I am a pedant.

I get some pleasure from it. Oh yes, I know that to many people pedantry is just tedious. It is true that language and usage are constantly changing so that what was linguistically right 30 years ago may no longer be regarded as being so by the majority now. But if an old chap gets some fun from it, whats wrong with that?

It was inevitable that I would be infected by pedantry because of my job. One of the things I was responsible for in my thirty years of university management was producing the Minutes of the meetings of the University Senate. This was the body made up of 250 Professors and some others who controlled the University’s academic affairs. When at each meeting the Minutes of the previous meeting came up for approval, you can be sure that if anything was grammatically incorrect, the Professor of English Language would be up on his feet drawing attention to the inadequacies of my education.

What has all this got to do with this sign in the Window of Waterstone’s bookshop?

Well it seems to me that it should read “Down to 50%”. If what it says is actually true, I should have bought my books last week.