Whatever happened to grammar and spelling?

Many moons ago, when my children were in primary school, the class had been copying a photo of a leopard in their art lesson. The teacher had put all of their wonderful artwork on the wall and had written a big sign underneath ... "Do you like our lepers?"

AAArrrgh - he/she'd probably been misled by spell check after getting leopard wrong. But how could he/she not have realised?

Beachee My daughter when little wrote about visiting her grandparents and taking the dog for a walk along the sward, which is what they called the expanse of grass behind the beach where they lived. Her teacher "corrected" it to sword. Quite an achievement for two adults, one child and a Yorkshire terrier.

absentgrana

My grandson's class were studying the Boer war . Unfortuntely, the teacher labelled the display 'The Boar War'. I didn't tell her.

Greatnan Would that have been the one that ended at Bosworth Field in 1415?

Nice one absent.

I was reading an article bout Edna O'Brien last night, and she said how well she wrote when the urban foxes had kept her awake and she was 'unslept'. I was trying to work out [not being very up to speed with grammar] what sort of word unslept is. I felt that she'd used it in the wrong way, but it sounded perfect. I intend to steal it and use it for myself in the future.

Underslept is good too! That's me today....

If one can oversleep, logically it should be possible to undersleep. When was our language ever logical?

I was a teacher at the time your daughter was at school. I always used to correct spellings, though not always all of them. It could be too discouraging to some pupils. However, I never used to put sp. in the margin, and I never used a red pen.
What is the point of telling children they cannot spell and then not giving them the correct spelling? They would have to write out the correct spelling in a small book, after I had written it in their work.
However, what was more important was to tell children they could spell most words correctly. In most pieces of writing there are only a few words misspelt. I consider myself fortunate that I do not have problems with spelling. I taught myself to read sitting on my dad's knee, while he read the newspaper to me before I was 5.

Underslept? Irish English, like 'having drink taken'

My 5 year old GD, in a primary school recently classed as failing for very minimal reasons, is busy mastering the rules of punctuation; commas, full stops, exclamation and question marks.

Spelling is can be taught formally but is mainly learnt by reading. My spelling was good because I was an early and omniverous reader. Pronunciation was a bit wobbly because I could read many words before I ever heard them said.

Yes, same here - pictureskew for example!

Not surprised at the Irish comment - I could get an Irish passport....

My spelling ok except for one or two quirky words - an early reader again. But I still remember the first time I met 'ascertain' in dictation!

Now I remember dictation. I'm sure children nowadays don't have that exercise. I was a good speller in primary school but when I got to secondary school I suddenly became a perfect speller, and I could never understand what made the difference. Maybe learning other languages? When I taught second language speakers in Kenya, in almost five years, I only ever had one pupil who was a bad speller.

in my experience (as a TEFL/ESOL teacher), the "bad spellers" are more often than not the GB variety

I suppose, Beachee that the reason is that the second-language students are learning the spelling at the same time as they are learning the language whereas native Brits learn to speak long before they learn to read or spell.

I think you are right there Annodomini.
We native Brits don't need to understand it in the same way

It's not spelling that's a problem – it's my tendency to type in chords as my fingers attempt to keep up with my thoughts.

My fingers get confused and go on the keys in the wrong order; fro, teh and wehre are regular examples

I have noticed that my ability to recall the spelling of any word I have ever met seems to have diminished with age. I usually do know the correct spelling, but I have lost some of my confidence, so I always press check before I post. Some of the interpretations make me smile!

I think my fingers have dyslexia, especially in the evening!

and today in S'bury's their delicious guinea fowl were of course FOUL- I'm optimistic that the poor creatures will be on the reduced shelf tomorrow night and I will be able to bag a few for the freezer.

I have just remembered my favourite of all time – a sign on a south coast beach. Do not collect muscles from the groin.