Up and down the country, in the supermarkets of this land, are express checkout queues where entrance (and subsequent checkout) is permitted only to those people who have "ten items or less".
This is obviously no good for the interfering nuisances at the Plain English Campaign, who think that this should be stopped.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7590440.stm
"Ten items or less" is clear, and has no ambiguity. So therefore, it must immediately be changed to something else, like "Up To Ten Items" instead.
[The Change] "is easy to understand and avoids any debate," said a spokesman for the notorious hippies and nogoodniks at The Plain English Campaign.
Avoids any debate? I don't think so. "Up to 10 items.." so does that mean that 10 is OK, or can you only have UP TO but not including 10? So 1 item, 2 items, 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 items, all OK.. but ten items.. Is ten items the maximum allowed, or the minimum disallowed? Room for disagreement there.
If only they could introduce some clearer wording which leaves no room for doubt. How about "Ten items or less" ? And the bespectacled geeks who come out of the woodwork and say "Ah, I think you'll find that actually it should read ten items or FEWER" can go back to their empty lives and their collection of leather-bound dictionaries which are the closest they will ever get to sleeping with an actual woman.
Just so long as I'm not saying anything controversial, right?
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