Your Letters
17:19 UK time, Wednesday, 9 December 2009
I've never been drunk on coffee.
Clive DuPort, Vale, Guernsey
Surely the is the ...
Andrew Dean
I'm torn between and the .
John Henderson
Who wants in on my "How long until someone points out that the noughties end on 1 Jan 2011, not 2010 before getting their coat" sweepstakes? I got Today. (On a different topic, where do I send those Tunnock's?)
Pascal, Grand Union Canal, Cowley, UK
Monitor note: Monitor Towers, sir. We'll, er, send them to the right place.
Emma (Tuesday letters), BCE means "before common era" and defines the same time as Before Christ. It supposed to non-offensive to those not of the Christian faith. Personally speaking, as an atheist who also happens to love history, I find BCE irritating - it's a clumsy phrase, it needs explaining all the time, BC has been in use for hundreds of years, and I'm not so sensitive as to be offended by BC.
Nona, London
Before Common Era is a translation of the Latin Era Vulgaris to represent time from before the year one - CE (common era) is the secular for AD.
Jamie, Edinburgh
I'd like to suggest to Emma that her hearing "BCE" is part of a public trial of a new personalised broadcasting system, in which it stands for "Before Christ, Emma".
Andrew Kemp, London
BCE = "Before Common Era" and corresponds exactly with BC in the Christian calendar. CE is the Common Era and corresponds with AD. The terms are used now a common calendar is used nearly worldwide and not exclusively by Christians. The term Common Era is over 300 years old and has been used extensively by members of other faiths for some time. It is now appropriate for it to be used generically unless the date is being used explicitly with regards to events of the Christian religion.
Ian, Winchester, UK
In Ontario and Quebec BCE also means "Bell Canada Enterprises", something like British Telecom being BT.
Viviren, Montreal, Canada
Emma, I admire someone who, rather than simply googling it or using Wikipedia, would instead prefer to draw on the collective wisdom of the Magazine's faithful followers. What other useful services can we provide to each other? I'm rubbish at wrapping presents - could someone come round and do the ones for my wife as I cant get her to do her own?
Jimmy, Dorking, UK
Most misleading headline of the day: . Visions of zombies roaming the workforce...
Anna, Milton Keynes
Re the singing Christmas mouse (Tuesday's Quote of the Day). The link didn't take me to a video to hear it, but it took me to a list of related links. Including "Joe Kinnear rails at 'mickey mouse' referee..." The joy of using machines to generate these lists.
Cat, Cambs
Rachel (Tuesday letters), I'm not sure what you mean by a "pure" version of a language. Presumably you think we should go back to "pure" Old English? I askian you.
Joseph Ball, London, UK
Susie (Tuesday letters), yes you are missing something. Britain HAS been taken over by speaking meerkats - or at least one. Simples!
And while I'm here, I have noted that, somewhat churlishly, 10 things has amended the grammar on thing 8, rendering my previous letter redundant. Harrumph.
Ashley Pearson, Hull
Susie, I for one welcome our new herpestid overlords.
Jim, Winchester
Monitor, Monitor, Monitor! Andy Sampson's green annoyance (Tuesday letters) is quite old - see most early noughties comics for a large array of similar jokes, normally along the lines of the "please consider the environment" line causing the e-mail to print onto two pages. But I guess if old jokes are now printable, here's one: Knock knock...
Jinja, Edinburgh
Andy, it's not as bad as when you print out an e-mail conversation and realise that the last four pages are just your respective companies telling each other that the message is confidential.
Kirk Northrop, Manchester, UK
Re: Your acronym style guide (Monday letters). I'm still trying to work out what the abbreviations "BUT A FEW EXCEPTIONS PERSIST" mean. Can you help?
Lester Mak, London, UK
I'd just like to make it known that I've not had an affair with Tiger Woods.
Stuart, Sydney, formerly Croydon
The 
