http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4246472.stm

19 for me: hangs head in shame…

16. Feeling uber retarded now.

19 Also, but a few were fluked.

20 for me (he boasted) and no flukes I tell you

20, because none of you can check my answer’s

(ye’s, I know)

21 as I also can’t count.

20/20 but I disagree with Ostentatious meaning Pretensious

20 for me too, and ostentatious does mean pretentious in a way although there are certainly subtle differences. But that’s why we have 2 words.

Snigle
:o)

19, but I still think an exclamation mark would help more than a hyphen.

WCA, agreed re ostentatious
also depends how many Janes live at the house, I think

17 mostly because I disagreed on ‘Ostentatious’ and the exclamation mark question.

If I’d found my brother who had been lost I think I would be exclaiming!

So, did you reckon it meant one of the other options?

I can’t spell “acomodattioon”.

😕

20/20!

Eagle-eyed visitors to our website may note that I’ve only recently learnt to spell “accommodation” though. Was stoked when that one came up!

its not a bloody hyphen its an exclamation……19/20

I’m the lowest scorer here (can’t speel for toffee) but it was definitely a hyphen. An exclamation mark would be optional, but it had to be ‘long-lost’.

17. I knew it was a metaphor really, I just wasn’t sure what alliterashen meant.

“Long lost” would have meant that her brother was long, and lost. So yes, I suppose that might warrant an exclamation mark but the true use of the exclamation mark is to denote a raised tone rather than it’s modern guise as the literary equivalent of laughing at ones own jokes.
“Long-lost” links the 2 words and is the difference between the sentence making sense and it not making sense.

19 – but again I disagree with their definition of ostentatious.

I’m the lowest scorer here
I don’t know about that i got 12 but i am dyslexic but slowly inproving my understanding of the english language

Ostentatious: Adjective.
Characterised by vulgar or pretentious display; designed to impress or attract notice.
1. Bikes that people buy and display ostentatiously but never actually ride
2. The brainless moron ostentatiously converted his perfectly sensible bike to run just one single gear!

Snigle
;o)

Both more or less mean unwarranted claims to distinction. I’d be happy swapping them in most uses.

20. one was a guess though

17/20

I also disagree with ostentatious=pretentious, none of the options (humble,excited,tasteful,pretentious) were correct IMO, ostentatious meaning ‘intending to attract attention’

And 2 of the sentences were plain wrong:

“Was the film good,” asked Peter

– the comma should go AFTER the closing quotes, as it’s not part of the quote and serves to separate the quote from the rest of the sentence

and I disagree about long-lost too, it’s such common usage few are likely to think it means someone long, and the use of ‘long’ to describe a person is archaic

But also, I think these silly trifles are dancing on the head of a pin

18/20 for me.

Necessary and accommodation got me, too. I have a total blind spot for double letters in words.

“the comma should go AFTER the closing quotes, as it’s not part of the quote and serves to separate the quote from the rest of the sentence”, said Simon.

“No, it shouldn’t,” said Mike.

“No, it shouldn’t,” said Mike.

well, it appears I have been doing it wrong these last 45 years 🙂 But I think the form is wrong, as the comma is not part of the quote, and vanishes if any other punctuation is used. One could argue that the closing quote is sufficient.

Thinking of dictation, if I put:
“I think this is wrong” Simon interjected, “and I’m not doing it!”. What I was saying did not have a pause and need a comma:
“I think this is wrong and I’m not doing it!”

Oh and Mike’s example need a full stop or exclamation mark, not a comma 🙂

Pretentious means showing pretence i.e. pretending to be something you’re not. Ostentatious means showing off what you’ve got.

In any case, it was the most appropriate one, and I got 20/20. Easily too, that was a well easy test.

Simon, if a question mark should go inside the speech marks, so too should any other punctuation mark relating to the spoken sentence.

20 – but I had to use old spelling rhymes to get those right…

Never
Eat
Cheese
Eat
Salmon
Sandwiches
And
Runny
Yolks

“I think this is wrong” Simon interjected, “and I’m not doing it!”. What I was saying did not have a pause and need a comma:
“I think this is wrong and I’m not doing it!”

Bad writing. Don’t put the “Simon interjected” in the middle.

Oh and Mike’s example need a full stop or exclamation mark, not a comma

It has a full stop, at the end of the sentence. No exclamation mark, because nothing was exclaimed. Unless you mean’t:

“No! It shouldn’t,” said mike.

But, I would never say it like that.

It has a full stop, at the end of the sentence.

but there are TWO sentences!
1: No it shouldn’t [punctuation mark of choice] (and if you contradict someone you usually use emphasis unless you are a robot)
2: <quotation> said Mike.

“No, it shouldn’t,” said Mike.

The quoted sentence stands for itself, and could have happened at a different time

20

jury’s out on ostentatious, I just made the assumption they wouldn’t make the answer one of the other 3
(applied cheating really)

Got all the spelling ones correct, which for me is unbelievable!

11 for me, did not have a clue with the first few tbh, I am so thick when it comes to English.

😉

Ok Simon, find me a book which has a full stop before the quotation marks when there’s some more text following it…

Ok Simon, find me a book which has a full stop before the quotation marks when there’s some more text following it…

You may well be right, but I think the usage is wrong! These things are not carved in stone, they arise for reasons, and are sometimes set aside. For instance, both Jane Austen and Lewis Carrol use an exclamation mark in the middle of a sentence, followed by a lower case initialled word. This doesn’t seem to be done any longer

eg: “Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking- glass House! I’m sure it’s got, oh! such beautiful things in it!”

18, losing out on spelling. 🙁 However, aside from the fact that I’m starting a sentence with a conjunction, which is bad style, I’ll console myself with knowing the difference between ‘discreet’ and ‘discrete’; ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ and my personal bugbear, ‘averse’ and ‘adverse’. *feels smug*

However, aside from the fact that I’m starting a sentence with a conjunction, which is bad style

But I do it all the time 🙂 A myth, IMO.

20/20 but the last question was also missing a comma.

I just found this here:

Finally, there remains the problem of whether to put other punctuation marks inside or outside the quotation marks. There are two schools of thought on this, which I shall call the logical view and the conventional view.

The logical view holds that the only punctuation marks which should be placed inside the quotation marks are those that form part of the quotation, while all others should be placed outside. The conventional view, in contrast, insists on placing most other punctuation marks inside a closing quote, regardless of whether they form part of the quotation. Here are two sentences punctuated according to the logical view:

“The only thing we have to fear”, said Franklin Roosevelt, “is fear itself.”
The Prime Minister condemned what he called “simple-minded solutions”.

And here they are punctuated according to the conventional view:

“The only thing we have to fear,” said Franklin Roosevelt, “is fear itself.”
The Prime Minister condemned what he called “simple-minded solutions.”

Note the placing of the comma after fear in the first example and of the final full stop in the second. These are not part of their quotations, and so the logical view places them outside the quote marks, while the conventional view places them inside, on the theory that a closing quote should always follow another punctuation mark.

Which view should we prefer? I certainly prefer the logical view, and, in a perfect world, I would simply advise you to stick to this view. However, it is a fact that very many people have been taught the conventional view and adhere to it rigorously. Many of these people occupy influential positions ‹ for example, quite a few of them are copy-editors for major publishers. Consequently, if you try to adhere to the logical view, you are likely to encounter a good deal of resistance. The linguist Geoff Pullum, a fervent advocate of the logical view, once got so angry at copy-editors who insisted on reshuffling his carefully placed punctuation that he wrote an article called `Punctuation and human freedom’ (Pullum 1984). Here is one of his examples, first with logical punctuation:

Shakespeare’s play Richard III contains the line “Now is the winter of our discontent”.

This is true. Now try it with conventional punctuation:

Shakespeare’s play Richard III contains the line “Now is the winter of our discontent.”

This is strictly false, since the line in question is only the first of two lines making up a complete sentence, and hence does not end in a full stop, as apparently suggested by the conventional punctuation:

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York.

The same point arises in the General Sedgwick example:

General Sedgwick’s last words to his worried staff were “Don’t worry, boys; they couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist‹”.

Here, putting the full stop inside the closing quotes, as required by the conventionalists, would produce an idiotic result, since the whole point of the quotation is that the lamented general didn’t live long enough to finish it.

You may follow your own preference in this matter, so long as you are consistent. If you opt for logical punctuation, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are on the side of the angels, but you should also expect some grim opposition from the other side.

19/20. Also went for the elimination process on ostentatious as not convinced I would use those definitions. Crashed on the hyphen/exclamation mark, but that was me being dumb.