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Resurrection: Usborne's Classic Books On Ghosts To Be Re-Published

the other books have been given the green light!


I'm very pleased about this and will obviously buy both when they're published, but my desire for as close as possible a copy of the original is competing with my disgust at the apostrophe in UFO's.

(To be honest, that's my least favourite of the three titles despite some good illustrations).
 
Why not contact Anna Howorth - she is very communicative and may be able to help?

I think I remember how to send a Tweet...

She will probably think I'm a dickhead, but I may give it a whirl.
 
there is a case for apostrophising plural acronyms

There is, but UFO is not an acronym.

I'd still like to hear this case, mind you.

Even those (respected) sources that use them (I do not), only use them when the initialism has full-stops/periods after each initial: U.F.O.'s (or U.F.O.'S in a headline) but UFOs.

Usborne's book has no stops. And, indeed, they corrected their mistake in later (otherwise uglier) editions:

Screenshot 2019-11-10 at 22.55.08.png
 
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I think I remember how to send a Tweet...

She will probably think I'm a dickhead, but I may give it a whirl.

I don't think she accepts messages but you can tag her, and she does read the tweets and responds (she did to me). I think she'll listen and be receptive. She doesn't come across as dismissive or hostile. Try it!
 
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I have that book at work.

Swan is a descriptivist. He thinks that if enough people make an error, it isn't really an error.

My alternative for He writes his b's as d's. is He writes his 'b's as 'd's., using inverted commas instead of apostrophes.

The only sympathy I have is when you are writing initialisms/acronyms in ALL CAPS for headlines:

MULTIPLE UFOs SEEN OVER LONDON

That looks incongruous.
 
This thread reminds of the brilliant 1970s children's fiction books called Tim and the Hidden People by Shelia K. McCullagh which I would read them in the school library in the early 1980s and 10 years later nearly ordered them in Waterstones for £2.50 a book and all 32 editions but I never bought them but they were republished 12 years or so ago and and I missed out AGAIN and now the complete set are on E-Bay for upwards £1000 :(
http://timandthehiddenpeople.net/
1596543899457.png
 
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I wasn't going to bother with this one then I saw it had a foreword by Jon Culshaw. How can I resist?

I'm getting them with half an eye to letting my daughter read them in a few years.
 
This thread reminds of the brilliant 1970s children's fiction books called Tim and the Hidden People by Shelia K. McCullagh which I would read them in the school library in the early 1980s and 10 years later nearly ordered them in Waterstones for £2.50 a book and all 32 editions but I never bought them but they were republished 12 years or so ago and and I missed out AGAIN and now the complete set are on E-Bay for upwards £1000 :(
http://timandthehiddenpeople.net/
View attachment 28610
Sorry I quote my post again as loads of errors :(
 
Here we go (to be published on 1/10/20):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-UFOs...rld+of+the+unknown+ufos&qid=1592480733&sr=8-1

Note the apostrophe has been removed from UFO's.

View attachment 27834

Just a reminder that this is now on sale at a very fair price.

If you have a local bookshop, use it.
If not, your cheapest options are probably:

£6.55 plus postage:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/World-UFOs...=1&keywords=usborne+ufo&qid=1601733899&sr=8-1

£7.06 incl WORLDWIDE p&p:
https://www.bookdepository.com/Worl...992152?ref=grid-view&qid=1601733917505&sr=1-1
 
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