No Deal! No No No!

[Chris Green]

Tough luck on poor old Deal, or rather on poor new Deal, whose Council doesn't want to shell out on a new CoA:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-21475707

[Chas Charles-Dunne]

BBC, dumbing down. Crests when they mean coat of arms.

[Chris Green]

... cot of arms ...

For the baby who has everything?

[steven harris]

BBC, dumbing down. Crests when they mean coat of arms.

I don’t see this as necessarily a dumbing down, but more as a simple pars pro toto figure of speech. Although it is technically inaccurate to those of us who know such things, it is nothing to get as worked up over as some heraldists tend to.

[Chas Charles-Dunne]

BBC, dumbing down. Crests when they mean coat of arms.

I don’t see this as necessarily a dumbing down, but more as a simple pars pro toto figure of speech. Although it is technically inaccurate to those of us who know such things, it is nothing to get as worked up over as some heraldists tend to.

We will have to agree to disagree.

[Martin Goldstraw]

I gave up insisting that a crest was actually a coat of arms when my beloved wife informed me that if I insisted on continually correcting her she would simply stop pointing out to me any "crests" she happened upon!

I think that we all have to admit that in common usage when a person says "crest" they actually mean a coat of arms. Pedantry can be just as irritating to the uninitiated as their ignorance of our speciality can be to us.

[Chas Charles-Dunne]

I see nothing wrong with telling people once. If they then persist, that is their own lookout. If I went to any specialist and used the wrong terminology for their field, I would expect them to correct me. If people are not talking about the same thing, then they obviously are talking about different subjects. Doesn't aid communication to my mind.

As for the BBC, it has a remit it inform and educate the public. One could excuse a lack of knowledge from the Egg Marketing Board or the publicity department of ICI, but from the BBC, it smacks of sloppy journalism. If they cannot get a thing like this right (something which is quite simply investigated), why should we trust that any of their news or current affairs is correct?

[Chris Green]

... why should we trust that any of their news or current affairs is correct?

Why indeed?

[JMcMillan]

Well, I wonder where we'd be if some heraldic pedant way back when had kept insisting, "no, no, no it's not a coat of arms unless it's actually worked in cloth and worn as a coat!"

[Chas Charles-Dunne]

Well, I wonder where we'd be if some heraldic pedant way back when had kept insisting, "no, no, no it's not a coat of arms unless it's actually worked in cloth and worn as a coat!"

Where indeed, JMcMillan, where indeed?