A shocker from our MP! (NB, for pedants only!)

welbeck

soon all this will be as obscure and baffling to the majority of the populace as classical allusions have become...

With the greatest respect, welbeck, there's another of my gripes.

Where has the word 'most' gone?

The 'majority' is the numerical difference between votes cast for the winner and votes cast for the loser. As a percentage of the population it probably be actually very small. Even a 'vast' one will represent nowhere near most of the population!

soon all this will be as obscure and baffling to the majority of the populace as classical allusions have become...

and a classroom tray labelled "stationary" for paper, envelopes etc!

that was to kerb their tendency to go walkabout.

Sinn Fein leader McDonald talked about the "heart rendering" cases of those victims denied pensions.

Petra, what about whales and Wales. My English daughter in law thinks my Scottish "Whales" is hilarious.

The one that drives me to distraction is american novels that refer to someone being "coronated". GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Alexa

Scottish speakers simply don' t make errors like that . A Scot pronounces kerb and curb very differently.

I remember, many years ago, watching Top of the Form featuring a Scottish school. There was a round on homonyms and the answer to the question was 'flaw' and 'floor' - the team were all still looking at each other with puzzlement when the quizmaster was half way through the next question.

Grammaretto Yes, they did. My English Lit clashed with Maths, which I needed.

Tweedle24 Did the two Englishes count as subjects by themselves? I passed about 9 O levels but I think some of the subjects were decidedly dodgy
I had to have a science or maths and was really bad so took Physiology & Hygiene as an easy option!
Sorry to go off topic.....
btw my username is nothing to do with grammar. It's more a merging of Grandma and Amaretto

* Grammaretto* I too remember the two subjects being separated. I only took English Language as, another subject I needed more than Literature, clashed on the timetable.

We were able to take the subject as a lesson but, without the exam. We were able to choose which books the class took.

It’s funny when people correct others’ spellings on Facebook, but spell a word wrongly themselves! These are the only times when I like to point out the error.

When I sat my GCE 0 level exams in the 1960s, there were 2 separate subjects: English Language and English Literature. Does anyone else remember that?

On the reverse side, a dd (who usually had excellent SPAG) was bemused to have had a mark deducted for an error in an essay for her MA. She couldn’t see what was wrong.

It was because of a dangling participle - and once I pointed it out she realised why it was wrong.

However I was pleased and reassured that her tutor not only a) noticed such things, but b) was bothered enough to deduct a mark.
This was quite a while ago now, though.

clip round the ear should do it.....ouch .!!

My friend drew a teacher's attention, very discreetly, to the mistakes she had made in a list of spellings for the children to learn . She was met with a cool retort that 'Perfectionists have a very hard time in this life'.

When my daughter was at Secondary School in the 00s she was told not to worry about the spelling in her exams as the markers will take no notice of it as long as the answers were correct .. but why should this be ? Luckily my daughter was good at spelling and English anyway.

And then there's "snuck", as in sneaked. Any why, oh why do we call a railway station a train station - well maybe you'd expect me to have snuck that one in

I always corrected spelling mistakes in red pen when my children were at school. One teacher called me into school to have a word. She asked why I always used red pen for corrections of spelling mistakes. I told her, you have marked this work and never corrected spelling mistakes so how are they going to learn if there spelling is correct. She wasn't very pleased with me. I still carried on doing it for all four of my children until they all left school.

When I was teaching, I received letter from a very high profile person in the education (assessment!) department. She wrote, " Thank you for coming to see Jane Smith and I today." If Jane Smith had been ill that day, would her letter have read, " Thank you for coming to see I."?

The other shocker was on a literacy training course, where the county's literacy consultant started her PowerPoint presentation with the question, 'Who's job is it, anyway?'

This thread is a bit of a damp squid...

I was watching afternoon TV last week (I know - such decadence ?) when an advertisment for mattresses came on. A bright young thing chirruped that 'The first time I lay on my (name) mattress, it enveloped me!' - pronounced as though she was glued down and had a stamp stuck on her, rather than being enfolded... ?
I thought that lots of people must have been involved in producing that advert - did NONE of them notice the incorrect pronunciation..?? Then I felt very, very old...?

Ooh, MadeInYorkshire - I shall have to pay more attention in future to the advertisements on Facebook’s Market Place. ?

One that has me grinding my teeth is the use of sat as a verb.
“I was sat there for 15 minutes”

GinJeannie The celery storks are part of Lidl’s attempt to make veggies fun for children. They have cute names for the packs designed to go into lunch kits (such as cauliflower clouds - I may have made that up just so you get the idea). Apparently they sell well.

Wow, Chewbacca - not just spelling mistakes but also "try to help YOU child..."