Sick if moaning to myself about the abuse of English on certain forums I visit, just going to post some of them in this thread.....sort of a C4P version of Private Eye's "From the Forums" column...
From a dog related forum talking about a missing dog. The dog has been traced to a LA kennel.
"......me too i litarelly think i will fall to the floor and start cruing if it is i havent slept or anything he like my child xx"
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>>abuse of English on certain forums <<
Is English their first language?
I love the way Dutchie writes, I love his cock ups and the way we all know what he means and ignore the bloomers.
Maybe we should cut them some slack and appreciate the fact that whatever their ability, they are at least, trying to communicate.
Pat
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Sadly English is probably their only language...
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Even so, not everyone has the ability or the opportunity to learn as others do...it doesn't make them any less of a person.
Those people usually have attributes many of us would aspire to, if we only looked for them.
Pat
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You're right of course Pat and I feel suitably admonished. Dutchie's English is far better than my Dutch by the way.
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Dutchie's English is cool do...
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>> You're right of course Pat and I feel suitably admonished. Dutchie's English is far better
>> than my Dutch by the way.
>>
You rolled over far too easily. There's nothing wrong with standards.
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I (seriously) blame the teaching system (note: system) for allowing bad English without penalty.
If pupils could not pass exams without proper English as she is wrote..:-)
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>> Even so, not everyone has the ability or the opportunity to learn as others do...it
>> doesn't make them any less of a person.
>>
>> Those people usually have attributes many of us would aspire to, if we only looked
>> for them.
>>
+1
Assuming the person is illiterate, it takes some courage and as well as technical ability to join and post on an internet forum.
p.s. I gave the thumbs up to Pat, but am expecting a few scowly faces for my other post on this thread.
Last edited by: John H on Sun 30 Dec 12 at 17:02
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>> Assuming the person is illiterate, it takes some courage and as well as technical ability
>> to join and post on an internet forum.
>>
The problem is that most of them don't realise they are illiterate, they just think others talk posh, innit.
Let's face it, they go to school continuously for eleven or twelve years. You could teach a parrot to English exam standard in that time, the fact that many leave with the literacy of a five year old means something is sadly lacking somewhere.
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When at comprehensive school, my daughter was labelled "a snob" because she spoke clearly and correctly.
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>> Let's face it, they go to school continuously for eleven or twelve years. You could
>> teach a parrot to English exam standard in that time, the fact that many leave
>> with the literacy of a five year old means something is sadly lacking somewhere.
>>
Unfortunately that's simply not the case. There always have been and always will be people out there for whom reading/writing is beyond their ability. I don't remember struggling with it (though I did with number). There were two or three kids in my primary, a school with an excellent reputation, who were still not reading at 11.
And now of course the emphasis on SATS and GCSE results means such kids are written off. The effort is focussed on borderline D>C and B>A as those affect the league tables.
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>> Unfortunately that's simply not the case. There always have been and always will be people out there for whom reading/writing is beyond their ability.
>>
There always will be. But if every child was sat down with a book at the earliest opportunity during their development instead of plonked in front of the TV I bet 99% of illiteracy would vanish. I wasn't having a go at teachers so much, but lazy and irresponsible parents who take no responsibility for any part of their children's education. As Humph says further down, people in countries where the education system is nowhere as advanced as ours manage perfectly well because the desire is there.
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Our granddaughter, aged 6½ (going on 16!) was sitting on the sofa with her nose stuck (voluntarily) in a book by Michael Morpurgo, entitled "An Elephant in the Garden".
Having glanced at it, I can say that it is NOT a simple read.
You see, both she and her brother were encouraged to read from a very early age by their mother and when possible by my wife.
The Ladybird Books reading system is a pretty good start.
It is clear that parental interest and input has a huge part to play in early years learning.
Sadly not all parents accept this, many believing that ALL learning (including good eating habits and toilet training) is the sole responsibility of the education/schools system.
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My earliest reading memory is from the mid 50s when Bill Haley had hit the charts. I had just started to school and I was at my grandma's house trying to work out why the headline 'Rock n' Roll' on the Daily Herald meant 'Rock and Roll'.
This must have had a profound effect on me as I must be the only person in the world to have ditched their first mobile phone because it didn't have a facility to type an apostrophe.
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Spot on Roger.
I taught ours to read way before they started at school and they found reading was fun!. Avoids funny teaching methods.
The other thing was to teach them how to quickly find things in a dictionary by using the top of the page index.
There is a down side. It was reported that daughter was quiet and did not get quite get involved as was expected. We later found out that she knew the answers to questions but kept quiet to avoid adverse comments from the boys.
>>It is clear that parental interest and input has a huge part to play in early years learning.
Yes. On longer journeys I used to play two word games.
Old fashioned number plates - make up words using the three letters, one word per letter. Speeds the thinking and often gives a chuckle at the results.
Describe things in simple terms. I then took the first answer given and applied it to a totally different thing.
A tyre - round....like the London Eye or a mince pie. It got them to identify the important things and caused much mirth.
I sum up many folks attitute as too much effort just like "Can you help at Scouts?" which responds with a cheque book being waved.
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>>It is clear that parental interest and input has a huge part to play in early years learning.
Absolutely. It also needs the backing of good teachers. The mistake is to believe that either is sufficient alone.
My 10 year old is currently reading the Twilight books. She has two of them in English and two of them in Spanish. She reads beyond her years in two languages and adequately in a 3rd.
She can do that because of her parents AND her teachers.
You may like to suggest your granddaughter has a look at Daisy Meadows and Jacqueline Wilson, if she is not already aware of them.
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>> abuse of English on certain forums I visit, >>
>> a dog related forum >>
You don't need to go far to find that. There is a forum you moderate where a real live Dog does it all the time. ;-)
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That's true John, and to be honest, it really irritates me but I just don't bother reading the post!
Pat
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>> That's true John, and to be honest, it really irritates me but I just don't
>> bother reading the post!
>>
>> Pat
>>
I read some, ignore most, and rarely - if ever - reply to them.
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Me too, but some I would love to and personal principles stop me from doing so:)
Pat
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I blame the school system and semi literate teachers. We were at a fund raiser at the grandkids primary school, the kids had set up various stalls and we noticed a couple of glaring spelling and grammar mistakes in the signs on the stalls. On mentioning it to a teacher we were told "Their teachers have checked them all", I despair.
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Naturally most teachers these days can barely read and write.
Herself not long ago copy-edited a book by an academic expert on teacher training - training teachers of English - with many years of hands-on (or perhaps feet-on) experience. It made her blood run cold, and mine too. American texts are quite often badly written, and texts by people for whom English is a second language can be very difficult to edit. But for this one there was no excuse at all. Bumboclaat!
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>> litarelly think i will fall to the floor and start cruing if it is i havent slept or anything he like my child xx
Sounds like about half the content of my FB news feed... The depressing thing is I went to school with most of them, and I don't remember their being barely literate back then. The number of eBay listings written in this style also worries me.
>> sort of a C4P version of Private Eye's "From the Forums" column
I try my hardest to post here with correct grammar and spelling, even if it sometimes comes across as stuffy or wordy. My kids think my longhand text messaging style is incredibly old-fashioned, but at least it's never ambiguous.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Sun 30 Dec 12 at 23:02
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>>My kids think my longhand text messaging style is incredibly old-fashioned, but at least it's never ambiguous.
I love doing that, complete with punctuation. Their grammar's probably better than mine, when they can be bothered to use it, but it does wind them up.
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Therein lies the problem; posting stuff from i-phones and Blackberries etc and using text speak and that appalling predictive text. Then being too lazy to check it. Regrettably most people accept it as the norm, so standards can only go down.
Complain, and you're accused of being a grammar nazi.
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>> and that appalling predictive text. Then being too lazy to check it
That does throw up some amusing mistakes from time to time. The best one I saw was a mis-spelling of "cologne": "My sweater smells of my bf's colon"...
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I've thought long and hard about this before responding. In truth, my instinctive reaction is to be critical of those who fail to cope with the basics of the language they have been exposed to since birth.
The nature of my work has brought me into regular contact with many people from non English speaking countries, some European and some Far Eastern, most of whom are not highly educated academics but relatively everyday sorts such as shop assistants, sales representatives, warehouse staff and clerical workers. It never ceases to humble me when I hear them often doing very well in several languages and indeed making a fair fist of writing in them too.
An odd typo doesn't concern me at all. I make enough of those errors myself not to attempt to occupy any high ground on that, but I do see a distinct difference between mistakes and linguistic laziness and can't feel any guilt for being critical of the latter.
Those of us who are fortunate enough to have been brought up in the UK or any English speaking country really only have to have reached a level of basic adequacy in one language to effectively communicate with most of the rest of humanity. Not too much to ask surely that it is done to the best of our personal abilities, whatever level those may be, is it?
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You can't get colon from cologne using predictive text if you have input correctly.
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>> You can't get colon from cologne using predictive text if you have input correctly.
" if you have input correctly "?
Tut tut.
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A hurried typing of the phrase "I have had a minor catastrophe" last night made this iPad render it as "I have had a minor cat flu".
Last edited by: Crankcase on Mon 31 Dec 12 at 13:56
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Sorry to hear that Cc, at least it wasn't bird flu.
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>> Sorry to hear that Cc, at least it wasn't bird flu.
>>
No need to be catty
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>> A hurried typing of the phrase "I have had a minor catastrophe" last night made
>> this iPad render it as "I have had a minor cat flu".
There's paws for thought.
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>> You can't get colon from cologne using predictive text if you have input correctly.
Predictive on iphones / android handsets is a totally different beast to the T9 version of 10 years ago. Plus who's to say s/he could spell in the first place?
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"Predictive on iphones / android handsets is a totally different beast to the T9 version of 10 years ago. Plus who's to say s/he could spell in the first place?"
True of course. But using auto correction on an iphone you would have had to specifically accept "colon" as the word you required by touching the space key after pressing x when you had typed the second "o"
It just doesn't hang together. :-)
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>> Complain, and you're accused of being a grammar nazi.
>>
Shouldn't nazi have a capital 'N' Darling??
Yeah yeah I know. Have a good one Harley Man.
I rode a 1200 'V' thingy once when I was Seventeen. Like driving a ruddy truck I'll have you know. With a turning circle like my Mother-in-Law.
All the best.....................M.
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>> Shouldn't nazi have a capital 'N' Darling??
I always try to give nazi lowercase to put it in its place. Only in formal documents will I give it the privilege of uppercase. One doesn't want to send the wrong signals to incipient thugs and anti-Semites.
Hey Hogman, you're a grammar nazi. So am I in a discreet way... heil hitler.
:o}
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I set out with the best of intentions to write readable English. Regrettably my two finger typing skills don't keep up with my brain, and therefore typos creep in. Also, late in the evening drink has often been taken, which causes me to shlur my words occifer.
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>> Also, late in the evening drink has often been taken, which causes me to shlur my words occifer.
I don't mean what you know ;)
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"I blame the school system and semi literate teachers. "
"Naturally most teachers these days can barely read and write. "
Funny, that. I was talking to the physics teacher at our local high school the other day.
She was in despair at the fact a third of the teachers in the school cannot spell (she had recently witnessed one teacher writing incorrectly spelled words on the board for pupils to copy). Furthermore, she told me, that the school website contained numerous spelling errors.
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I was out with a teacher friend last Sunday. She has 30 years teaching experience and she despairs of two new colleagues, who rather than being keen & motivated are the polar opposite.
On the other hand i know someone mid 20s who is incredibly dedicated. Up at 5 prepping lessons, after school societies, has involved her school in debating competitions and drives the team all over the country to weekend compeitions. Her pupils absolutely adore her by all accounts.
Chalk & cheese
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My daughter is a primary school teacher by trade.
Having seen how hard she worked and the many hours of evening lesson planning & preparation she put in, I can say that being a GOOD teacher is very hard work,
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To avoid doubt Roger's green thumb was mine.
Mrs B's record at secondary science is much the same.
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Happy new year to all.Talking about Nazis A.C.Eldest son is a avid reader if that is the right word.>;) He has that many books to many I've mentioned a kindle would be best.I problaby buy him one for his birthday.He gave me Mein Kampf by Adolf to read.I will try not a easy read.
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We have standards you know.... - Pat
