Dear All,

I realise that this may be off-topic, but please bare with me.

I am a final year student, reading history at the University of York. As
part of my degree I am currently researching a dissertation on "Public
attitudes to the decommissioning of London's Trams".

Whilst a good proportion of my research rests on primary and secondary
material at institutions such as London's Transport Museum, the National
Tramway Museum and the National Railway Museum - I am also keen to
intergrate real experiences into my writing.

I have, therefore, produced a questionnaire aimed at people who lived or
worked in London during the 1930s, 1940s or early 1950s and who remember
riding on trams, or noticed their demise. I am particularly interested in
hearing individuals' own reasons for the closure of tramways (ie: as
different from the "official" reason) - although any memories of trams
running on the streets of London will be very much appreciated.

I would be grateful if those interested in taking part could visit:
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~rsj100/trams/

and follow the links to the questionnaire. I have provided it in several
different formats in the hope that it will be accessible to all, although
anybody encountering problems accessing it should email me at


Even if you are too young to remember the trams or their closure, you may no
somebody who is old enough. In this case I would be grateful if you could
print the questionnaire and pass it on to them.

Finally, I should stress that any personal information will be used
anonymously for the purposes of writing the dissertation, and will not under
any circumstances be revealed to anybody else.

Thank you very much for reading this email - I look forward to receiving
some completed questionnaires.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Johnson
Student
University of York

P.S. I realise that some people consider such requests to be SPAM - however,
I hope you will be able to forgive me for the sake of this project.

Johnson Family wrote to uk.transport.london on Fri, 8 Oct 2004:

Dear All,

I realise that this may be off-topic, but please bare with me.


Me, I shall keep my clothes on at all times, I think....

My daughter did that unit, too.
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 26 September 2004

"Johnson Family" wrote in message
...
I realise that this may be off-topic, but please bare with me.

I am a final year student, reading history at the University of York. As
part of my degree I am currently researching a dissertation on "Public
attitudes to the decommissioning of London's Trams".

Whilst a good proportion of my research rests on primary and secondary
material at institutions such as London's Transport Museum, the National
Tramway Museum and the National Railway Museum - I am also keen to
intergrate real experiences into my writing.

I have, therefore, produced a questionnaire aimed at people who lived or
worked in London during the 1930s, 1940s or early 1950s and who remember
riding on trams, or noticed their demise. I am particularly interested in
hearing individuals' own reasons for the closure of tramways (ie: as
different from the "official" reason) - although any memories of trams
running on the streets of London will be very much appreciated.

I would be grateful if those interested in taking part could visit:
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~rsj100/trams/

and follow the links to the questionnaire. I have provided it in several
different formats in the hope that it will be accessible to all, although
anybody encountering problems accessing it should email me at


Even if you are too young to remember the trams or their closure, you may
no
somebody who is old enough. In this case I would be grateful if you could
print the questionnaire and pass it on to them.

Finally, I should stress that any personal information will be used
anonymously for the purposes of writing the dissertation, and will not
under
any circumstances be revealed to anybody else.

Thank you very much for reading this email - I look forward to receiving
some completed questionnaires.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Johnson
Student
University of York

P.S. I realise that some people consider such requests to be SPAM -
however,
I hope you will be able to forgive me for the sake of this project.

Is this a spoof ? Do university students in their final year really make
such elementary spelling mistakes in what are otherwise well constructed
messages ? If the excuse is that he's on a technical course he should have
heard of spell-checkers. /PEDANT (My excuse for bad spelling is that I
have worn the letters of several of the keys on m,y keyboard or that the
ghost of the Gendarme from 'Allo, 'Allo is haunting my computer.
--
Cheerz,
Baz

From: "Marratxi"
Date: 08/10/2004 22:22 GMT

Is this a spoof ? Do university students in their final year really make
such elementary spelling mistakes in what are otherwise well constructed
messages ?

Ah! But apparently he's at York, who turned down a mate of mine who'd also put
Oxford on his UCAS form. When my mate rang up to ask the admissions tutor why
he'd been rejected the reply was "I don't think anyone who's put Oxford on
their form would feel happy at York" (he was later accepted by Magdalen, by the
way). I find it hard to frame a more eloquent and anodyne equivalent to York's
admissions tutor's "Look, this place is an academic sink, if you've got half a
brain you wouldn't come near the place" look-alike statement (which is what it
really is when you strip the sophistry away).

It is therefore no surprise that spelling, grammar and syntax are probably
optional at York, even in your final year.

Acrosticus wrote to uk.transport.london on Sat, 9 Oct 2004:

Ah! But apparently he's at York, who turned down a mate of mine who'd also put
Oxford on his UCAS form. When my mate rang up to ask the admissions tutor why
he'd been rejected the reply was "I don't think anyone who's put Oxford on
their form would feel happy at York" (he was later accepted by Magdalen, by the
way). I find it hard to frame a more eloquent and anodyne equivalent to York's
admissions tutor's "Look, this place is an academic sink, if you've got half a
brain you wouldn't come near the place" look-alike statement (which is what it
really is when you strip the sophistry away).

I think you must be speaking of some years ago now, since when my
daughter applied, now about 6 or 7 years ago, she also applied to
Cambridge, and York's conditional offer was several points more rigorous
than most that she received.

It is therefore no surprise that spelling, grammar and syntax are probably
optional at York, even in your final year.

Well, my daughter was a history and archaeology student there, and I
think they *did* bother about it. Mind you, she graduated some three
years ago now, so times may have changed.... but she did the railway
unit, too.
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 26 September 2004

In message , Acrosticus
writes

Ah! But apparently he's at York, who turned down a mate of mine who'd also put
Oxford on his UCAS form. When my mate rang up to ask the admissions tutor why
he'd been rejected the reply was "I don't think anyone who's put Oxford on
their form would feel happy at York" (he was later accepted by Magdalen, by the
way). I find it hard to frame a more eloquent and anodyne equivalent to York's
admissions tutor's "Look, this place is an academic sink, if you've got half a
brain you wouldn't come near the place" look-alike statement (which is what it
really is when you strip the sophistry away).

Have you looked at the position of York in the league tables? They are
one of the top universities in the country and have been for many years
in a lot of subjects. They frequently give tougher offers than Oxbridge.

--
Paul Terry

Acrosticus wrote:

Ah! But apparently he's at York, who turned down a mate of mine who'd also put
Oxford on his UCAS form. When my mate rang up to ask the admissions tutor why
he'd been rejected the reply was "I don't think anyone who's put Oxford on
their form would feel happy at York" (he was later accepted by Magdalen, by the
way). I find it hard to frame a more eloquent and anodyne equivalent to York's
admissions tutor's "Look, this place is an academic sink, if you've got half a
brain you wouldn't come near the place" look-alike statement (which is what it
really is when you strip the sophistry away).

It is therefore no surprise that spelling, grammar and syntax are probably
optional at York, even in your final year.

In the past ten years, I've known several Oxbridge applicants who
received offers from both Oxford/Cambridge and York. I believe it's now
the case that the admissions offices don't get to see the other choices
on the UCAS form?

Tom

University of Cambridge (Didn't apply to York)

-In message , Tom Cordiner
writes

In the past ten years, I've known several Oxbridge applicants who
received offers from both Oxford/Cambridge and York. I believe it's now
the case that the admissions offices don't get to see the other choices
on the UCAS form?

Certainly that wasn't the case when I applied to uni a couple of years
ago. At Imperial the interviewer did mention that she'd noticed I'd
applied to Oxford and various other places, so obviously their
admissions people were able to see my other choices.
--
Spyke - Who is doing computer science so can get away with spelling errors :-)
Address is valid, but messages are treated as junk. The opinions I express do
not necessarily reflect those of the educational institution from which I post.

"Johnson Family" wrote in message
...
SNIP, SNIP, SNIP, etc.,
Robert Johnson
Student
University of York

P.S. I realise that some people consider such requests to be SPAM -
however,
I hope you will be able to forgive me for the sake of this project.

BEWARE !! I went on to this guy's site to fill in his questionnaire only to
find lots more strange spellings. I went to the page where the responses
could allegedly be filled in, only to find that the areas where answers were
to be entered were coloured yellow but nothing showed when I tried to type
into them and the instructions were to save the page to my hard drive. NO
!!!
It may not be spam but I smell a possible virus.
Baz

Marratxi wrote:
"Johnson Family" wrote in message
...
SNIP, SNIP, SNIP, etc.,
Robert Johnson
Student
University of York

P.S. I realise that some people consider such requests to be SPAM
- however, I hope you will be able to forgive me for the sake of
this project.

BEWARE !! I went on to this guy's site to fill in his questionnaire
only to find lots more strange spellings. I went to the page where
the responses could allegedly be filled in, only to find that the
areas where answers were to be entered were coloured yellow but
nothing showed when I tried to type into them and the instructions
were to save the page to my hard drive. NO !!!
It may not be spam but I smell a possible virus.

No, it's a cock-up, not a conspiracy. The form is a Word document which
is locked for editing, so you can't enter anything into it. He has no
mechanism for accepting the form directly from your browser, so he asks
you to print it or mail it, not realising that you can't type anything
into it. Also, the frames version has a bad URL , so you can't even see
the form by that route.

The strange spellings are probably the result of the appalling quality
of English teaching over the past decade or two. Spell-checkers don't
actually help if you type bare instead of bear, but should pick up
intergrate instead of integrate. The problem is that students in any
subject other than English are not penalised for poor language skills,
so they never have an incentive to improve those skills.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)