It shouldn't happen to a sub

This is another piece on 'The day in the life of a sub'

I'm in the process of working on another but I first have to make sure I won't get fired for putting it up here... (cos my blog is so popular, you know).

I came across this when I was subbing the other day...

Not only did it not make any sense to me, I didn't have a clue what the writer, or speaker as the case may be, was TRYING to say. Normally, if a politician says something like 'We is...', I'll change it, even if it is a direct quote, cos we don't TRY and make people look like prats (they do a good-enough job of that themselves).

The article said, quoting some Gaelic county head...

"I make no apology for the confidential nature of the way in which the county management committee went about the process of appointing a new manager.

"As we said we would do to the press at the start we announced a manager when the process was completed."

I had to phone up the journalist that wrote the piece and ask him what was meant, which he took exception to. He was obviously pretty old-school, and didn't take kindly to some youngster with a foreign accent telling him that what he wrote did not make sense.

"That's right as it stands," he insisted. "That's what yer man said."

"I believe you I said, but I don't understand what it MEANS..."

"Wait let me get my notes," he said, and trundled off, muttering to himself about the eejit on the phone, disturbing him at 10pm. He then came back and read to me word for word, the sentence as I had just read to him.

"So you see, it's what he said," he told me, proud that he had made no mistake.

"No look," I explained, "I don't think you undersatnd me. That sentence does not make sense in English. I want to know what he is TRYING to explain. I really have no idea."

After the third attempt at saying this, he finally explained to me what was being MEANT, but he said it so fast and I was so stunned that he'd actually got it, that I couldn't write it down fast enough and had to get him to do it again, which clearly made him think I was a fool. I think it meant that whoever was speaking was saying: when we have chosen a new manager, we will announce it to the press .

He insisted one more time that I could just have left that sentence as it was.

The more I look at it though, I just have to laugh. I can totally see someone standing up in front of a room and saying those words, with everyone in the room nodding gravely, understanding exactly what was meant.

Sigh... James Herriot - kiss my ass - it shouldn't happen to a sub.