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

Einstein.

Because E = mc^2 was such an elegant summary of the body of mankind's knowledge on his subject.

He designed such simple experiments for deep physics questions and wrote about them in a way a common person could understand.
 
I've seen worse.
Remember that this is just a sample.

I remember an exercise where teachers were supposed to evaluate student writings according to these descriptors. The only thing the teachers got from a book of this nonsense was that if a student started a sentence with a capital letter and ended it with a full stop then they were functioning at "level 3" (typical year 9 standard).
 
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.
It's even worse than that. The responsibility for what a student achieves has been transferred entirely from the student to the teacher. Therefore schools are under pressure to conceal under-achievement as far as possible.

In one set of reports, a teacher could only rate a number of student attitudes/attendance etc according to one of three categories: "Consistently", "Usually" or "Seldom". Of course most students fell between the "Usually" and "Seldom" categories but we weren't permitted to tell parents that so we were expected to lie on their report cards.
 
It's even worse than that. The responsibility for what a student achieves has been transferred entirely from the student to the teacher.

Oh my God, yes.

And their parents. Kids need motivation and direction from their parents and unfortunately school is just a babysitter to most. They not only don't get involved, but have this sense of entitlement, that the school is obligated to produce literacy with no input from themselves.


Therefore schools are under pressure to conceal under-achievement as far as possible.

In one set of reports, a teacher could only rate a number of student attitudes/attendance etc according to one of three categories: "Consistently", "Usually" or "Seldom". Of course most students fell between the "Usually" and "Seldom" categories but we weren't permitted to tell parents that so we were expected to lie on their report cards.

Long ago I had a relationship with a woman who had a daughter I wasn't paying a lot of attention to like my kids now - she lived with her Dad when we met. But she tricked me into thinking she could read by having memorized the few picture books she brought around.

I saw this letter from the school, it was about a meeting for special parents, and decided I would go because her mother blew it off. I sat through this meeting, baffled about what the hell was going on and got increasingly agitated.

I finally stood up in frustration and demanded to know in plain english what was going on. It sounded like she was doing everything she could to avoid saying Amanda couldn't read. She was in second grade, so this is extreme underperformance.

Everyone looked at me in silence. The teacher didn't actually answer me directly. But it was then obvious it was true. We were just forbidden from saying it.
 
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.
The funny thing is, a lot of adolescents are naturally critical thinkers, until we beat it out of them. They can demonstrate purpose etc. - until they're asked to do it in writing. I tell them writing is just talking, but they don't believe me.
 
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Einstein. (...) He designed such simple experiments for deep physics questions and wrote about them in a way a common person could understand.


Not just about them:

the desire to be acknowledged as better, stronger, or more intelligent than a fellow being or fellow scholar easily leads to an excessively egoistic psychological adjustment, which may become injurious for the individual and for the community. Therefore the school and the teacher must guard against employing the easy method of creating individual ambition in order to induce to pupils to diligent work.
Darwin’s theory of the struggle for existence and the selectivty connected with it has by many people been cited as authorization of the encouragement of the spirit of competition. Some people also in such a way have tried to prove pseudo-scientifically the necessity of the destructive economic struggle of competition between individuals. But this is wrong, because man owes his strength in the struggle for existence to the fact that he is a socially living animal. As little as a battle between single ants of an anthill is essential for survival, just so little is this the case with the individual members of a human community.
Therefore, one should guard against preaching to the young man success in the customary sense as the aim of life.
On Education
 
The funny thing is, a lot of adolescents are naturally critical thinkers, until we beat it out of them. They can demonstrate purpose etc. - until they're asked to do it in writing. I tell them writing is just talking, but they don't believe me.
To be fair, there are a couple of differences. The main one, I think, is that writing is slower. You can say more words in less time than you can write or type them, unless you've done some serious practice in speed-typing or you know shorthand (and not many people still use that). And you can think words faster than you can say them. So slowing down your thoughts to the speed of writing is hard for some people. There's a knack to it, and it can be taught, but I don't think it's as simple as you're making it out to be.
 
The funny thing is, a lot of adolescents are naturally critical thinkers, until we beat it out of them. They can demonstrate purpose etc. - until they're asked to do it in writing. I tell them writing is just talking, but they don't believe me.
Unfortunately, many students are taught to deal with the idea and the form or the writing simultaneously and that tends to poison the creativity.

A better method is to get the students to make two drafts. In the first draft, they write what they are thinking any old how without regard to grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. In the second draft, they don't worry about the idea, they just proof read the first draft and correct the grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.
 
To be fair, there are a couple of differences. The main one, I think, is that writing is slower. You can say more words in less time than you can write or type them, unless you've done some serious practice in speed-typing or you know shorthand (and not many people still use that). And you can think words faster than you can say them. So slowing down your thoughts to the speed of writing is hard for some people. There's a knack to it, and it can be taught, but I don't think it's as simple as you're making it out to be.
You're right and I am probably influenced by years of rewriting copy. If a story was a disorganized mess I would jot a few words by each paragraph to tell me why that paragraph existed. Then I would condense, cut and paste to make the story easier to follow. The inverse would be outlining and going on from there.

Unfortunately, many students are taught to deal with the idea and the form or the writing simultaneously and that tends to poison the creativity.
Another problem with the way writing is taught is that it's so often tied to literature. I'm not sure how this happened. It makes sense sometimes, but students also need a chance to write about stuff that interests them.
 
Another problem with the way writing is taught is that it's so often tied to literature. I'm not sure how this happened. It makes sense sometimes, but students also need a chance to write about stuff that interests them.
Unfortunately it's been so long since I was taught to write (in the 70s and 80s) that I don't remember how it was done. I do remember high school English classes were entirely focused on literature - I learned more English grammar in Latin than I did in English. There were some creative writing classes, but I think they were electives rather than being part of standard English lessons.
 
Punctuation does matter.
Consider:
Let's eat Kitty.
Let's eat, Kitty.
Two totally different meanings caused by the insertion of a single comma.

Similarly

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy – will you let me be yours?
Jill

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill
 
Similarly

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy – will you let me be yours?
Jill

Dear Jack,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn! For you I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Yours,
Jill

Nice one for HS students. I already used the one about "Let's eat Grandma."

I noticed that a test asking about, among other things, punctuation, had punctuation errors - using Brit conventions for commas/quotation marks.
 
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observing that kids are able and very keen to use a dizzying number of abbreviations, alternative spelling and giving new meanings to common words and expressions; and all of those change or get "old" so rapidly (they immediately spot the adult trying to be "cool"), makes me assume it's not laziness, but kids wanting to form their own language, separate from the imposed adult way of speaking.
 
Maybe, but very often it's a question of emphasizing that they are part of a very exclusive group. Not just adults but also other groups of young people are excluded, the ones who don't belong.
 
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.

What school is this?
 
Maybe, but very often it's a question of emphasizing that they are part of a very exclusive group. Not just adults but also other groups of young people are excluded, the ones who don't belong.

I sometimes adults do this, too, amirite?

I have no idea why, other than "because, the internet". :D

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

That is a misquote of James Nicoll.

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
Usenet article <1990May15.155309.8892@watdragon.waterloo.edu> (1990), updated in Usenet article <bi5d3u$hjl$1@panix1.panix.com> (2003)
 
That is a misquote of James Nicoll.

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
Usenet article <1990May15.155309.8892@watdragon.waterloo.edu> (1990), updated in Usenet article <bi5d3u$hjl$1@panix1.panix.com> (2003)

Hilarious first post. Welcome to the madhouse.
 
arth's version is a little better.

Point me to Arth's version please! and thanks for posting that, Brett Dunbar. I chuckled heartily.

I used to become very irritated by the misuse of English, but have come to realise that it must necessarily change or evolve as it always has.

I'm still quite annoyed that misused phrases become accepted phrases by virtue of their misuse.
 
I've always been a pretty hardcore anti-pedant when it comes to language.

If you look back at the history of language as a concept and the English language in particular the idea of looking at the language and going there's a right and wrong way to do it and to that you can look at any point in development of a language and go "Okay lock in here, no more changes" (which like it or not, admit it or not is exactly what a lot of people are doing) is simply beyond absurd. It's basically declaring yourself the referee in a came of Calvinball.

Like the whole idea that in "proper" English it's somehow wrong to end a sentence with a preposition... pretty much can be traced back to one guy, just a guy, who was influential in academic circles back in the 1700s who had a really big hard on for Latin just decided you couldn't, and a lot of the big Language No-nos that set off the Language Enforcers are like that. I've in the past referred to language pedants as trying to enforce their fandom as if it were a canon, but even that's not true. There's no canon for there to be a fandom of.

Language Pedants will always fall back on "But we're just trying enforce clarity" but that's nonsense. Nobody's ever looked at the sign above a checkout lane that says "10 Items or Less" and been unable to parse the meaning. If one was to look at a field of castrated work cattle and go "Look at all the Oxes" instead of "Oxen" nobody would be confused in any way. English is pretty rare in "double negatives" even been a thing that anyone worries about. The list goes on.

My #1 rule when dealing with language pedants has always been "If you understood me well enough to correct me, you understood well enough to understand me."
 
... My #1 rule when dealing with language pedants has always been "If you understood me well enough to correct me, you understood well enough to understand me."

Not to mention the innate pointing skill, which gets many a traveler along on his/her way. Can massively backfire, though, unless you're ready for another kind of lip and tongue work.
 
I've always been a pretty hardcore anti-pedant when it comes to language.

If you look back at the history of language as a concept and the English language in particular the idea of looking at the language and going there's a right and wrong way to do it and to that you can look at any point in development of a language and go "Okay lock in here, no more changes" (which like it or not, admit it or not is exactly what a lot of people are doing) is simply beyond absurd. It's basically declaring yourself the referee in a came of Calvinball.

Like the whole idea that in "proper" English it's somehow wrong to end a sentence with a preposition... pretty much can be traced back to one guy, just a guy, who was influential in academic circles back in the 1700s who had a really big hard on for Latin just decided you couldn't, and a lot of the big Language No-nos that set off the Language Enforcers are like that. I've in the past referred to language pedants as trying to enforce their fandom as if it were a canon, but even that's not true. There's no canon for there to be a fandom of.

Language Pedants will always fall back on "But we're just trying enforce clarity" but that's nonsense. Nobody's ever looked at the sign above a checkout lane that says "10 Items or Less" and been unable to parse the meaning. If one was to look at a field of castrated work cattle and go "Look at all the Oxes" instead of "Oxen" nobody would be confused in any way. English is pretty rare in "double negatives" even been a thing that anyone worries about. The list goes on.

My #1 rule when dealing with language pedants has always been "If you understood me well enough to correct me, you understood well enough to understand me."

I agree overall, but when you see long multi paragraph messages without any punctuation...
 
My #1 rule when dealing with language pedants has always been "If you understood me well enough to correct me, you understood well enough to understand me."
Yeah, in most situations as long as communication was did.

There are circumstances however where correct spelling and grammar aren't just desirable, they are necessary. Writing for publicaion, for example. You're not going to sell your 300,000 word novel if it's riddled with errors.
 
If you look back at the history of language as a concept and the English language in particular the idea of looking at the language and going there's a right and wrong way to do it and to that you can look at any point in development of a language and go "Okay lock in here, no more changes" (which like it or not, admit it or not is exactly what a lot of people are doing) is simply beyond absurd. It's basically declaring yourself the referee in a came of Calvinball.
Yes, language evolves over time and new words, expressions and even new ways of using punctuation can become commonplace. This is desirable.

However, it is so not a good idea that anything goes. Communication suffers if a Cheshire cat mentality applies. That is why professional standards exist especially for the written word where nuances can be lost.
 
And again the whole "But we're just trying to be clear and efficient" argument doesn't make any sense because we're talking about English, the two dollar whore of languages.

If it was really about clarity and efficiency the rules of the English language should be under attack far, far, far more than any breaks from those rules.

But no a double negative or a split infinitive is a sin because it's inefficient and unclear but spelling knife with a K, having the same word for a small insect, the act of moving through the air, and the front flaps of a man's trousers, and such are not because they are inefficient and unclear but "official" so that makes it different because of reasons.

Why does Knife with a K not set up the Language Police but "10 Items or Less?" does? Because it's not about efficiency and clarity. It's about adherence to an arbitrary standard for no real purpose. We have to spell knife with a K because in Old English the K sound was present and that's the rule for some reason (forget that plenty of other words that dropped sounds also dropped the corresponding letters from their spelling because... why wouldn't you?) but we can't end a sentence with a preposition because Robert Lowth, a Catholic Church Bishop said so in 1760.
 
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When you use an abbreviation, should you change 'a' to 'an'? As in 'a role playng game' and 'an RPG'?

I think so.
 
And again the whole "But we're just trying to be clear and efficient" argument doesn't make any sense because we're talking about English, the two dollar whore of languages.

If it was really about clarity and efficiency the rules of the English language should be under attack far, far, far more than any breaks from those rules.

But no a double negative or a split infinitive is a sin because it's inefficient and unclear but spelling knife with a K, having the same word for a small insect, the act of moving through the air, and the front flaps of a man's trousers, and such are not because they are inefficient and unclear but "official" so that makes it different because of reasons.

Why does Knife with a K not set up the Language Police but "10 Items or Less?" does? Because it's not about efficiency and clarity. It's about adherence to an arbitrary standard for no real purpose. We have to spell knife with a K because in Old English the K sound was present and that's the rule for some reason (forget that plenty of other words that dropped sounds also dropped the corresponding letters from their spelling because... why wouldn't you?) but we can't end a sentence with a preposition because Robert Lowth, a Catholic Church Bishop said so in 1760.

But you can use an expression like 'it's not unpleasant' to some effect; it's some way between the extremes, and writers can use that kind of graduation to good effect.
 
And again the whole "But we're just trying to be clear and efficient" argument doesn't make any sense because we're talking about English, the two dollar whore of languages.

If it was really about clarity and efficiency the rules of the English language should be under attack far, far, far more than any breaks from those rules.

But no a double negative or a split infinitive is a sin because it's inefficient and unclear but spelling knife with a K, having the same word for a small insect, the act of moving through the air, and the front flaps of a man's trousers, and such are not because they are inefficient and unclear but "official" so that makes it different because of reasons.

Why does Knife with a K not set up the Language Police but "10 Items or Less?" does? Because it's not about efficiency and clarity. It's about adherence to an arbitrary standard for no real purpose. We have to spell knife with a K because in Old English the K sound was present and that's the rule for some reason (forget that plenty of other words that dropped sounds also dropped the corresponding letters from their spelling because... why wouldn't you?) but we can't end a sentence with a preposition because Robert Lowth, a Catholic Church Bishop said so in 1760.
The standard may be arbitrary, but it's still a standard. Furthermore, the standard, like most things in English, is a bit floppy and indistinct and there may be several ways to keep to the standard. It may not be necessary to strictly adhere to the rule to never end a sentence with a preposition, for example. There are plenty of situations where the rule does not necessarily apply. That doesn't mean that you can throw the entire grammatical structure and spelling conventions of English right out the window. Fuzzy though they are, they are still useful. Case in point: you, JoeMorgue, are still applying them in your own writing.
 
Heh whenever an errant child tells me "I didn't do nothing" I reply with "that means you DID do SOMETHING".
It doesn't mean that, though. Natural languages are not systems of formal logic. You're being a dick to children, by denying the plain meaning of their speech, in favor of a doctrinaire and thus ignorant adherence to irrelevant rules.

Other languages makes this clearer. Portuguese, for example, explicitly treats a double negative as an emphatic negative. But even in English the emphasis is implicit.

Stop shouting down the children you meet, and start making space in your mind to understand and address what they're actually saying.

Sometimes I think that the high point of skepticism is an autistic failure to understand human interactions. Which isn't much of a high point at all. High horse? You should be so lucky. Get off your low horse before it tramples you underfoot.
 
In Japanese, if someone asks you "Don't you have any bananas?" and you don't have any bananas, the correct answer is "Yes, we have no bananas."
 
Why does Knife with a K not set up the Language Police but "10 Items or Less?" does? Because it's not about efficiency and clarity. It's about adherence to an arbitrary standard for no real purpose. We have to spell knife with a K because in Old English the K sound was present and that's the rule for some reason (forget that plenty of other words that dropped sounds also dropped the corresponding letters from their spelling because... why wouldn't you?) but we can't end a sentence with a preposition because Robert Lowth, a Catholic Church Bishop said so in 1760.


You would spell the verb now (past tense: new) without the k for the sake of clarity? I'm not saying that the sentence "She need him in the groin" would become impossible to understand, but I have a nee-jerk disklike of it. For the sake of clarity you could just go back to pronouncing the kn words with a k! :)

(By the way, the Danish word for naif is kniv, but we pronounce the k. We do the same thing with Knud.)
 
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