Thread: Textspeak, poor grammar and a general grump.

Originally Posted by sidneykidney

And that would be 'your'. No 'e'.

Quite, but perhaps you should look at your own writing before jumping all over mine. In your previous 2 posts: I'd with no capital, a lot with no space, Scottish with no capital, doesn't with no apostrophe, 'olds' which does not exist as a word and English with no capital.

My ultimate spelling and grammar internet bug bear is people who use it to pick at people when their own is far from perfect.

What I was talking about is you don't seem to have a very clear picture of the further education system, and your ( ) opinions are, understandably, a little off the mark.

Thank you very much for your very kind assistance in aiding me with my spelling and grammar. I think i'll drop you a PM for some further tuition...

Originally Posted by majurey

If the school informed me that they were cutting down on some of their less crucial learning areas (i.e. anything not directly related to the three Rs), I would pull him out of school the next bloody day and send him private.

It's not a question of the school cutting back on subjects. It's about those "(16%) of school leavers in the same year [who] left school without the basic abilities to read and write" having their lessons tailored to their needs. When any child leaves school that way it is a disgrace, and it is the school/society that has failed, not the child. Kids like that should stop doing all other subjects until they have the basic skills they need to survive. There's no point teaching them airy fairy fun subjects when they are being set up for a lifetime of stacking shelves or serving fries.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

It's not a question of the schoolcutting back on subjects. It's about those "(16%) of school leavers in the same year [who] left school without the basic abilities to read and write" having their lessons tailored to their needs. When anychild leaves school that way it is a disgrace, and it is the school/society that has failed, not the child. Kids like that should stop doing all other subjects until they have the basic skills they need to survive. There's no point teaching them airy fairy fun subjects when they are being set up for a lifetime of stacking shelves or serving fries.

I completely agree with Rajagra on this. However what you should remember is that when Mark is helping his child in this way he is not part of said society which is 'failing the child'. And by the way thats fantastic of him.

I'll give you that it's a difficult language to learn, but proper grammar and writing skills aren't that difficult if taught correctly. Millions of people throughout the ages, including ESL people, have learned proper grammar. I can attest that standards have gone way down- at my university, simple writing and spelling seemed to evade many students.

Originally Posted by gregs656

Yep, that is a complete waste of time.

It is perhaps worth noting that the English language is one of the most difficult languages to lean due to the lack of consistent rules.

Ah well, I think you've just got to get on with it until people directly complain.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

It's not a question of the school cutting back on subjects. It's about those "(16%) of school leavers in the same year [who] left school without the basic abilities to read and write" having their lessons tailored to their needs. When any child leaves school that way it is a disgrace, and it is the school/society that has failed, not the child. Kids like that should stop doing all other subjects until they have the basic skills they need to survive. There's no point teaching them airy fairy fun subjects when they are being set up for a lifetime of stacking shelves or serving fries.

Actually, I would also agree with some of this. There should be more support for children finding it MOST difficult to achieve decent literacy and numeracy levels, and if at the cost of peripheral lessons then so be it. Of course, we used to have a system that would have supported such an approach -- but most parents do not like the idea of class streaming and so, with governments reacting to populist votes, we gave up a very pragmatic system.

On another note, that 16% number does not strike me as very high actually. In fact, I can easily imagine that it may even have been higher in decades gone by. I have tried to Google for illiteracy rates in the UK over time, but can't seem to locate something meaningful. Do we really think our English teaching was that much more successful 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or 20 years ago? I honestly doubt that. But using that number as an indication of falling standards in English nationwide is not very useful without a trend for comparison.

Originally Posted by Rajagra

There's no point teaching them airy fairy fun subjects when they are being set up for a lifetime of stacking shelves or serving fries.

I know it sounds callous, and it's not PC to say this, but you know what... SOMEONE has to stack the shelves or serve the fries in our society!

Originally Posted by majurey

I know it sounds callous, and it's not PC to say this, but you know what... SOMEONE has to stack the shelves or serve the fries in our society!

I know, but I grow tired of seeing tins on the wrong shelves!

I grow tired of seeing highly qualified folks stacking shelves. But thats a whole other thread.

From today's Torygraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sciencean...ictionary.html

OK, Colins has always been a little more 'modern' thinking than OED, but it's a respected dictionary nonetheless. And a little googling shows the OED hasn't been immune to this sort of thing in the past either.

"The entry under noun will read: "a website where people can post short messages about their current activities" and under verb it will read: "to write short messages on the Twitter website"."
"The word Twitterati, referring to users of the website, will also be entered, as will Twitterverse, which defines the website and its users."

So not just an addition which is brand-related (that in itself is nothing new... Hoover found its way in decades ago, for example), but trendy nonsense words like Twitterati and Twitterverse.

How long before Tweet gets added? And then maybe some Tweet-specific syntax will be added?

I predict a riot.