Your views: Readers' letters

Armed intruder: Will frequent robberies cause dairies to close in the evenings? Photo/file

Dairy robberies

This robbery of dairies must cease. If it doesn't, they will be forced to close and we will go back to the days when shops were open only in daylight hours.

I am sure the police are doing what they can to remedy the situation. And it is very good that the dairies have video cameras operating. But I wonder what else the shopkeepers themselves might be forced to do.

They might have a button on the floor behind the counter that can be stepped on when an incident occurs. It might set off an ear-splitting alarm so loud or a set of flashing lights so bright that everyone is forced from the shop.

Another idea is the installation of steel doors that come down quickly over the exit and over the counter so that the villains are trapped and those serving are free to retreat and call the police. The villains and whatever mess they make will be there available to the law.

Sometimes these guys are coming armed with a gun. It would be a sad day indeed if a dairy owner felt he had to have an armed guard on call in the back of the shop to confront and if necessary shoot the villains.

TOM PITTAMS
Whanganui

Grim grammar

Once upon a time, when I was a student in the Upper Sixth form at Wanganui Tech, along with English literature I studied English grammar, a subject which I then continued to read while at Auckland University.

Hence, I have followed with interest recent correspondence regarding the misuse of the apostrophe in the punctuation of nouns. Perhaps the person at the council who is responsible for the toilet signage at Virginia Lake needs to know that the plural of "man" is "men" not "mens". If the letter "s" is appended to the word "men" then in order to denote the possessive function the apostrophe should be inserted before the "s".

While at secondary school a key textbook was Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage. This was subsequently revised by Tech Old Boy and Rhodes scholar Dr Robert Burchfield, famous for being the editor, between 1957 and 1966, of the huge four-volume Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Not surprisingly, I am critical of much English language, both in its oral and written form with respect to grammar in phrases where a preposition is attached to a verb. For example, both newsreaders and journalists do not know that the correct phrase is "try to" not "try and".

Apparently your newspaper does not employ a proofreader. I draw your attention to the Chronicle, May 9, where one of your scribes wrote "Her and others were protesting." Perhaps you would like to explain to your journalist that the correct pronoun when used as the subject of a verb is "she".

JOHN STEPHENSON B.D.
Whanganui

The living wage

The Chronicle of May 1 contains a report of an undated Wanganui District Council meeting consideration of a proposal to pay council staff the "living wage" and contains the following non-attributed statement:

"Councils which paid the living wage included Wellington, Hamilton, Porirua, Hutt Valley and Auckland, the hearing was told."

As this seemed at variance with my recollection, a few moments on the named councils' websites clarified their actions on living wage proposals.

Wellington does not pay the living wage but will consider it in June along with forcing their contractors to pay it to their staff undertaking council duties.

Hamilton does.

Porirua does not pay the living wage. They have increased their total staff wage budget by $200,000.

Hutt Valley does not pay the living wage as their chief executive officer is yet to present a report to the council in July.

Auckland does, but only to their staff, not their contractors.

Two councils pay the "living wage" but three do not.

I would expect the statement to be attributed to a person or organisation, which it is not, and the accuracy of it to be verified before publication as fact.

VERNON BALLANCE
Westmere

End of an age

"All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players" [Shakespeare, As You Like It].

Whether we have "faith" or not, we all have our own small part to play in this "The Bigger Picture" production.

The scene is of a world in turmoil and mankind constantly battling with his fellow man. All are right and all are wrong and all are sharing the same planet.

Many nations are acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) as a deterrent, they say.

Matthew 24:22: "And if those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved (alive)."

Mankind now has enough WMDs to annihilate all life on this planet. We need a strong hand from "some place" to directly intervene. This is faith (a belief in something yet to happen) with hope.

Only the Father knows the hour of Christ's return, but Christ did give us signs to look for that would usher in the close of the 6000-year-long, war-torn, suffering "age of man".

Read all of Matthew 24, written 2000 years ago to warn us, today, the last generation.

As bad as we are, our potential for good is still greater.

Ad astra (to the stars).

I MANTLE
Whanganui