Our Grip of the Language

iana · Guru

Our Grip of the Language

Dougwe · Chief one feather

FRENCH

Yep French to me was a waist and a pain. English was a must but like you said Ian, very un interesting.

I find these days that I prefer, for example, when I do my updates to break it up into shorter sentences as I find it easier to read. Right or wrong, to me doesn't really matter.

IMO I am past worrying if the grammar and spelling is right or not in peoples posts, as long as I can read it all's good.

I know what you are saying though Ian.

-- Edited by Dougwe on Tuesday 1st of September 2015 08:28:27 PM

jules47 · The Happy Helper

Like you iana - I love books - and I love language, it is so frustrating if you see an advertisement with words spelt wrongly. I always want to contact the company, and say they are being made to looks like fools.

I used to take children who were way behind in their reading skills, I tried to engage their imaginations into reading, I would read a paragraph or two, to them, and ask them to close their eyes and imagine what I was reading to them - blue sky, huge green tree with magic red flowers, etc., - one little one was a sponge once he caught on, took seven books on holiday with him, read them all, and asked his mum to buy some more. I also got them to read, as you say, as if you are in a conversation, use your breath etc. It was a good time in my very good life.

hako · Guru

iana wrote:
SNIP
I hope our schools are addressing the problem.

-- Edited by iana on Tuesday 1st of September 2015 08:12:08 PM

I hope so also iana.

It seems kids nowdays learn most from their iphone which punctuates and corrects the spelling as does any word processor. They do not have to think. Nobody does addition, subtraction etc except with a calculator.

Unless the child can develop an interest in English or mathematics they will go through life reliant on electronic devices.

Maybe the times are a'changing so that good grammar is not necessary?

I too just scraped through my English exams.....and it shows.

Regards

iana · Guru

Jules47 "one little one was a sponge once he caught on, took seven books on holiday with him, read them all, and asked his mum to buy some more. I also got them to read, as you say, as if you are in a conversation, use your breath etc. It was a good time in my very good life." Wow that must have been a high light of your life, a young lad as well. Well done.
Yes the English language can be like painting a picture, except the size of the canvas is infinite and the colours never ending.

Sheba · Guru

Sent you a couple of PM's right after your first Post Ian. Did you get them ?

Cheers,

Sheba.

iana · Guru

Yes Sheba, its a pitty I made that mistake. I did say I only got 30% in my exam.
jules47 what makes me cringe is the term Kid, I was taught that was a baby goat. And the way the news readers like to refer pictures as pitchers.
Dougwe I now like to listen to different languages, would love to be able to speak French. I also like to watch body language, as I am very deaf, sometimes that is all I can do.
And I am only creating content, the forums a bit slow of late. Anyone can join in!

03_Troopy · Guru

I dun no abowt orl this book lurnin. I think its mosly over8ed.

Santa · Guru

iana wrote:
During my school days, the subject of English was always the lowest of low of the subjects. My English studies were always hard work, boring and I felt that it was of no real use. The subject of English was a compulsory subject for "School Certificate" and had a pass mark of 30%. I passed I got 30%.
Having migrated to Australia many years ago, I was in a job where I was doing a bit of supervision, and in order to complete the jobs, I handed out job sheets with all the tasks detailed. The forms eventually came back covered in spray paint and de-faced in many ways. It then occurred to me that these guys did not know how to read or write, in fact it was so bad that one of the supervisors used to take his work home and his wife would type up all his reports etc.
We have generations here in Australia, that have missed the teaching of English, and it shows up on our various forums. This is a pitty as some of the threads end up being a cryptic puzzle for the reader, and frustration for the writer not being able to get their message across.
I did a multimedia project many years ago, and did the lot. I found out the importance of writing correct sentence's, with commas, full stops etc. As reading the script into a microphone, and getting breathing right and the rest right to make the commentary close to interesting was a challenge. Since then my interest in the language has increased, and I do appreciate a good book.
I hope our schools are addressing the problem.

-- Edited by iana on Tuesday 1st of September 2015 08:12:08 PM

Interesting topic Ian.

While I see your point, I've been an active member of many forums over the past 20 years and the literacy level on Grey Nomads is without doubt the poorest I've come across.

Poor sentence construction is to a degree understandable, however, simple spelling mistakes in this day and age of Spellchecker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spell_checker should never happen.

Misspelled words are highlighted as you type, just a matter of a quick right click, all fixed. smile

Felicia · Guru

Ian,

Love the wording of "English language is like painting a picture". I so agree. When I was young I had a speech impediment so was sent to a therapist and had to pass an exam at the Conservatory of Music in Sydney (as they did speech as well). Learnt the Man from Snowy River, when to breath, when to pause, when to slow, when to speak louder etc. Loved it can do it to this day. If you can read a book aloud to children, like Doug did, with passion, it nearly always works. Worked in a school for 18 months as an assistant with disabled children. Teacher always made me read to them when it was book reading time.

Also if spelling is really bad how can we communicate with each other and understand the meaning of the message.

Lynda

03_Troopy · Guru

If you think the English language is great, imagine how the original languages it was bastardised from, would sound.

dorian · Guru

@iana, I can see several errors, but I'll be uncharacteristically diplomatic and refrain from mentioning them.

That said, I wholeheartedly concur with your statements. It seems to me that today's youth, and even some pretentious old farts, believe that good grammar and spelling are unkewl. I'm particularly annoyed at their silly affectations in regard to lowercase and SMS-ese. Perhaps it's their way of disguising their illiteracy, like shaving one's head to disguise baldness.

03_Troopy · Guru

Felicia wrote:
Ian,

Love the wording of "English language is like painting a picture". I so agree. When I was young I had a speech impediment so was sent to a therapist and had to pass an exam at the Conservatory of Music in Sydney (as they did speech as well). Learnt the Man from Snowy River, when to breath, when to pause, when to slow, when to speak louder etc. Loved it can do it to this day. If you can read a book aloud to children, like Doug did, with passion, it nearly always works. Worked in a school for 18 months as an assistant with disabled children. Teacher always made me read to them when it was book reading time.

Also if spelling is really bad how can we communicate with each other and understand the meaning of the message.

Lynda

Actually, it isn't as hard as it may seem. Can you read the paragraph below?

I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

Santa · Guru

03_Troopy wrote:

Actually, it isn't as hard as it may seem. Can you read the paragraph below?
I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.

Morning Troopy,

Sad that our younger generation are being given the message that spelling is no longer important, sure the average person can read the mish mash of letters printed above.

Try submitting a job application or CV written in the above style, do you think you would make it to the interview stage, not a snowballs hope in hell.

English and spelling are vitally important components of our education system, that is, as long as we remain an English speaking country.

KFT · Guru

Santa wrote:
"that is, as long as we remain an English speaking country."

Hey Santa, do you know something we should be looking out for??

c'mon out with it, what is going on?

03_Troopy · Guru

Santa wrote:
03_Troopy wrote:

Actually, it isn't as hard as it may seem. Can you read the paragraph below?
I cnduo't bvleiee taht I culod aulaclty uesdtannrd waht I was rdnaieg. Unisg the icndeblire pweor of the hmuan mnid, aocdcrnig to rseecrah at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mttaer in waht oderr the lterets in a wrod are, the olny irpoamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rhgit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm. Tihs is bucseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey ltteer by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Aaznmig, huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghhuot slelinpg was ipmorantt! See if yuor fdreins can raed tihs too.
Morning Troopy,
Sad that our younger generation are being given the message that spelling is no longer important, sure the average person can read the mish mash of letters printed above.
Try submitting a job application or CV written in the above style, do you think you would make it to the interview stage, not a snowballs hope in hell.
English and spelling are vitally important components of our education system, that is, as long as we remain an English speaking country.

To be honest, I don't think the younger generation are any worse than their predecessors, in the main. Maybe it is different with younger people you encounter, but I haven't found it to be the case. As far as the typing short cuts are concerned, as as in gr8, m8, L8r etc, it's just a way of making text messages quicker and easier to type.

Language is dynamic anyway. If it wasn't we'd all still be saying things like:

"Prithee, friend, be obliging and exhibit your wisdom."

03_Troopy · Guru

KFT wrote:
Santa wrote:
"that is, as long as we remain an English speaking country."

Hey Santa, do you know something we should be looking out for??

c'mon out with it, what is going on?

English? in Orstralia we speak Strine...

jules47 · The Happy Helper

03_Troopy wrote:
KFT wrote:
Santa wrote:
"that is, as long as we remain an English speaking country."

Hey Santa, do you know something we should be looking out for??

c'mon out with it, what is going on?

English? in Orstralia we speak Strine...

Not so much Strine about these days- young people are very Americanised in their speech.

"homey" instead of mate, or cobber, and so on.

Santa · Guru

This was opportune.

A short time ago I was reading a post in another forum, the author was explaining how many years ago he worked for a period of time without pay in order to get a particular license.

He then goes on to say "the bloke them [sic] put me on the parole" most of us I'm sure know exactly what he meant, however it staggers me that in this day and age people don't know the difference between parole and payroll, given a choice I certainly know which condition I would prefer to be under. wink

-- Edited by Santa on Thursday 3rd of September 2015 12:00:59 PM

Bruce and Bev · Guru

I cringe listening to most of our TV reporters and studio hosts - every day they abuse the language with poor pronunciation, grammar and word tenses....

English is as important as maths and history in our school teaching.

If we cant spell or use lazy text spelling (grt8 and so on) then we cannot communicate with others unless they speak or write in the same language variant - as so many have pointed out above eg parole rather than payroll.

Maths, I think we all agree is a given.

History is important - not the Argentinian grass plains and the like that I got in history at school, but about the world, the countries and cultures that make the world and about us - how this country was formed and how it grew (sometimes I wonder about this one) up and matured.......

It also gives people self-pride. People that cant spell, even write or do basic maths like adding, often suffer from low self-esteem.

Stop teaching some of the rubbish in school nowdays and lets do all the basics well.

Felicia · Guru

Troopy,

That was interesting. I could read it but it took me a little longer as some words I had to think about.

Lynda

Spydermann · Senior Member

How do you pronounce GHOTI ?

GH in enough is F
O in women is I
TI in motion is SH.

So I guess GHOTI is actually pronounced FISH.

English is so complicated but flexible.

-- Edited by Spydermann on Thursday 3rd of September 2015 05:33:52 PM

Muzzlehatch · Senior Member

I have been listening to a series of lectures from the Teaching Company by John McWorter who is very amusing. He points out that language is constantly evolving. I am now listening to a book called A Brief History of Swearing by Mellisa Mohr WARNING NOT FAMILY FRIENDLY. It shows how manners and what is considered appalling and obscene and what is friendly and courteous can almost become inverted with usage and change. It suggests that people use coarse language as a intensifier to the truthfulness of the message. It says "I not afraid of offending you with bad language so there fore I can be trusted to tell the truth without gussying it up." I'd never thought about it before but it make sense.

Words like "youall" are missing in high english. The parenthetic "like" fills a need however is like really annoying when teenagers and like now some adults like use it as a stammer. I dont get too bogged down in grammer and spelling provided the lapses dont mar clear and plesant communication. I would prefer expressive and course language to effete and punctiliously correct language that lacks impact.

Like Julie and Iana I love language and pity folks who cant get right off on The Great Gatsby or Lolita or Phillip Larkin. Learning how to narrate properly is a skill well worth acquiring and spins off in your regular life as presentation and good communications skills.

-- Edited by Muzzlehatch on Thursday 3rd of September 2015 06:17:01 PM

dorian · Guru

03_Troopy wrote:

As far as the typing short cuts are concerned, as as in gr8, m8, L8r etc, it's just a way of making text messages quicker and easier to type.

But it isn't a shortcut. I have a "silly phone". Typing gr8, m8, L8r requires a LOT more effort than typing the correct words. It is FAR easier for me to type the full word and allow predictive text to do much of the work. It's even easier with a smart phone. If I didn't have predictive text, it would still be easier to type the full word because I wouldn't need to toggle between alpha and number modes.

Even when using a full computer keyboard, pretentious people inexplicably do stupid things like typing "@" rather than "at". I don't see the point. They both require the same number of keystrokes, and the latter is easier to type. I have even seen one person with an almost pathological aversion to uppercase, who typed a model number in lowercase and then added a note to the effect that the model number should be interpreted in uppercase.

In short, I don't see any genuine reason for using SMS-ese.

Muzzlehatch · Senior Member

Dougwe wrote:
FRENCH

Yep French to me was a waist and a pain. English was a must but like you said Ian, very un interesting.<snip>

When I was in primary school, Maths, once we got beyond Cuisenaire rods, I had behavioural problems and was always goofing off. I am no good at arithmetic at all. There is a window in the learning process when you and your brain are still growing and if you miss that window you will never absorb the skill as naturally as you would have at the right time. When I went on to higher maths I could do it if it were visual - Calculus, or it it was linguistic - Boolean Algebra but if it involved number pattern recognition I was stuffed.

My parents were both well educated so I never needed to be taught Received Pronunciation. I daydreamed through English lessons. I learned a MASSIVE amount when the temperature got above 100 degrees and the teacher got us to put or books away and started to read to us. The Silver Sword. The Hobbit. That was when I learned the true value of English expression. I was there quaking in terror with Bilbo Baggins as he faced the orcs. Not in a stinking hot classroom in Traralgon. God bless you Miss Jose

Air conditioning classrooms is a big mistake. Young minds will miss out on a galaxy of learning.

French and German was the same and I still think learning Latin (not the bloody grammar!!) is worth the candle. So much of English is from those languages it makes English, as it overlaps both influences, more intuitive. Also it means I can stop reading the subtitles after a quarter of an hour and really enjoy the texture of the script of a foreign movie. Love that Accent de provence!

-- Edited by Muzzlehatch on Thursday 3rd of September 2015 07:21:04 PM

03_Troopy · Guru

dorian wrote:
03_Troopy wrote:
As far as the typing short cuts are concerned, as as in gr8, m8, L8r etc, it's just a way of making text messages quicker and easier to type.
But it isn't a shortcut. I have a "silly phone". Typing gr8, m8, L8r requires a LOT more effort than typing the correct words. It is FAR easier for me to type the full word and allow predictive text to do much of the work. It's even easier with a smart phone. If I didn't have predictive text, it would still be easier to type the full word because I wouldn't need to toggle between alpha and number modes.
Even when using a full computer keyboard, pretentious people inexplicably do stupid things like typing "@" rather than "at". I don't see the point. They both require the same number of keystrokes, and the latter is easier to type. I have even seen one person with an almost pathological aversion to uppercase, who typed a model number in lowercase and then added a note to the effect that the model number should be interpreted in uppercase.
In short, I don't see any genuine reason for using SMS-ese.

I have no reply to that Dorian. confuse

jules47 · The Happy Helper

Troopy03 - that amazes me - you usually have an answer for everything! biggrin biggrin biggrin