"Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
Mar 6th 2013, 9:58 pm
#16
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Joined: May 2012
Location: Cayman Islands
Posts: 4,998
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
We must hope the standard of English being taught in the Gulf is better than is being taught in some of Britain's colonies. Here in my island in the Caribbean, the standard is appalling, and has had a dismal effect on the standards of writing and speaking among native-born school-leavers. Here are a couple of paragraphs from a September 2012 blog-post of mine ("Nothing to loose"):
Is punctuation even a tiny part of any syllabus in government schools these days, anywhere in the world? It’s hard to tell. Few high-school graduates seem to know when to use which marks, and when not. Unwarranted apostrophes commonly betray an ignorance of plural and possessive forms that has survived thirteen years of schooling.
Greengrocers can be forgiven for advertising tomatoe’s and bean’s, because they write a special dialect of English called (jokingly) Grocerese; but in other contexts the usage simply screams, “I am ignorant beyond redemption; ignore everything I say”. Why haven’t our state educators sorted this out before now?
Please tell me you have something better in the Gulf, in the government schools.
Is punctuation even a tiny part of any syllabus in government schools these days, anywhere in the world? It’s hard to tell. Few high-school graduates seem to know when to use which marks, and when not. Unwarranted apostrophes commonly betray an ignorance of plural and possessive forms that has survived thirteen years of schooling.
Greengrocers can be forgiven for advertising tomatoe’s and bean’s, because they write a special dialect of English called (jokingly) Grocerese; but in other contexts the usage simply screams, “I am ignorant beyond redemption; ignore everything I say”. Why haven’t our state educators sorted this out before now?
Please tell me you have something better in the Gulf, in the government schools.
Mar 7th 2013, 5:57 am
#17
MODERATOR
Joined: Dec 2004
Location: Dubai
Posts: 6,373
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
A lot of East Asian (and interestingly, West African) languages are mainly assonanical (I believe that's the term) which rely heavily on vowel sounds. Most European languages and Arabic are more driven by consonant sounds. Things like tone and pitch, which are incidental in consonantal languages, are critical to meaning in assonanical languages. Hence the mutual level of difficulty in speaking and pronunciation between them (I guess most Europeans sounds really daft trying to speak Cantonese also).
Master the tones and Chinese becomes incredibly easy (apparently!), straightforward and logical - like Latin without the painful grammar. Mandarin is arguably the Latin of east Asia - all technical and legal words in Japanese and Koran come from it.
N.
Mar 7th 2013, 7:18 am
#18
Joined: Feb 2010
Location: Buraydah , Saudi Arabia
Posts: 2,863
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
people do take you in context as well if your tones aren't quite right.
Mar 7th 2013, 7:34 am
#19
Hit 16's
Joined: Mar 2010
Location: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine
Posts: 13,112
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
We must hope the standard of English being taught in the Gulf is better than is being taught in some of Britain's colonies. Here in my island in the Caribbean, the standard is appalling, and has had a dismal effect on the standards of writing and speaking among native-born school-leavers. Here are a couple of paragraphs from a September 2012 blog-post of mine ("Nothing to loose"):
Is punctuation even a tiny part of any syllabus in government schools these days, anywhere in the world? It’s hard to tell. Few high-school graduates seem to know when to use which marks, and when not. Unwarranted apostrophes commonly betray an ignorance of plural and possessive forms that has survived thirteen years of schooling.
Greengrocers can be forgiven for advertising tomatoe’s and bean’s, because they write a special dialect of English called (jokingly) Grocerese; but in other contexts the usage simply screams, “I am ignorant beyond redemption; ignore everything I say”. Why haven’t our state educators sorted this out before now?
Please tell me you have something better in the Gulf, in the government schools.
Is punctuation even a tiny part of any syllabus in government schools these days, anywhere in the world? It’s hard to tell. Few high-school graduates seem to know when to use which marks, and when not. Unwarranted apostrophes commonly betray an ignorance of plural and possessive forms that has survived thirteen years of schooling.
Greengrocers can be forgiven for advertising tomatoe’s and bean’s, because they write a special dialect of English called (jokingly) Grocerese; but in other contexts the usage simply screams, “I am ignorant beyond redemption; ignore everything I say”. Why haven’t our state educators sorted this out before now?
Please tell me you have something better in the Gulf, in the government schools.
Mar 7th 2013, 8:30 am
#20
Bored liberal
Joined: Feb 2007
Location: Over there ----->
Posts: 13,713
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
We must hope the standard of English being taught in the Gulf is better than is being taught in some of Britain's colonies. Here in my island in the Caribbean, the standard is appalling, and has had a dismal effect on the standards of writing and speaking among native-born school-leavers. Here are a couple of paragraphs from a September 2012 blog-post of mine ("Nothing to loose"):
Is punctuation even a tiny part of any syllabus in government schools these days, anywhere in the world? It’s hard to tell. Few high-school graduates seem to know when to use which marks, and when not. Unwarranted apostrophes commonly betray an ignorance of plural and possessive forms that has survived thirteen years of schooling.
Greengrocers can be forgiven for advertising tomatoe’s and bean’s, because they write a special dialect of English called (jokingly) Grocerese; but in other contexts the usage simply screams, “I am ignorant beyond redemption; ignore everything I say”. Why haven’t our state educators sorted this out before now?
Please tell me you have something better in the Gulf, in the government schools.
Is punctuation even a tiny part of any syllabus in government schools these days, anywhere in the world? It’s hard to tell. Few high-school graduates seem to know when to use which marks, and when not. Unwarranted apostrophes commonly betray an ignorance of plural and possessive forms that has survived thirteen years of schooling.
Greengrocers can be forgiven for advertising tomatoe’s and bean’s, because they write a special dialect of English called (jokingly) Grocerese; but in other contexts the usage simply screams, “I am ignorant beyond redemption; ignore everything I say”. Why haven’t our state educators sorted this out before now?
Please tell me you have something better in the Gulf, in the government schools.
Mar 7th 2013, 8:31 am
#21
Bored liberal
Joined: Feb 2007
Location: Over there ----->
Posts: 13,713
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
We must hope the standard of English being taught in the Gulf is better than is being taught in some of Britain's colonies. Here in my island in the Caribbean, the standard is appalling, and has had a dismal effect on the standards of writing and speaking among native-born school-leavers. Here are a couple of paragraphs from a September 2012 blog-post of mine ("Nothing to loose"):
Is punctuation even a tiny part of any syllabus in government schools these days, anywhere in the world? It’s hard to tell. Few high-school graduates seem to know when to use which marks, and when not. Unwarranted apostrophes commonly betray an ignorance of plural and possessive forms that has survived thirteen years of schooling.
Greengrocers can be forgiven for advertising tomatoe’s and bean’s, because they write a special dialect of English called (jokingly) Grocerese; but in other contexts the usage simply screams, “I am ignorant beyond redemption; ignore everything I say”. Why haven’t our state educators sorted this out before now?
Please tell me you have something better in the Gulf, in the government schools.
Is punctuation even a tiny part of any syllabus in government schools these days, anywhere in the world? It’s hard to tell. Few high-school graduates seem to know when to use which marks, and when not. Unwarranted apostrophes commonly betray an ignorance of plural and possessive forms that has survived thirteen years of schooling.
Greengrocers can be forgiven for advertising tomatoe’s and bean’s, because they write a special dialect of English called (jokingly) Grocerese; but in other contexts the usage simply screams, “I am ignorant beyond redemption; ignore everything I say”. Why haven’t our state educators sorted this out before now?
Please tell me you have something better in the Gulf, in the government schools.
Mar 7th 2013, 1:25 pm
#25
Hit 16's
Joined: Mar 2010
Location: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine
Posts: 13,112
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
Really? From an idiomatic perspective, I definitely would. If you said, "They don't know when its acceptable, and when it's not.", then there's balance: the "not" without the "to" in referring to a verb in the preceding subclause doesn't create balance.
And do colonial schoolchildren graduate now? Are they students or pupils? That's part way down the slippery slope at the bottom of which, as in Japan, kindergarten pupils "graduate".
And I definitely think your ; (in your final quotation) should be a : -- the two subclauses are too closely tied to be separated by a ;.
And do colonial schoolchildren graduate now? Are they students or pupils? That's part way down the slippery slope at the bottom of which, as in Japan, kindergarten pupils "graduate".
And I definitely think your ; (in your final quotation) should be a : -- the two subclauses are too closely tied to be separated by a ;.
Mar 7th 2013, 1:59 pm
#27
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Location: Cayman Islands
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Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
And do colonial schoolchildren graduate now? Are they students or pupils? That's part way down the slippery slope at the bottom of which, as in Japan, kindergarten pupils "graduate".
And I definitely think your ; (in your final quotation) should be a : -- the two subclauses are too closely tied to be separated by a ;.
And I definitely think your ; (in your final quotation) should be a : -- the two subclauses are too closely tied to be separated by a ;.
As for your punctuation: I would never use "but" after a colon. Ever. Nor would Professor Fowler. Nor should you. Even in Internet forums. Or blogs. (I would happily defy Spellcheck to the point of leaving verbs and subjects off sentences, however. So as not to be pedantic. You know?)
Mar 7th 2013, 2:06 pm
#29
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Joined: May 2012
Location: Cayman Islands
Posts: 4,998
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
Meow: I should never have tried irony. I didn't think it would confuse anybody. Did you read the first sentence of the relevant blog? It let the cat out of the bag right away, pretty much.
Mar 7th 2013, 4:29 pm
#30
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,107
Re: "Stop Imposing English on Our Children"
Given your ponderous, inelegant (and inaccurate) prose, condescending tone and blatant shilling why do you think anybody would have actually clicked through to your inevitably insufferably pompous blog?