Not all alternate spellings are errors. I was educated in America but now I live in South Africa and have adapted my spellings to the British forms, since I write contracts and business letters for local use. As I have now habituated these spellings, they also show up in my internet writings. "Harbour" is an alternate spelling of "harbor" and is neither incorrect nor a typo.
Spelling was standardized by the invention of the dictionary...before Samuel Johnson, people actually did spell things pretty much however they wanted. This did not deter the creation of great works of literature, but it did require people to be rather attentive to the works they read. Perhaps not such a bad thing, all things considered...
I caught one of these little guys on the bricks around my pool, moments before my dog would have been upon it. Cheeky little bugger bit me on the knuckle, but didn't break the skin. I turned him loose in a climbing vine near the house and never saw him again. Shame...they are soooo cute!
I take issue with the whole "...once people have an annual income of about $10,000 per capita, more money doesn’t go far in making them happy..." idea because it quite obviously doesn't take into account just how much $10,000 can buy in many societies.
This would be a tripling of my maid's present income, for example. Same for my friend Linda, who is a nanny. How much more than tripling your prrsent annual income do you need to be happy, even in America?
$10K may seem like chump change to people who are accustomed to spending $100 for a bag or groceries, but in a country where you can buy a bag of luxury foods from a premium market for $15 (how about a first-rate porterhouse steak for under $2?), that $10K would be a significant uptick in one's economic standing! OF COURSE they'd be happy!
Obviously Tim has never been an hourly wage earner (ya don't work, ya don't get paid) who couldn't find someone to watch rhe children.
What would you have him do, Tim? Stay home and earn no money to buy food and pay rent? Bring them to work and allow them to roam around unsupervised in a dangerous environment? Go on welfare?
Walk in his moccasins for a while before you judge.
I have been to the Fairview winery. Among other things, they produce a wine named "Goats do Roam" (a very bad pun on Cote du Rhone) which features a drawing of the tower on the label. The tower was built to give the goats something to climb, which they do with great abandon.
The goat tower is not a particularly big deal in terms of attracting tourists...none of the local tourist literature I have seen features it. But Paarl (Afrikaans for "Pearl"), along with Franschhoek, is part of the Western Cape's Wine Country, much like California's Napa and Sonoma Valleys, and attracts considerable interest for that reason alone. South African wines are lovely, BTW.
The corporations don't care. For everyone who actually hears about this kind of thing, there are thousands who don't know and, not knowing, will buy.
My husband's sports car was totalled by two dealership mechanics (they were hot-rodding it on rain-wet roads) and the dealer just shrugged it off. He refused to make any kind of restitution. The head of his dealership group told us to get stuffed. The in-country corporate HQ refused to talk to us. The "customer care" organization also refused.
When we got a reporter interested in our story, we were threatened by the dealership with a lawsuit if we persisted in "defaming" them further.
We had to cash in one of our investments in order to buy a new car, and almost nobody knows what that dealership did, so they keep selling and servicing cars with nobody knowing the risk they are taking.
The corporations DO NOT CARE as long as it doesn't impact their bottom line.
His surname is Robocop? That would get me laughing all right...right out the door! (And I am happily married to an absolutely adorable geek of my own.)
Spelling was standardized by the invention of the dictionary...before Samuel Johnson, people actually did spell things pretty much however they wanted. This did not deter the creation of great works of literature, but it did require people to be rather attentive to the works they read. Perhaps not such a bad thing, all things considered...
This would be a tripling of my maid's present income, for example. Same for my friend Linda, who is a nanny. How much more than tripling your prrsent annual income do you need to be happy, even in America?
$10K may seem like chump change to people who are accustomed to spending $100 for a bag or groceries, but in a country where you can buy a bag of luxury foods from a premium market for $15 (how about a first-rate porterhouse steak for under $2?), that $10K would be a significant uptick in one's economic standing! OF COURSE they'd be happy!
What would you have him do, Tim? Stay home and earn no money to buy food and pay rent? Bring them to work and allow them to roam around unsupervised in a dangerous environment? Go on welfare?
Walk in his moccasins for a while before you judge.
The goat tower is not a particularly big deal in terms of attracting tourists...none of the local tourist literature I have seen features it. But Paarl (Afrikaans for "Pearl"), along with Franschhoek, is part of the Western Cape's Wine Country, much like California's Napa and Sonoma Valleys, and attracts considerable interest for that reason alone. South African wines are lovely, BTW.
It reminds me of a dentist's office. Who wants to use the loo or get naked and take a shower in a dentist's office?
GROSS!
My husband's sports car was totalled by two dealership mechanics (they were hot-rodding it on rain-wet roads) and the dealer just shrugged it off. He refused to make any kind of restitution. The head of his dealership group told us to get stuffed. The in-country corporate HQ refused to talk to us. The "customer care" organization also refused.
When we got a reporter interested in our story, we were threatened by the dealership with a lawsuit if we persisted in "defaming" them further.
We had to cash in one of our investments in order to buy a new car, and almost nobody knows what that dealership did, so they keep selling and servicing cars with nobody knowing the risk they are taking.
The corporations DO NOT CARE as long as it doesn't impact their bottom line.