English Should not be Compulsory in High School

[Loss Leader]

But more important was the ability to throw Latin terms into reports, proving simultaneously that I was both a Latin scholar and a smart arse.

As a lawyer, I was tempted to spam one's motions, memos, and speeches to courts and juries with all manner of Latin terms, After all, I paid a heck of a lot of money to learn them. I had to force myself to remember that I needed to write for comprehension. It doesn't help my case if the judge has to stop reading my motion to look up animus possidendi.

 

[jenspen]

Wow! People talking about Latin. Working my way through "Wheelock's Latin" has been a Covid19 stay-at-home project of mine - good for neurogenesis and I would like to be able to read Horace, Catullus and the other poets.

I didn't think the grammar would be such fun - it's like doing a cryptic crossword.

I don't know if it's going to do anything for my English but Latina est gaudium!

 

[Darat]

As a lawyer, I was tempted to spam one's motions, memos, and speeches to courts and juries with all manner of Latin terms, After all, I paid a heck of a lot of money to learn them. I had to force myself to remember that I needed to write for comprehension. It doesn't help my case if the judge has to stop reading my motion to look up animus possidendi.

There has been quite a push to drop the use of latin terms and phrases when there are good English alternates in the UK legal profession. Puto quod bonum est.

 

[Giordano]

I really think that a required, basic statistics course should be part of all curricula. People are confronted by all types of numerical information in their lives (involving polls, efficacy of medication, risks) and they need to have a basic understanding of statistical significance, etc. And, if they are thinking about playing the lottery, odds.

In my science education I had to take three calculus classes but only one, half semester, very basic statistics class. In my field (molecular biology) I’ve seldom needed advanced calculus but often needed to re-educate myself in statistical analysis. I wish I had been told to take a rigorous statistics class early in my academic life.

 

[Minoosh]

I have no idea what is being taught as "English" these days. When I was in school, it was 100% literature.

I have seen students stymied by having to write a traditional "5 paragraph essay" because their starting point was supposed to be making an argument about literature. I worked with special-ed students to come up with modified assignments when they ran into trouble. What I could do is find out what the students were interested in, then have them construct a "letter to the editor" or some such on why, for example, our town needed more skate parks. It was a revelation to them that they could write about something they were interested in.

They liked reading the literature, even enjoyed Shakespeare if it was presented accessibly, but they didn't have any real opinion about the material.

 

[Minoosh]

There has been quite a push to drop the use of latin terms and phrases when there are good English alternates in the UK legal profession. Puto quod bonum est.

Puto is a bad word in Spanish ... at least Mexican Spanish.

 

[Trebuchet]

Puto is a bad word in Spanish ... at least Mexican Spanish.

I'm familiar with puta. Would puto be a male prostitute?

I've taken to talking to my cats in high school Spanish, circa 1964.
Mi gatita es my bonita! Mi gatita tiene pies blancas! Mi gatita se llama Conejita!
Mi gatita es meowing at me right now and won't shut up.

I seem to remember more of high school Spanish than high school English.

 

[novaphile]

I'm familiar with puta. Would puto be a male prostitute?

I've taken to talking to my cats in high school Spanish, circa 1964.
Mi gatita es my bonita! Mi gatita tiene pies blancas! Mi gatita se llama Conejita!
Mi gatita es meowing at me right now and won't shut up.

I seem to remember more of high school Spanish than high school English.

Hmm... for some reason I now have a hankering for fettuccine puttanesca...

 

[Loss Leader]

Puto is a bad word in Spanish ... at least Mexican Spanish.

According to whatever I just read, Puto, meaning "I judge" or "I think" in Latin, and Puta, meaning "prostitute" in Spanish, are false cognates. There is some speculation that they may both originate in the same proto-Hindo-European root, but nobody can ever say for sure (because whatever that language was, it was before writing stuff down was invented).

It either originally meant "pure" or "boy." One can see how a boy could be considered pure or how something pure could be adopted to mean a child. Using whatever the hell logic Romans used, purity somehow indicated cognition. The other usage is more straightforward. Puto took an "a" to become puta for "a girl." And that became an insulting term for prostitute because #Feminism wasn't trending back then.

 

[Minoosh]

I think it is not like literally a male prostitute; rather an ***hole.

 

[Planigale]

We don't have a year 13 in the States, really. That is freshman/first year of college

Interestingly this is why England has 3 year degrees not four year degrees. "upper sixth" / Year 13 / A levels (usually 2 year courses in 3 subjects) are supposed to be equivalent to first year at university. In Scotland school is traditionally one year shorter and do not teach A levels (they do a one year sixth form course usually in more subjects called Highers) and university degrees are four years. If you did not do the right A levels and wanted to do medicine you would have to do '1st MB' year which was chemistry physics maths etc. If you had exempting A levels you went into '2nd MB' ie the second year of the six year medicine degree (remembering that medicine is an undergraduate degree in the UK).

 

[Vixen]

Mine was split "English language" and "English literature" and we had separate exams for both. The language section was about comprehension and structure of language and the lit was critical analysis of novels, stories, plays, poetry (yes they really did force us to deal with such obscenities) and so on.

Very surprised that maths isn't required in the last two years, that seems very strange.

Same here. I was lucky to have a reasonably well-know dramatist - although I didn't find this out until later - who really brought English literature alive which he read out in a theatrical actor's voice, albeit an authentic one - I laughed so hard at his rendition of Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar that it's been one of my favourite books ever since. The usual English teachers just got us to go around the classroom, each reading out a few lines. I have to admit the appreciation of English literature gave me a lifelong love of it. Like many schoolkids, Chaucer and Shakespeare was a bit of a chore, I think you have to have a higher level of maturity to understand their depth and wit in their true form. For us, it was subject to mockery. 'Friends, Romans, country men, lend me your ears - ' 'Here you are then!' - boy at the back.

English language was composition, letter writing, précis and comprehension. Considered very easy.

Maths was considered difficult and a view which has existed into many people's adulthood. This is where people like me step in. I get paid handsomely for doing people's tax forms and annual accounts so I am not complaining. However, numbers are really nothing to be afraid of. A couple of extra years tuition and people should be confident enough to do their own calculations and even take pleasure in problem solving.

 

[Vixen]

Mathematicians need to be able to communicate well outside of mathematics. Non-mathematicians don't need to be able to communicate well inside of mathematics.

Improving fluency in at least one primary language should be part of any compulsory general education program, in my opinion. That, history, and civics.

That is so true. At school I was very much a languages person, excelling in English, French and German, good in biology, history, geography and chemistry and subjects like physics and maths took a back seat. In adulthood after my degree I took up accountancy. I was up against people with degrees in maths. I had a degree in psychology with a strong statistics element and that helped a lot. However, there were many aspects of the accountancy exams that had me headbanging and if the exams were mindbending for the maths graduates, it was a real teeth gnasher for me but hey, I had the upper hand in report writing, a key part of the final 'case study' exam as you had to have a thorough grasp of writing skills and so many accountancy students just wanted the numbers, so what I lacked at degree level maths, I made up for in language skills, being able to explain my recommendations concisely - you had to aim to score 1.5 marks every minute of the exam in order to pass - so exam practice revolved around being able to read and analyse huge amounts of data - up to ten or twelve pages long - and doing it all in a split second so that you could bang out a report of 4.5K words in three hours, as well as calculating all the relevant figures and producing graphs to illustrate, and being able to justify your recommendations based on the figures.

These days I am very much a maths person. I hate any administrative or secretarial parts of my job but am happy doing figures all day long. This is mystifying to others. When I was in insolvency practice, I had the lawyers and barristers coming to me asking to calculate ten percent for them (in one case) and I was happy for them to write up the dull lengthy petitions for the courts although I could do that as well but have no legal training. Law is pretty much like tax, just learning a bunch of rules. Doing figures is not the best part of accountancy, it is successfully running an enterprise which is the buzz. This is something you are unlikely to do well unless (a) you can do the maths, or (b) hire an expensive accountant to do it for you.

 

[Vixen]

Judging by the number of High School leavers I encounter every day in my business, both as clients and as job applicants, whose spelling, grammar and ability to write coherently is nothing short of atrocious, I completely disagree with your suggestion. In fact, if someone gives me a CV full of grammatical and spelling errors, I pretty much rule them out for employment before any other consideration.

If anything, the teaching of English language should be strengthened. IMO, at senior school levels English should be split into two separate subjects; Communications English (which should be compulsory) and English Literature (which could be optional).

What about the state of online newspapers? The grammar and syntax in the most popular tabloids are absolutely shocking. For example, 'was sat' or 'the Queen was wearing a check patterned coat' (for houndstooth). And one
or two sentences per paragraph. Thankfully, the broadsheets and the BBC are still well-written.

 

[Vixen]

When Algebra 2 gets around to factoring quadratic equations with complex roots, I secretly end up agreeing with the students that most will not use this stuff in "real life." Actually what trips them up more than anything else is arithmetic when it involves decimals or fractions.

I think Algebra 2 got started because by the freshman year of college most students could not remember anything from Algebra 1. It's mostly the same stuff.

If they want to go into manufacturing using raw materials, quadratic equations will be useful for calculating the limitations of stock say you have X number of one material and Y of another. The point on the graph, after you have calculated your X and Y axis where they cross will inform you of how many widgets you can make with your current stock.

 

[Vixen]

I don't know what planet you're from, or whether you've ever met a human teenager, but getting teens aged 16 - 18 to do something they don't want to do is pointless.

Far better we teach life & work skills.

I can say without any doubt that apart from languages, the only thing I learnt at high school that I've used in my life is typing. Maths/English/Chemistry/Biology/Physics, not one of them has served me any useful purpose in 45 years out of school.



Kids ought to have those basic reading and arithmetic skills at primary school.

We spend trillions of dollars on schools around the world, yet we turn out kids who don't know what a loan is, how interest works, and are completely lacking in life, sex, relationship and parenting skills.

Parents have proven pretty useless at teaching those things, and we have the little bastards held captive for 6 hours a day - why on earth aren't we using it wisely?



You can double it if you're learning French as well - the three languages are so interconnected that they all grow in unison. Stupid subject on its own, but very useful for linguists.

Surely chemistry has been useful to you of only for you to know the boiling point of water or that sugar or salt dissolves until it becomes a saturated solution. Or that sulphuric acid down your drain will clear limescale.

Biology, surely you now know all about why plants are green and what a cell is.

Physics, why your glasses help you see better. Mass and density. Displacement of liquid.

You are more inculcated from an early age than you even know.

 

[Roboramma]

I knew someone who refused to do English in Year 12, just didn't turn up to class.

In fact he refused to do anything except maths and science. The school said "without your ATAR you won't be able to get into University" and he contacted the universities directly and they said "How soon can you start?"

Of course he was exceptional in those subjects and other students can't follow this example, but I think, as long as that last year of high school is so critical to success in life, it should be open for people to decide that how to maximise those results, instead of there being this built in advantage for people who happen to be good at English.

After all, the educational system has had 11 years to teach good communication skills.

That sounds like an argument that universities shouldn't consider English grades when selecting applicants, not that it shouldn't be taught.

 

[angrysoba]

What about the state of online newspapers? The grammar and syntax in the most popular tabloids are absolutely shocking. For example, 'was sat' or 'the Queen was wearing a check patterned coat' (for houndstooth). And one
or two sentences per paragraph [sentence fragment]. Thankfully, the broadsheets and the BBC are still well-written.

I had to look up "houndstooth" as, shockingly, we were not taught it at school. I think English language English must already have been going to the dogs, by then.

 

[angrysoba]

Surely chemistry has been useful to you of only for you to know the boiling point of water or that sugar or salt dissolves until it becomes a saturated solution. Or that sulphuric acid down your drain will clear limescale.

Biology, surely you now know all about why plants are green and what a cell is.

Physics, why your glasses help you see better. Mass and density. Displacement of liquid.

You are more inculcated from an early age than you even know.

Surely, all those things would have been useful to the Atheist if he had made a kettle, rather than bought one. I mean, knowing the boiling point of water is probably not as useful as knowing that water is boiled when the switch is flipped. You don't have to learn the process of how sugar or salt is dissolved so much as being able to see it happen in your kitchen. If you have limescale, just buy one of those liquids that are made to unblock drains. If you wear glasses, buy them in the shop.

Do most of us really know this stuff?

 

[The Atheist]

Surely chemistry has been useful to you of only for you to know the boiling point of water or that sugar or salt dissolves until it becomes a saturated solution. Or that sulphuric acid down your drain will clear limescale.

Nope, not one of those things has been useful to me.

Water boil? I know it's boiled when the kettle switches off - the fact that it's 100C is no use to me whatsoever. I wouldn't put sulphuric acid down a drain for several reasons, chief of which is that it's a lot easier to buy a branded product.

Salt & sugar dissolving are things I'd known long before high school.

Biology, surely you now know all about why plants are green and what a cell is.

Completely unnecessary knowledge that has never served me any purpose. Also learnt long before high school.

Physics, why your glasses help you see better. Mass and density. Displacement of liquid.

More utterly worthless knowledge, and I've never had glasses. I use my telescope and microscope exactly the same as the bloke next door who never even studied physics.

You are more inculcated from an early age than you even know.

Just as well it's an English thread, or I'd be laughing at the word "inculcated". It's a classic example of a word that shouldn't be used, because it's pretentious nonsense that is never used in normal discourse. The only other time I've seen it used was by an Indian bloke keen to show off his English ability.

 

[Minoosh]

I'm familiar with puta. Would puto be a male prostitute?

I've taken to talking to my cats in high school Spanish, circa 1964.
Mi gatita es my bonita! Mi gatita tiene pies blancas! Mi gatita se llama Conejita!
Mi gatita es meowing at me right now and won't shut up.

I seem to remember more of high school Spanish than high school English.

Funny, my first "Spanish teacher" was a 3-year-old girl who would run up to me when I came home and ask, "¿Dónde está la gatita?" I'd say back, "La gatita está durmiendo." Her older sibs were perfectly bilingual, so I learned a lot. (I didn't mind sounding like I was 3 when talking to a 3-year-old, and the cat never corrected me).

I work with Latin American teenagers, need to know what the bad words are ...

The kids from Mexico were slightly ahead in math, I noticed.

 

[Minoosh]

If they want to go into manufacturing using raw materials, quadratic equations will be useful for calculating the limitations of stock say you have X number of one material and Y of another. The point on the graph, after you have calculated your X and Y axis where they cross will inform you of how many widgets you can make with your current stock.

I'm not sure if the complex roots part is needed for that. That sounds more like a system of linear equations.

ETA:

Water boil? I know it's boiled when the kettle switches off - the fact that it's 100C is no use to me whatsoever. I wouldn't put sulphuric acid down a drain for several reasons, chief of which is that it's a lot easier to buy a branded product.

How about the freezing point of water, though? Useful if you are driving in slush.

ETA 2:

Just as well it's an English thread, or I'd be laughing at the word "inculcated". It's a classic example of a word that shouldn't be used, because it's pretentious nonsense that is never used in normal discourse.

Funny, I never use "discourse" in normal discourse.

Inculcate origins:
mid 16th century: from Latin inculcat- ‘pressed in’, from the verb inculcare, from in- ‘into’ + calcare ‘to tread’ (from calx, calc- ‘heel’).

To grind it in with your heel?

 

[arthwollipot]

I don't buy the argument that it is useful to learn Latin to learn English grammar or other European languages.

If you want to learn French, just learn French! It's an inefficient Rube-Goldbergian method to learn Latin first.

But what if you also want to learn Italian and Spanish too? Wouldn't Latin be useful for that?

Not nearly as useful as...I dunno...learning Italian and Spanish instead of Latin!

Just a thought!

But what if you want to learn English grammar??!

Then learn English grammar!

I wasn't taught English grammar! That's the point of what I've been saying. My high school English classes never taught grammar. We were expected to just "pick it up" somehow through the process of appreciating and critiquing literature.

The only class in which I learned the difference between future perfect and future imperfect was Latin. The only class in which I learned what a passive sentence was was Latin. The only class in which I learned how to properly use a subjunctive was Latin. Those terms were not only mentioned in English class, they were deliberately avoided.

If I wanted to learn English grammar (and I did), I could not learn English grammar. I could only learn Latin grammar, and apply that to what English grammar I could pick up naturally.

And this was twenty years before the internet, and my school library's grammar section was woefully inadequate.

 

[Minoosh]

I wasn't taught English grammar! That's the point of what I've been saying. My high school English classes never taught grammar. We were expected to just "pick it up" somehow through the process of appreciating and critiquing literature.

How about in primary school? It's the only place I remember it being explicitly addressed.

 

[smartcooky]

Puto is a bad word in Spanish ... at least Mexican Spanish.

Hay mucho burro un dos tres

 

[arthwollipot]

How about in primary school? It's the only place I remember it being explicitly addressed.

Well that was a long time ago. I believe that I got only the most basic grammar prior to 6th grade. Past, present, future. How to make a plural.

 

[angrysoba]

The only class in which I learned the difference between future perfect and future imperfect was Latin.

Could you please explain the difference between the future perfect (which I know despite never learning Latin) and the future imperfect (which I admit I have no knowledge of at all. Is this a Latin thing?)

 

[arthwollipot]

Could you please explain the difference between the future perfect (which I know despite never learning Latin) and the future imperfect (which I admit I have no knowledge of at all. Is this a Latin thing?)

Future perfect: I will do this.

Future imperfect: I will have done this.

 

[Minoosh]

Well that was a long time ago. I believe that I got only the most basic grammar prior to 6th grade. Past, present, future. How to make a plural.

I remember transitive and intransitive verbs. Was never taught how to diagram a sentence, as far as I can recall.

I was editing something that had a lot of dangling modifiers in it, and looked up the term. Someone on a blog said, "It's not that your grammar has to be perfect; it's that you don't want to write something that's unintentionally funny." That seemed like good advice.

 

[angrysoba]

Future perfect: I will do this.

Future imperfect: I will have done this.

Nope. The perfect uses the participle form.

Do did done
I will have done this. is the future perfect.

 

[arthwollipot]

I remember transitive and intransitive verbs. Was never taught how to diagram a sentence, as far as I can recall.

I still have trouble remembering which is which.

I was editing something that had a lot of dangling modifiers in it, and looked up the term. Someone on a blog said, "It's not that your grammar has to be perfect; it's that you don't want to write something that's unintentionally funny." That seemed like good advice.

Yes, as I said upthread, as long as communication was did I don't really see much of a problem. But when reading something, I appreciate good spelling and grammar as it is less disruptive of the experience and comprehension.

 

[smartcooky]

I can say without any doubt that apart from languages, the only thing I learnt at high school that I've used in my life is typing. Maths/English/Chemistry/Biology/Physics, not one of them has served me any useful purpose in 45 years out of school.

My experience was almost exactly the opposite of that.

Maths: Competency in algebra and trigonometry was critical to gaining qualifications in aeronautical engineering. I needed to be conversant with integral and differential calculus, solving quadratic equations and simultaneous equations.

English: The ability to write grammatically correct English was critical for submitting assignments and writing papers. If the assessor could not understand what you were trying to say, it would result in lost marks.

Chemistry: Mainly those parts relating to metallurgy are a very important part of any aerospace/aeronautical qualification

Biology: same as you, never used it

Physics: Used extensively. Understanding force, mass, velocity and acceleration as well as those components of physics that relate to electrical theory, and the physics of atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity was also a necessary part of my avionics certification.

 

[The Atheist]

ETA 2:
Funny, I never use "discourse" in normal discourse.

I was going to go with "intercourse" first.

My experience was almost exactly the opposite of that.

If you're doing a technical degree, no question - it's essential to do those subjects.

If you have a career in sales, accounting, history & geigraphy would have been quite useful, but the "elite" kids were expected to go down the classical route and I never got near them.

 

[gypsyjackson]

Inculcate is a surprisingly commonly used word in Malaysian English. I had to suggest to colleagues that they leave it out of reports to London, because we don’t really use it in the UK. While some Brits would probably understand it in context, I would guess they almost certainly wouldn’t have come across it before that point. Whereas here, when I drive to the in-laws’ place I drive past two roadside billboards which use it!

As has been pointed out (I thought in this thread, but maybe it was another), people tend to think of correct English usage as what they were taught at school - I would go beyond that and say what they think they were taught at school. For instance, on English grammar, I do not remember ever having been taught it formally at school; rather it was taught through correction by teachers and parents. When then learning French, German, Latin and mercifully briefly ancient Greek, I began to see how some of the grammatical rules were paralleled or not in English.

It wasn’t until I trained as a TEFL teacher 16 years after school that I began to understand the formalities of English grammar beyond ‘it just is’, or an odd feeling when someone said something non-standard.

I think personally it is too much of a generalisation to say I have never used anything I learned at what some people call middle and high school. But it might be the underlying principles which have served me better: Maths and Physics taught me to apply rules and logical thinking, Chemistry how to cover up a solvent hangover, English and English Literature to have varied styles of writing for different reasons, History to apply critical analysis to sources, and Geography for not colouring beyond the lines.

 

[Segnosaur]

It's probably beneficial to expose the student and challenge them to fields they do not naturally excel in, if for no other reason, just to be conversant in matters beyond their job. School is not strictly job training; it seeks to make you roundly educated and stuff. We all picked up far more than we realized. Remember the kids saying 'oh why do we have to learn math, we have calculators now'?

I agree that schooling should expose students to more than just a narrow set of topics that the student finds interesting or useful.

I guess the question is, is english really a good subject to force students to take to give them that rounded education. Given the direction the world is going, some higher-level science or history courses seem like they would be much more useful on average.

 

[angrysoba]

As has been pointed out (I thought in this thread, but maybe it was another), people tend to think of correct English usage as what they were taught at school - I would go beyond that and say what they think they were taught at school. For instance, on English grammar, I do not remember ever having been taught it formally at school; rather it was taught through correction by teachers and parents.

Ha! Maybe it was me (Oh wait! Maybe I should have written "Maybe it was I", or should it be "Perhaps you were referring to I" hmmm...).

"Grammar traditionalists" have been bemoaning the decline in grammar for hundreds of years, from those who thought Shakespeare couldn't write proper grammar, to Swift, to Strunk and White, to George Orwell and to modern day pedants like Lynne Truss and Simon Heffer, despite the fact that literacy has risen over those centuries, and the fact that they mistake "What I learnt when I was at school" for "correct grammar", and their books tend to littered with all kinds of errors which are pointed out by actual linguists.

In this post, I was more specifically referring to people who have somehow made a career writing books about how English should be wrote. People such as Simon Heffer whose book cites his sources of "correct" English as books written in the 19th century, the 1920s all the way up to the 1940s! I believe he admonishes his readers that an adverb should always be followed by a verb, which is a ridiculous assertion, particularly when his book is called "Strictly English"! Ermmm...hello Simon, ya ***** in the bucket!

Here's a good take-down on the grammar prescriptivists such as Heffer and others:

I have been suffering the same painful experience — reviewing the same ghastly, insufferable, obnoxious, appallingly incompetent book. It is by Simon Heffer, the associate editor of the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph, who imagined that he could improve the world by offering 350 pages of his thoughts on grammatical usage, uninformed by any work since he was in college thirty years ago — in fact pretty much innocent of acquaintance with any work on English grammar published in more than half a century.

The book is called Strictly English: The Correct Way to Write… and Why It Matters. It was published in September by Random House (whoa! that's random!). If you can feel your teeth start to itch as you read his title, don't buy the book. Look at it in the front of the bookstore and then put it back on the table. It really is that pompous, and for true bone-headed blundering stupidity about grammar it actually gives The Elements of Style a run for its money.

I know that a few tender souls will feel that there must be something good in everything, and that I really shouldn't be so negative. So I will say one favorable thing about the book. Holding it in my hands did not make my skin erupt in a horrible disfiguring disease. There. I'm done. Don't tell me I don't know how to be fair and balanced.

But yeah, you are right about people often thinking they know a rule about English because their teacher told them, but then not being able to apply it (assuming they were even taught it correctly). For example, people will think they are correcting someone when they say, "You mean, 'Roger and I' not 'Roger and Me'"

No, it depends on whether we are talking about the subject (I) or object (Me).

It is a story about Roger and me.

*It is a story about Roger and I.

The latter sounds weird to everyone who hasn't been inculcated with the hypercorrection.

 

[Segnosaur]

I wasn't taught English grammar! That's the point of what I've been saying. My high school English classes never taught grammar. We were expected to just "pick it up" somehow through the process of appreciating and critiquing literature.

I had the same sort of experience....

Back in high school (this was in the early 80s in Ontario, Canada), my english courses were heavily focused on things like "Read this book and explain the symbolism in it". Very little attention was paid towards grammar, sentence structure, etc. (past what was learned pre-high school.)

 

[sphenisc]

According to whatever I just read, Puto, meaning "I judge" or "I think" in Latin, and Puta, meaning "prostitute" in Spanish, are false cognates. There is some speculation that they may both originate in the same proto-Hindo-European root, but nobody can ever say for sure (because whatever that language was, it was before writing stuff down was invented).

The problem there is that you've put Descartes before the whores.

 

[Lupus]

The whole English pushing and math reducing is just a thing to try to make female students excel more than their male counterparts.
It seems to me that English should be changed to be more about communication and journalism skills than interpreting novels and plays.
The problem also is that they choose the uninteresting and dull classics which gives students a bad impression of old books.

 

[Trebuchet]

Was never taught how to diagram a sentence, as far as I can recall.

Presumably you're younger than me! I really, really, REALLY hated diagramming sentences.
Can't remember what grade, maybe sixth or seventh.