John Stone says:

Could you cut down on the advisors and aids, and reps from other US Departments, if we had a smarter president?

Heck for that matter he probably doesn’t listen to any one other then Cheney, Rove, so why does he need all the other folks….

Nice post Uncle Dave.

John Stone

Improbus says:

It is money well spent if we can keep him out of the country until his term expires.

billabong says:

No wonder they start to feel and act like Elvis.

Dugger says:

#5
I think a prince of Saudi Arabia has ordered that new double-decker Airbus A380.

“phftttt,” mine will be bigger.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/12/business/air.php

James Hill says:

#7, Three headed cat.

Aids is correctly used. An Aid is an assistant. Aide has more of a military tone to it, although I think colloquially it is also correct.

Aid (Merriam-Webster)
Main Entry:
2aid
Function: noun
Date: 15th century

(snip)

3 a: an assisting person or group — compare aide

Aide (Merriam-Webster)

Main Entry:
aide
Function: noun
Etymology: short for aide-de-camp
Date:
1777
: a person who acts as an assistant; specifically : a military officer who acts as an assistant to a superior officer

the Three-Headed Cat says:

JH – you are correct, but nevertheless it is not the usual modern usage. Aid-without-the-e, in my lifetime, has been used exclusively to refer to inanimate objects, and aide to refer to humans.

From the spelling of ‘armoured’, we may safely infer that this graphic originated in the UK; however, I have likewise not seen Brits since WWII use that variant form in either media or literature. I contend that the by-far most common, and therefore the de facto standard, usage, in at least the USA and the UK, is to use the final ‘e’ to denote humanity.

Of course, I suppose we could always ask Anthony Burgess…

OhForTheLoveOf says:

#1 – But to act like this is new and isn’t at least equal to the entourage that went with Clinton is just more asshat Bush bashing.

Chill out.

I see nothing in the graphic or the post to indicate anyone thinks its new or that this is “Bush bashing” (not that that asshat Bush hasn’t earned it)

#10 – Wow… a useful post from James Hill? That’s something you don’t see every day… or even once a month…

Rabble Rouser says:

I think they forgot the people who have to translate everything he has to say into phonetics. Heck, he can’t pronounce anything with more than two syllables.

Jennifer Emick says:

Cat, would that include mistakenly hyphenating “elementary school” and writing “errata” where the correct word was “errors?”

the Three-Headed Cat says:

Neither was an error.

‘Errata’ is the plural of ‘eratum’, which is an error in writing or printing.

‘Elementary-school’, with the hyphen, is a compound modifier.

Compound modifiers are groups of two or more words that jointly modify the meaning of another word. When a compound modifier, other than a noun–noun or adverb–adjective combination, appears before a term, the compound modifier is generally hyphenated to prevent any possible misunderstanding, such as in American-football player or real-world example. Without the hyphen, there is potential confusion about whether American applies to football or player, or whether the author might perhaps be referring to a “world example” that is “real”. Compound modifiers can be adverbial as well as adjectival (spine-tinglingly frightening).

So, as you can now see, had I not correctly inserted the hyphen, then my phrase would be open to confusion. Did I mean errata at a level taught in elementary school, or ‘school errata’ which were elementary? The inclusion of the hyphen effectively collapses the probability of reader error.

• • • • • •

Anything else you were wondering about?