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It it time to give up on grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.?

Minoosh

Penultimate Amazing
Joined
Jul 15, 2011
Messages
12,594
I know it's bad form to complain to much about punctuation, spelling etc. on an Internet message board, but it seems to me there has been a drop-off lately on some pretty basic conventions on ISF. There are some comments I have to read twice to figure out what they are saying. Some of it is auto-correction gone amuck, as when a completely different word is substituted for the author's meaning, but some of it seems like sheer carelessness to me.

Here's the question. How much should I emphasize proper usage when I coach high school students on such conventions? Is it a lost cause? I've been calling kids out on it more, and some of them actually seem to like it - having some set of rules that they can learn. Plus, a lot of them have a fairly good grasp of the rules but don't bother applying them, perhaps a habit from texting. They seem to like "sentence repair" exercises because they really are sometimes relieved to be told there is one correct answer in this area.

Of course having said that, I'm sure I've made at least one error in this post.
 
Who is this much you complain to?

:D

But, I do feel for Minoosh in this quest.

Rules eh? It's fair to say that there are no absolute "rules", just guidelines, and even those are fluid.

"I has a cat" is wrong, unless you're kidding.

"That hinge squeaks, it needs oiled" is also wrong. Sort of wrong, in a technical sense, though we see it increasingly.

Where does 'technically wrong' end? Beat me.
 
Dispensing with "proper usage" in writing seems to be yet another example of "removing the obstacles from the obstacle course".

In assessing a piece of student writing it should be possible to allocate marks according to three separate criteria:
- Whether the student has an idea to communicate.
- Whether the student communicates that idea clearly.
- Whether the standard of spelling, punctuation and grammar meets an acceptable standard.

Students (especially boys) just want to know if they are right or wrong. Unfortunately, in the "no student left behind" quest, this has become a dirty concept and assessing as above has become a big "no no". Instead, they have to deal with vague gobbledygook that tells students and their parents nothing about how well the student is doing.
 
I made a typo in my thread title!

Dispensing with "proper usage" in writing seems to be yet another example of "removing the obstacles from the obstacle course".

In assessing a piece of student writing it should be possible to allocate marks according to three separate criteria:
- Whether the student has an idea to communicate.
- Whether the student communicates that idea clearly.
- Whether the standard of spelling, punctuation and grammar meets an acceptable standard.

Students (especially boys) just want to know if they are right or wrong. Unfortunately, in the "no student left behind" quest, this has become a dirty concept and assessing as above has become a big "no no". Instead, they have to deal with vague gobbledygook that tells students and their parents nothing about how well the student is doing.
Do you have personal experience of gobbledygook that makes it hard to tell how a student is doing? Grading rubrics do tend to be hard to read, IMO, compared to the three-point list you mentioned. For example, a rubric to quantify reading comprehension might be above the student's (or parent's) reading level, which is not helpful. But I don't find a lot of difference between girls and boys in terms of wanting to know if they're right or wrong.

The idea of "No Child Left Behind" was to focus on using measurable data to evaluate progress, pinpoint problem areas and hold educators accountable, NOT to create a mandate to pass everybody. However I can confirm my own bias: I want all my students to pass and am probably an overgenerous grader.

I made a typo in my thread title :o. So my new standard is, one mistake is forgivable :cool:, but not three of them per sentence, which is common in Internet postings from adults who seem otherwise to be thoughtful and well-educated.
 
I would have said amok, but I can see that amuck seems to be accepted.

This is the beginning of the exam that high school students (Why isn't it hyphenated: high-school students?) take in Denmark. The students have to correct the sentences and explain the corrections. The errors are some of those typically made by Danes. The §§ are references to their English grammar book; they're not included in the actual exam.

Ret fejlene i følgende sætninger, og forklar dine rettelser på dansk. Brug relevant grammatisk/faglig terminologi. Der er kun én fejl i hver sætning. Skriv den korrekte sætning på linjerne nedenunder.
1. The ambassador’s children had spend most of their childhood abroad. §167
2. The vacuum cleaner broke down yesterday, but luckily the new will be delivered by mail in less than a week. §35
3. He narrowly avoided to run his car into a school bus full of children. §140
4. The famous winner of the literature prize, which latest novel was released last year, has died. §78b
5. The latest news about the terrorists are that they have given up negotiating for the time being. §12c
6. New car sales in Europe have falled to their lowest level since 1980. §167
7. The main character possesses strong morally values but ends up being isolated from her family. §27
 
The 13th Tariff Act and the “free list” come to mind, so the legal community will always demand perfection in punctuation, but for social media type stuff it should be OK as long as the message gets through.
 
Do you have personal experience of gobbledygook that makes it hard to tell how a student is doing?


Yes. I had the misfortune to be saddled with "Outcomes Based Education" 10-15 years ago when it was a fad among bureaucrats all across Australia. The basic idea was that instead of grading a student on what they achieved, they were assessed based on how high a level they were operating at. The problem was trying to get an objective measure of the level. Consider the following "descriptor":
English
Outcome 1: Listening and speaking

Students listen and speak with purpose, understanding and critical awareness in a wide range of contexts.

Aspect 2: Students develop a topic; show awareness of and respect for other people’s ideas or points of view; and modify elements of listening and speaking for different audiences and purposes.
Imagine this gobbledygook multiplied by thousands of pages and you will know why no two teachers could agree on a level for a student (multiplied by the whole country!)

The idea of "No Child Left Behind" was to focus on using measurable data to evaluate progress, pinpoint problem areas and hold educators accountable, NOT to create a mandate to pass everybody.
Unfortunately, by transferring the responsibility on student achievement from the students to the teachers it created pressure on teachers to give each student as high a level as possible - whether the student achieved it or not.

Worse, teachers were expected to use a large variety and number of assessment tools to assess student levels. This created a massive increase in the workload for teachers while diminishing greatly the amount of time teachers had to teach the subject.

It was a massive dumbing down of education.
 
The robots who replace us will all have perfect grammar, punctuation and spelling. Indeed, that is one of the ways to tell whether a member of the Robot Resistance League is human or not. Real humans make mistakes. If somebody asks you what 2+2 equals, say 5. Robots cannot do that.
 
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Yes. I had the misfortune to be saddled with "Outcomes Based Education" 10-15 years ago when it was a fad among bureaucrats all across Australia. The basic idea was that instead of grading a student on what they achieved, they were assessed based on how high a level they were operating at. The problem was trying to get an objective measure of the level. Consider the following "descriptor":

Imagine this gobbledygook multiplied by thousands of pages and you will know why no two teachers could agree on a level for a student (multiplied by the whole country!)


Unfortunately, by transferring the responsibility on student achievement from the students to the teachers it created pressure on teachers to give each student as high a level as possible - whether the student achieved it or not.

Worse, teachers were expected to use a large variety and number of assessment tools to assess student levels. This created a massive increase in the workload for teachers while diminishing greatly the amount of time teachers had to teach the subject.

It was a massive dumbing down of education.

I found an example of your quote of your gobbledygook here https://www.bcgs.wa.edu.au/system/tdf/2017 Y12 Course Continuation Book.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=80 (pdf). I could find nothing specific about to what standard a student's performance is measured. Your quote was typical of what was written.

To me how important grammar and spelling is depends on how important the audience is to the writer. Something like this forum, as long as the meaning is reasonably clear then any errors should not attract comment. I think it is rude to point out minor errors in English here. On the other hand, in a job application, where communications skills are listed as critical, then time must be spent checking and rechecking for errors. This includes by other people.
 
I would have said amok, but I can see that amuck seems to be accepted.

This is the beginning of the exam that high school students (Why isn't it hyphenated: high-school students?) take in Denmark. The students have to correct the sentences and explain the corrections. The errors are some of those typically made by Danes. The §§ are references to their English grammar book; they're not included in the actual exam.
One factor that dismays me deeply about the U.S. culture/education system is that there is no real effort to build fluency in another language. I think this really affects the brain's ability to learn other languages later. Europeans may switch easily back and forth between three or four languages while many Americans will be stuck at a phrase-book level for their entire lives. Politically, mandating instruction in a second language would probably create a domestic backlash. The exception is that I know many bilingual teenagers who are immigrants or children of immigrants.

The failure to develop language-learning talent will IMO become a serious security threat to the U.S., hampering our ability to "keep an ear to the ground" and gather intelligence. We will become entirely too dependent on translators.
 
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Imagine this gobbledygook multiplied by thousands of pages and you will know why no two teachers could agree on a level for a student (multiplied by the whole country!)
That gobbledygook sounds amazingly coherent compared to rubrics I've encountered in the U.S.
 
It's not just grammar, spelling and punctuation. The mispronunciation of many common words when speaking is what drives me crazy. Not just your average students and educated adults, but talking heads on television are the ones who make these mistakes the most. And they get paid to do it.
 
The robots who replace us will all have perfect grammar, punctuation and spelling. Indeed, that is one of the ways to tell whether a member of the Robot Resistance League is human or not. Real humans make mistakes. If somebody asks you what 2+2 equals, say 5. Robots cannot do that.
Artificial intelligence efforts make it a point of inserting humanlike processing into human/robot interactions - the pauses, "umms" etc. that pepper human speech. There was a thread about this recently.
 
It's not just grammar, spelling and punctuation. The mispronunciation of many common words when speaking is what drives me crazy. Not just your average students and educated adults, but talking heads on television are the ones who make these mistakes the most. And they get paid to do it.
Gah. EYE-RAN drives me nuts. Could be we're just trolling Iran though.
 
There are some comments I have to read twice to figure out what they are saying.
This is why it's important not to give up. The purpose of writing is to communicate. The rules of spelling and grammar exist in order to make that communication faster and easier. Ignoring them makes communication more difficult and slower.

Of course, that being said, the modern emoji-laden vernacular has its own grammar that can be grasped and understood as well. Language evolves, and the ways in which it evolves are not always simply "mistakes".

Of course having said that, I'm sure I've made at least one error in this post.
Yes, I saw two, but those were attributable to basic American English vs English English usage. The first was in the spelling of "emphasize", which is purely American spelling conventions. From your point of view it is completely correct, so it isn't something I would normally pay attention to.

The other is the sentence fragment "...because they really are sometimes relieved to be told there is one correct answer in this area." I would have said "..to be told that there is one...". But again, this is usage. I think you could say "...to be told 'there is one correct answer'." or you could say "...to be told that there is one correct answer." If you are not quoting an actual statement, I think it is more correct to add "that" prior to the paraphrase of the statement.

Sorry, but I'm at home sick with a stomach bug today and I'm bored.
 
Yes, I saw two, but those were attributable to basic American English vs English English usage. The first was in the spelling of "emphasize", which is purely American spelling conventions.

Just as a matter of interest, the -ize versions of certain verbs were the originals in British English. We gradually moved towards the -ise version while the USA stuck with -ize, but both are correct on the Brit side of the pond ( there are a few -ise verbs in British English that have to be spelled that way - surprise for example - but they have a different etymological origin from the bulk of such verbs)
 
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I think it is rude to point out minor errors in English here.
Only if it is implied that a minor grammatical error renders an entire argument invalid.

This is why it is important that grammar/punctuation/spelling etc be marked separately from the main thrust of the writing and why it should be made clear to the student how much emphasis is given to each aspect when marking.
 
Just as a matter of interest, the -ize versions of certain verbs were the originals in British English. We gradually moved towards the -ise version while the USA stuck with -ize, but both are correct on the Brit side of the pond ( there are a few -ise verbs in British English that have to be spelled that way - surprise for example - but they have a different etymological origin from the bulk of such verbs)
Yes, the English English language was totally Frenchified by those pesky Normans who came over in 1066 and built castles everywhere. The language hasn't been the same since.

Two things I have heard about English, and one that I said years ago which is still true.

First: English doesn't borrow words from other languages. It follows them down dark alleys and mugs them for their loose vocabulary.

Second: English isn't a single language. It's three languages standing on each others' shoulders and wearing a trenchcoat.

And now the thing I first said years ago: All rules have exceptions, including this one.
 
Yes, the English English language was totally Frenchified by those pesky Normans who came over in 1066 and built castles everywhere. The language hasn't been the same since.

Two things I have heard about English, and one that I said years ago which is still true.

First: English doesn't borrow words from other languages. It follows them down dark alleys and mugs them for their loose vocabulary.

Second: English isn't a single language. It's three languages standing on each others' shoulders and wearing a trenchcoat.

And now the thing I first said years ago: All rules have exceptions, including this one.

I think there are more than 3 languages that make up English. Let us list some of them
1. Anglo-Saxon
2. French - Norman
3. Norse from the Vikings. This may actually be more than one language
4. Latin
5. Rest of the world.

The last one is because when the English explored the rest of the world they brought back words and expressions. I will be willing to bury the hatchet with anyone on the issue. Even give you a koala or two.

English may even have a few Celtic words, though they may be only used in certain part of England.

This also ignores the fact that many words changed over time for a number of reasons. So the above is only a simplification the facts.
 
Because I was curious what you considered to be gobbledygook.
I gather that you don't think it is gobbledygook even though words like "purpose, understanding and critical awareness in a wide range of contexts" are not defined in the descriptors and thus subject to interpretation.
 
I know it's bad form to complain to much about punctuation, spelling etc. on an Internet message board, but it seems to me there has been a drop-off lately on some pretty basic conventions on ISF. There are some comments I have to read twice to figure out what they are saying. Some of it is auto-correction gone amuck, as when a completely different word is substituted for the author's meaning, but some of it seems like sheer carelessness to me.

Here's the question. How much should I emphasize proper usage when I coach high school students on such conventions? Is it a lost cause? I've been calling kids out on it more, and some of them actually seem to like it - having some set of rules that they can learn. Plus, a lot of them have a fairly good grasp of the rules but don't bother applying them, perhaps a habit from texting. They seem to like "sentence repair" exercises because they really are sometimes relieved to be told there is one correct answer in this area.

Of course having said that, I'm sure I've made at least one error in this post.

As likely one of the worst offenders, don't give up.

Edit to add, Years ago I read the Professor and the Madman, the book about the first Oxford English Dictionary, the author claimed that English has twice as many words as any other language due to its convoluted history.
 
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It's not just grammar, spelling and punctuation. The mispronunciation of many common words when speaking is what drives me crazy. Not just your average students and educated adults, but talking heads on television are the ones who make these mistakes the most. And they get paid to do it.

Add to that the auto-announcers in buses and trains who mispronounce the names of stops.

Someone told me the voice on London Transport buses is Jenny Bond.

Please pronounce these ancient names correctly! Jenny, you do not need to ennunciate every syllable.
 
Artificial intelligence efforts make it a point of inserting humanlike processing into human/robot interactions - the pauses, "umms" etc. that pepper human speech. There was a thread about this recently.

Nooooo! People who keep saying, 'um' drive me nuts.


Thankfully, it seems BBC broadcasters have been trained not to do this. There was one hapless 'our reporter at the scene' who clearly had no idea what to say, so it was 'er...' every third word.
 
I think there are more than 3 languages that make up English. Let us list some of them
1. Anglo-Saxon
2. French - Norman
3. Norse from the Vikings. This may actually be more than one language
4. Latin
5. Rest of the world.

The last one is because when the English explored the rest of the world they brought back words and expressions. I will be willing to bury the hatchet with anyone on the issue. Even give you a koala or two.

English may even have a few Celtic words, though they may be only used in certain part of England.

This also ignores the fact that many words changed over time for a number of reasons. So the above is only a simplification the facts.

Quite a few Indian and Arabic words, too. For example, algebra.
 
Punctuation does matter.
Consider:
Let's eat Kitty.
Let's eat, Kitty.
Two totally different meanings caused by the insertion of a single comma.
 
Yes, the English English language was totally Frenchified by those pesky Normans who came over in 1066 and built castles everywhere. The language hasn't been the same since...


They gave it a bit o' class, they did! Actually, since the Normans were part of the ruling elite a lot French words were used (and later assimilated) with anything having to do with governance, laws, contracts, penal codes etc.

Which is why when you don't pay your rent your landlord might take you to court.
 
They gave it a bit o' class, they did! Actually, since the Normans were part of the ruling elite a lot French words were used (and later assimilated) with anything having to do with governance, laws, contracts, penal codes etc.

Which is why when you don't pay your rent your landlord might take you to court.
And why names of meat for eating are derived from French (boeuf, mouton, porc) while the names of the animals are not (cow, sheep, pig). The rich ate the meat, the poor tended the animals.
 
They gave it a bit o' class, they did! Actually, since the Normans were part of the ruling elite a lot French words were used (and later assimilated) with anything having to do with governance, laws, contracts, penal codes etc.

Which is why when you don't pay your rent your landlord might take you to court.
And food. Which is why peasants raise cows but lords eat beef.

edit: ninjaed!
 
Here's the question. How much should I emphasize proper usage when I coach high school students on such conventions?

Oh, definitely none. It's a government school, so the main issue is PC conformity.

My kids write three papers a day at ages 7 and 8. That would be first and second grade.

I'd be happy to post some of their work, just so that you can see the kind of thing your high-schoolers might aspire to.

At the moment, they write a story, a research paper, and do a presentation on a geographical area. (A country, state, river system, or whatever). They have to use a map, illustration, or diagram in every paper.

The eight-year-old does papers on the speed of light and Higgs Field, on the cyclical universe theory and black holes - science questions he just researches on his own. The seven year old wants to know how things are made. Glass, paper, steel, chairs, shirts - everything he sees around him.

Over a year ago they started writing on countries. You run out of countries in one-third of a year, so then you have to start doing states, cities, and places. I didn't think through a plan to have them write a paper about every country on earth by second grade. But they've done a lot more than that.

To ask if high-schoolers a decade older than them should have correct punctuation, spelling, and grammar - lol.

That's why it was called grammar school. Because by the end of grammar school you should already produce correct punctuation, spelling and grammar on your own.

But with social promotion, you can't have standards. So then you have high school teachers asking if grammar school competency should be expected in high school.

I know you are arguing, albeit weakly, for having standards. But they're just so pathetically low and we are getting the tar kicked out of us by an increasing number of foreign countries.

Our standard needs to be based upon the high achievers worldwide, given the resources we're throwing at it.
 
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I gather that you don't think it is gobbledygook even though words like "purpose, understanding and critical awareness in a wide range of contexts" are not defined in the descriptors and thus subject to interpretation.
I've seen worse.
 
Dispensing with "proper usage" in writing seems to be yet another example of "removing the obstacles from the obstacle course".

In assessing a piece of student writing it should be possible to allocate marks according to three separate criteria:
- Whether the student has an idea to communicate.
- Whether the student communicates that idea clearly.
- Whether the standard of spelling, punctuation and grammar meets an acceptable standard.

Yeah!

What they aren't doing is writing.

We write three papers a day in first and second grade. What we see the government school doing is training for "English Language Proficiency" by answering multiple-guess tests. It isn't even writing!

That's how they approach it with the factory model of processing age-sorted children. A teacher with 30 students grading 30 different papers a day? Day after day? No government school is doing anything remotely like that.

If they were, neither spelling nor grammar, nor punctuation would be an issue by the end of grammar school.

Students (especially boys) just want to know if they are right or wrong. Unfortunately, in the "no student left behind" quest, this has become a dirty concept and assessing as above has become a big "no no". Instead, they have to deal with vague gobbledygook that tells students and their parents nothing about how well the student is doing.

Lack of clarity always means ********. Eienstein said that when it couldn't be stated simply then we should be very suspicious of it.

You're exactly right here - that knowing where you stand is something the schools go to some lengths to avoid. Because it is unfair, in their minds, to the low-IQ cohort. Also because they don't want you to know how the school is doing.

The schools take standardized tests, all across the country. The test score is ultimately one number, in percentile: 1 - 100. Everyone knows exactly what that means. An 82 means you did better than 82% of the people who took the test.

Schools have an average score for their students too, and again - it's just one number. Everyone knows what it means. If your school has a 20, then 80 percent of the students who took that exam did better than the average kid at your school.

What you see schools doing is inventing a very complicated set of categories like the percent of their student who are "proficient", "not proficient", "far below proficient", and "superior". It's impossible to compare your school to other schools nationwide then because each district, or state, chooses what "proficient" means.

So they aren't giving you the one number that is understandable to a 3rd grader. Are we a 99 or a 62?
 
Here's an example of why spelling matters.

Lack of clarity always means ********. Eienstein said that when it couldn't be stated simply then we should be very suspicious of it.
Did you mean to write "Einstein" or "Wittgenstein"?

I suspect you meant Einstein, but Wittgenstein's aphorism may be more relevant here.
 
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