UKHamlet's Blog

Why has “yours” in the phrase: “yours is no disgrace” no apostophe? After all, it’s possessive. In fact “yours” is the second person possessive pronoun – it replaces “your” plus a noun. The reason some people think it might need an apostrophe is virtually every other word, ‘s indicates possession, so English speakers sometimes think yours should be spelled your’s. However, this is always incorrect – yours is the only correct spelling.

It is perfectly permissable to punch someone in the face if they’re found writing “your’s” and if they add an “e” on the end as in “your’se” you can kill their entire family. I hope that sorts out that little quandary. Next week, we’re going to learn to use “I”, “me” and “you” instead of “myself” and “yourself”, plus we’ll have a general discussion of the argot of the call centre generation and why a split infinitive could mean a split lip.

Lovely bones

I’m not thin. In fact I’m what some would call a BHB – big handsome bloke. That doesn’t include me, because I don’t like being big. My bigness is more to do with genetics than diet – I eat moderately and do a certain amount of exercise, including visting the gym twice a week. Still, I can’t shed those midriff pounds.

The reason for this is I convert more of my calories to fat than thin people – it’s a simple fact. The equation is easy to understand (even for skinny people) – everyone has a daily calorie burn off rate and it varies from day to day and person to person – if you consume more calories than you burn off, you will get fatter. FACT.

So, I could eat exactly the same number of calories and do exactly the same amount of exercise as a naturally skinny person, but I would burn fewer calories, therefore put on more weight, or lose less. This, of course, is a simplification, but it is in the area of accuracy and for the purposes of this article, it will suffice.

The thing is, I’m not complaining about the unfairness of this, or desirablility of being skinny, or even making excuses about my own inability to lose weight. No, I’m complaining about the sage like posturing of naturally skinny people, who want to tell me how to join their ranks. Why? Because they don’t know. They are there, they have always been there and they have no idea why or how I’m going to make that journey.

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