite.

I thought this link was worth perusing.

https://www.wellredweekly.com/index.php … 6#comments

Hello Richard,

Tautology indeed!  I am tempted to quote the Humpty Dumpty response! 

But no, I don’t think your criticism is justified.

Idly:

• In an idle manner.
• Without specific purpose, intent or effort.

Gainsay (pp gainsaid):

• To declare false; deny..
• To oppose, especially by contradiction.

The idly is a legitimate and necessary qualifier to the gainsaid in this instance.  It indicates that I am referring to gainsaying someone idly, without a great deal of research or back-up material.  By contrast one could refer to determinedly gainsaid, a full scale hatchet job complete with chapter and verse, links, pictures etc.

Hello A_L, it was more an idle – without specific purpose, intent or effort  –  comment than criticism. I have always admired your excellent use of the English language so far be it from to criticise your efforts. Let’s allow Jerome K. Jerome to have the final word and write my post off as, “the Idle thoughts of an idle fellow.”

Notwithstanding what must be a typo, I think we get WWT’s meaning.

My Housemaster abhorred idleness, often quoting the old proverb that ‘idle hands are the devil’s tools’ and assuming that a boy who appeared to be doing absolutely nothing was in fact concealing some unseen devilment which required investigation and as like as not, a visit to his study where the cane would yield a confession followed by punishment. Any anguished protest that the boy had not done anything wrong was met with his other favourite quotation – the notorious Judge Jeffries when faced with a ne’er-do-well on whom no specific change could be pinned – “He’ll be none the worse for a good hanging”.