Oh dear, it’s another taxi anecdote.
Got a cab home from work last night (the closer to the next morning it gets, the less inclined I am to stand about waiting for buses), and I wave this clown over right? As the turn of phrase goes, I say “Hi mate, can ya take us over to Camden Town?”, and he sits there looking at me for a minute. He then says, “Us? There’s nobody else here.”.
I know, strictly speaking, that I am a single unit of human atomicity – however I’m also firmly of the belief that at 1:30am one should be afforded a little leeway in one’s grammatical correctness, especially if the questionable phrase is a widely known & used article of regional vernacular.
I suppose – had inspiration and inclination taken me – I could have (successfully) argued that the “us” in question was a plural, encompassing myself, and the driver of the Hackney Carriage in question: for such a transaction to remain legal according to the local bylaws there must be multiple persons in the vehicle.
However as it was I just wanted to get in the fecking cab.
As if to punish me further, he correctly ascertained that I worked in the Information Technology business (I don’t know if it was the physique or the tan that gave it away), and spent the remainder of the journey asking me whether Windows XP or Vista was better.
Do you think karma will punish me for saying “Vista, definitely”?