Only connect: hoi polloi, Dracula, the Reichstag, kudos . . .
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Your support makes all the difference.TEN PLURAL nouns that you never see used in the singular:
Stigmata
Media
Trivia
Minutiae
Odds and sods
Et cetera
Confetti
Impedimenta
Hoi polloi
Fauna
Ten examples of ways in which, even in this decadent age, we still trust each other:
The way we leave our photos unguarded in the little slot outside passport photo machines and come back later to collect them.
The way we assume that no one else will consume our pre-ordered interval drinks at the theatre before we get there.
The way we leave our seats empty on the train while we go to the buffet, not to mention abandoning all our personal belongings, too.
The way restaurants don't mind leaving bags of prepared and pre- chipped potatoes outside their premises for hours on end.
The way we leave our milk outside our own homes.
The way we allow someone to put our names and numbers in the phone book.
The way we assume that the car coming the other way will not run into us.
The way we ask strangers to tell us the time, the way, etc.
The way we pay supermarket bills without ever checking the addition.
The way we assume that food served in a restaurant has also been cooked in that same restaurant.
Ten film titles that are also complete sentences:
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
The Lady Vanishes
Some Like It Hot
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?
Meet Me In St Louis
Shoot The Pianist
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
I Was A Refugee From A Chain Gang
The Sun Also Rises
Ten words in English that are generally avoided because they may be mistaken for similar words:
Sects
Cents
Relicts
Facts
Coccyx
Euphuistic
Diuretic
Pharynx
Uranus
Doge
Ten one-hit wonder authors (try naming any other book by them, apart from the one in brackets):
Edward Gibbon (The History Of The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire)
Somerville and Ross (Irish RM etc)
George and Weedon Grossmith (The Diary Of A Nobody)
Dr Johnson (his dictionary)
Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind)
Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales)
Marcel Proust (A La Recherche du Temps Perdu)
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (Les Liaisons Dangereuses)
Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)
Bram Stoker (Dracula)
Ten nouns the British are never quite sure are singular or plural:
Data
Agenda
Innings
Series
Kudos
Spaghetti
The Government
The media
Debris
Digs
Ten easy formulae used by the British to make something into a joke, or to reinforce a joke:
'Allegedly . . .'
'He has done for . . . what . . . did for . . .'
'Politically he is somewhere to the right of . . .'
'. . . As the bishop said to the actress.'
'That's the story of my life]'
'Chance would be a fine thing]'
'I bet you say that to all the girls]'
'Say no more . . .'
'I'll believe you - thousands wouldn't]'
'Kiss me, Hardy]'
Ten things that became famous for being burnt:
London
Alfred the Great's cakes
Joan of Arc
The Reichstag
Tara
Windsor Castle
The King of Spain's beard
The White House
Tyger, tyger
The Ashes
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