Alfa-alfa... alpha... no, it's AL-FAL-FA!

another 2 of my biggest bug bears -

Kids round here say "Are we allowed using those pens?"

and the parents say " I learned him how to do that"


Arrrrgh!
 
one that bugs a couple of teachers at my school is ''can i go to the toilet miss'' vs ''may i go to the toilet miss'', some teachers will reply with ''i'm sure you're able to go to the toilet, but we don't need you to show us that, please wait until the break when you may use the proper facilities'' :D
 
It is the vagaries of dialect I find certain people write dropping the h on things too I then get very confuse "pass is jacket"
The other thing that gets me is passed and past being mixed up
 
Pearlsacarolsinger said:
Not in any school I've ever taught in. But it isn't a mistake that is made in Yorkshire, on the whole. I first noticed it when staying with friends in Wiltshire, many years ago. The one that drives me mad is the confusion between 'taught' and 'learned', which is a regional thing as well but relatively common in this region.
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"Should of" isn't regional it's endemic all over the country. I've been out of teaching from some years but I'm pretty certain that "of" instead of "have" is not officially taught in schools.

The problem is that in my day (the late 60s/early 70s) teacher training frowned on the teaching of grammar and spelling (multiplication tables as well, but that's another story) and taught that it blocked the creative flow. The result was that, with the exception of a few died-in-the-wool Luddites like me, the education system dragged up a generation of adults who couldn't spell and punctuate......and what career did some of these adults take up? You can't blame the pupil if the teacher doesn't know any better.
 
I'm generally quite relaxed about grammar, but one thing that really really winds me up is "seems" used as "since"/ "because" :eek::eek:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH it's SO annoying!!!!!
 
Ellen Durow said:
I hate to have to correct you on this but the use of "colly birds" actually preceeds "calling birds" by 2 centuries. The earliest extant written versions, going back to the 18th century (but probably known well before that) use "colly birds" or "colley birds" but "calling birds" only appears in the 20th century and is thought to be an American variant.

Incidentally a "colly" bird (in various spellings) is an old name for a blackbird.

There is also a interpretation of the song which attributes "secret" religious significance to the gifts, supposedly due to the persecution of Roman Catholics in the reign of Henry VIII, but the earliest version of it actually only appeared in the 1990s!
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Ellen, someone has already corrected me but thanks! :)
 
Yule Mule said:
Save one for me, eh! :D


While on the subject of grammar, let us not forget the use of proper punctuation. An example: "Let's eat grandma" vs "let's eat, grandma."
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Isn't there a book on punctuation? I think I remember what it's called, it has a panda on the front of it...

"Eats, shoots and leaves"

:D
 
FionaM12 said:
Has anyone mentioned adverts for horses for sale which are "out of" such-and-such a stallion? :D
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Ah hahaha! No, you're the first but when I read adverts like this I get really hung up on it and can't focus on the actual product!

Good reason to say "next!"...
 
Ellen Durow said:
"Should of" isn't regional it's endemic all over the country. I've been out of teaching from some years but I'm pretty certain that "of" instead of "have" is not officially taught in schools.

The problem is that in my day (the late 60s/early 70s) teacher training frowned on the teaching of grammar and spelling (multiplication tables as well, but that's another story) and taught that it blocked the creative flow. The result was that, with the exception of a few died-in-the-wool Luddites like me, the education system dragged up a generation of adults who couldn't spell and punctuate......and what career did some of these adults take up? You can't blame the pupil if the teacher doesn't know any better.
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My father thinks grammar went out of the window when someone decided Latin should not be taught in schools...

I am veering off on a tangent but I honestly think if pupils were taught Latin at an early age, not only would grammar be better but also foreign languages (French, spanish, italian) would be so much easier! (Except German)
 
One I've noticed more recently is the use of 'seen', instead of 'seeing'. Just goes to show, if we're going to teach phonetics, then correcting pronunciation is even more important?

We recently tried to recruit a new receptionist, and I have to say I was shocked by the standard of many of the applications, and the fact that people thought it acceptable to write a covering email in text speak and lacking any formality at all. Ummm, first impressions anyone??
 
To be fair to good teachers, I don't think the issue is just schooling or the system as a whole. My sister is a primary school teacher and has always said that whatever else she does, she makes sure that ALL the children leaving her are able to read.

However she is not always supported by the parents, many of whom seem to think educating their children is not their responsibility and openly moan about having to spend time reading with their kids!

She has now moved to a school on the verge of failing (she likes a challenge :D), and was horrified to find teachers who really couldn't be arsed, and who simply wrote the kids off, saying "they're thick" :eek:
 
tallyhohoho! said:
Beesknees, yes really worrying! Does anyone else feel that education is letting many children down?
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Oh yes, definitely! My daughter thought a cyclone was a cyclops, she was 17 at the time. I only discovered this when that cyclone hit Australia & she mentioned it, God alone knows what was going through her mind if that is what she thought.
None my kids knew what a specimen was either, surely thats a common term used in Biology?
 
On preloved I keep seeing an advert for a'gawjess strong wheeled horse' I'm always really disappointed to look at the picture and see it has legs!
 
Where I now live there is a real trend amongst people around my age who were born and bred herewriting 'off' where is should say 'of'! This really annoys me and if I see people I know doing it I can't help it I have to tell them off!
 
I cannot stand all of the above, so annoying! A new one I've noticed recently is 'wood' instead of 'would'.
I also had to explain the difference between 'wander', 'wonder' the other day and I do think perhaps a lot of the problem is due to people not pronouncing words correctly and therefore misspelling them too.

As for alfalfa and names of horse feeds. I was shocked recently when I asked (a fellow horsey person) to get some chaff, they gave me a blank look despite the fact I know they feed both hi fi and alfa a. Are people really so clueless about what they feed their own animals?
 
Pearlsacarolsinger said:
Not in any school I've ever taught in. But it isn't a mistake that is made in Yorkshire, on the whole. I first noticed it when staying with friends in Wiltshire, many years ago. The one that drives me mad is the confusion between 'taught' and 'learned', which is a regional thing as well but relatively common in this region.
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Also in Yorkshire and the one that drives me slightly mad is "tret", instead of "treated", as in "the vet tret him for laminitis" but have decided that this is merely a quirky regional variation...;)
 
Well, there are dialect words and usages, which are quaint, and then there is just out and out ignorance and laziness, which is depressing at best. However English is a constantly changing language; I doubt that any of us would understand a 16th century Englishman at all, and vice versa.
 
Cortez said:
Well, there are dialect words and usages, which are quaint, and then there is just out and out ignorance and laziness, which is depressing at best. However English is a constantly changing language; I doubt that any of us would understand a 16th century Englishman at all, and vice versa.
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I understand exactly what you mean Cortez.... I hope my children and I can understand each other in twenty years... or could that be:

"I 'ope me n me kidz can understand eech uvver in twen'ee yurs, innit"
 
PingPongPony said:
one that bugs a couple of teachers at my school is ''can i go to the toilet miss'' vs ''may i go to the toilet miss'', some teachers will reply with ''i'm sure you're able to go to the toilet, but we don't need you to show us that, please wait until the break when you may use the proper facilities'' :D
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When I was about 10 I was taught by a man who did this. You weren't allowed to go to the toilet if you said 'can I' instead of 'may I'.

Another one I thought of, 'she was sat on the chair' is wrong. 'She was sitting on the chair' or 'she sat on the chair' a correct.
 
moleskinsmum said:
Also in Yorkshire and the one that drives me slightly mad is "tret", instead of "treated", as in "the vet tret him for laminitis" but have decided that this is merely a quirky regional variation...;)
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We once had a substitute in an English lesson (yes, an English lesson!) who was so certain that 'tret' was correct that she looked it up in the dictionary and when she couldn't find it she went to ask one of the other English teachers:eek:! The reasurring thing was that everyone in the class knew she was wrong, so hopefully it's not spreading!
 
Cortez said:
Well, there are dialect words and usages, which are quaint, and then there is just out and out ignorance and laziness, which is depressing at best. However English is a constantly changing language; I doubt that any of us would understand a 16th century Englishman at all, and vice versa.
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Ouch. You don't get much more anal about language than me but to suggest that regional dialects and idiolects are "quaint" is more than a little patronising!
 
Ellen Durow said:
"Should of" isn't regional it's endemic all over the country. I've been out of teaching from some years but I'm pretty certain that "of" instead of "have" is not officially taught in schools.

The problem is that in my day (the late 60s/early 70s) teacher training frowned on the teaching of grammar and spelling (multiplication tables as well, but that's another story) and taught that it blocked the creative flow. The result was that, with the exception of a few died-in-the-wool Luddites like me, the education system dragged up a generation of adults who couldn't spell and punctuate......and what career did some of these adults take up? You can't blame the pupil if the teacher doesn't know any better.
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I did my training in the 70's and I can assure you that I have always taught spelling and grammar, along with correct punctuation to my Primary pupils, as far as was age-appropriate.
And I can also assure you that I have taught in some of the most deprived areas in West Yorks, where even for indigenous children, you might have thought, listening to them that English was a foreign language but NONE of those children has used 'should of' etc instead of 'should have'. It is not a Yorkshire trait and IME is used much further south. It would be interesting to find out other HHOers' opinions on that.
 
Anyone else know anyone who uses the word "belongs" instead of "as long as".....it drives me mad! All my partners family do it. It doesnt make any sense at all.
 
I'm in the south and see 'should of' far too often. It drives me mad.

I've been looking for a job lately and the number of adverts advertising a roll rather than a role astounds me, and that's just one of the minor things I've noticed. I honestly wonder how I could possibly work for someone who doesn't even check their spelling on an advert!

Unfortunately I'm a copywriter/proofreader by trade so they all leap out at me in a most annoying way! :o
 
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