User talk:Pfgpowell

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[edit] Blossom's or Blossoms's?

Hello, Pfgpowell. If you find it important to include the bit about the defunct shop, it would be appreciated if you would:

• specify whether the place was called "Blossoms's" (plural) or "Blossom's" (singular),
• make some effort to form complete sentences, and
• omit statements of personal sentiment.

This is an encyclopedia article, and should not read like a memoir, blog, letter home, etc. You may want to consult What Wikipedia is not. -- Rob C. alias Alarob 17:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Saw your email. I encourage you to correct the errors you've identified. If you know of a published source (a "reliable source") about the OS, it would be good to consult in case a dispute should erupt with other editors over facts about the school. Cheers. -- Rob C. alias Alarob 16:30, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I haven't a clue whether it was 'Blossom's', 'Blossoms' or 'Blossom. After all the name was a semi-satirical one and its origins are simply lost in time. And it'not as though - as has in the past been rather embarrassingly demonstrated - Wikipedia is universal byword for accuracy. If anything it has rather blotted its copybook by carrying very weorng accounts or very biased accounts. Bugger its intentions and 'mission' we Brits pay more heed to what is being achieevd and how. So a little less bragging might not go amiss. And if I might say so without upsetting to many egos, the query (which I have only now spotted, over a year or two later) is rather typical of a somewhat - dare I say American - po-faced attitude. For example, my initial additions were first deleted and then, once re-submitted, edited by some prat in the Midwest who had NEVER attended the OS (as we called it) and, I should imagine had never before heard of the school before interfering with my contribution. Just what made him think he was qualified to comment on something of which he knew nothing I do not know. But then that's the American way. For the record, much of the info on the OS page is half right, some quite wrong. For example (and as I was there from 1963 to 1968 but as things change I stand to be corrected) a 'quarter-of-an-hour was the standard punishment - I never heard it referred to as a 'quarterly' - and not half-an-hour, which was a more serious punishment and thus rarer. Boys could get a quarter of an hour for having their jacket undoen if they were not entitkled to or havign their hands in their pocks. 'Center' is the American spelling but as this was an English public school the spelling should correctly be 'Centre'. For some odd reason the reference to 'gating' has been removed. Why exactly?. If you got six or more quarter of an hours in one week, you were 'gated' i.e. restricted to the school boundaries for a week and obliged to report to the duty master/prefect regularly. As far as I know this is still the case. 'Skiving' is a national English word for avoiding work, not one restricted to the OS. When I was there, every second-year (not thrid-year) pupil was a 'brat', assigned to a prefect for whom he did jobs (other schools called them 'fags'). We weren't caned but 'beaten'. Finally, yes, the emphasis in 'refectory' was on the first syllable, but far more importantly the word was pronounced (and this is a phonetic rendition) 're-fer-tree', something I do to this day. So please stop trying to boss the world around. And please get it right. pfgpowell PS If anything, being an old boy who attended the OS for five years, I am a more 'reliable source' than any prat in the Midest.