‘When I done my degree….’

Grammaretto

Maybe we should study English on Duolingo?
Just a thought but I've bean learning Scottish Gaelic on duo for a couple of years and spelling and grammar are vital.

Whoever said the Dutch speak more correct English than we do, wasn't wrong.
My Danish DSil, an English teacher, used to correct my DC and she was always right.

I was looking for a new lodger a few years ago and dismissed someone who couldn't spell and used txt spk in his replies. I assumed he was lazy and careless.
It was pointed out that he might be dyslexic and indeed he was. He was one of the best and nicest lodgers we ever had

I think txt spk is a legitimate form of language - because its use has developed for practical reasons.

When we first had those mobiles with fiddly little keypads - having to stab at tiny keys was awkward, and I think it was inevitable that a mobile 'shorthand' would develop.

I use it frequently and as many acronyms and abbreviations as I can possibly manage (and that the recipient will understand) because I still don't like pecking away at a small keyboard, even though it's touch-sensitive.

Germanshepherdsmum

Suppose your doctor or lawyer said to you ‘When I done my degree’, Doodledog. You would understand their meaning but might you be a tad worried about their professional capabilities?

No, I really don't think I would.

I would hope that they could both differentiate between different meanings in written documents, so that nuances in the law or in diagnostics were clear to them (although I doubt they would have passed their qualifying examinations if that were not the case); but doctors speaking the language of their patients is not a problem for me.

Maybe we should study English on Duolingo?
Just a thought but I've bean learning Scottish Gaelic on duo for a couple of years and spelling and grammar are vital.

Whoever said the Dutch speak more correct English than we do, wasn't wrong.
My Danish DSil, an English teacher, used to correct my DC and she was always right.

I was looking for a new lodger a few years ago and dismissed someone who couldn't spell and used txt spk in his replies. I assumed he was lazy and careless.
It was pointed out that he might be dyslexic and indeed he was. He was one of the best and nicest lodgers we ever had

Suppose your doctor or lawyer said to you ‘When I done my degree’, Doodledog. You would understand their meaning but might you be a tad worried about their professional capabilities?

I'm going to be an absolute pain now, but did you mean to say that your thought about hoping it wasn't an English degree was closely followed by your taking a degree in primary education?

I'm guessing not, and I can follow your meaning as easily as I can follow the meaning of 'When I done my degree'; but am making the irritating point that all of us make grammatical mistakes from time to time, and most of us have the flexibility of thought to be able to over-ride them and get to the meaning of what is being said. It is only when meaning is obscured that it really matters.

Blondiescot

Let's hope it wasn't an English degree...

My first thought too, closely followed by a degree in primary education!

Dickens
😂😂😂

Yes, but that relies on your being taught the correct codes in the first place.

Apparently, the brain is a code-breaking machine.

For emaxlpe, it deson’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod aepapr, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm.

S1M1L4RLY, Y0UR M1ND 15 R34D1NG 7H15 4U70M471C4LLY W17H0U7 3V3N 7H1NK1NG 4B0U7 17

As she is Dyslexic I dread to think what ITA would have done to my daughter, when she had to unlearn it. Luckily she was born too late to be affected by it.

Mine did ITA in state infant in the late 70s, early 80s. It ended in that LA when they went to junior school. They had no problem with transition and have careers involving high degrees of literacy.
It was a bit weird though. I remember the name on the teacher's door as Miz Humfreez.

Doodledog

*That's interesting. Why was it considered so unimportant?*

I'm not sure, but I think it was to encourage children to be creative rather than concentrating on parsing sentences and so on. I was taught grammar, and I'm 64, so it was after my school days, assuming it was rolled out across the country all at once.

I think it was fairly soon after 'my time', and they brought in a different way of teaching reading and writing at the same time, called ITA, which was loosely based on Pitman shorthand. It was responsible for a lot of children falling well behind, I think.

I have certainly taught very able students who didn't know what a subjunctive or even an adverb was, because nobody had told them, their parents or their teachers - it's not the sort of thing you learn instinctively, is it?

Regional differences are not necessarily 'wrong' either - just non-standard. Many regional speech patterns are closer to Middle (and even Old) English than the standard patterns used today. The fact that one type of speech pattern became 'Standard English' is entirely based on social, rather than linguistic criteria - the regional ones are every bit as good at conveying meaning.

Thanks DD

I think it was fairly soon after 'my time', and they brought in a different way of teaching reading and writing at the same time, called ITA, which was loosely based on Pitman shorthand. It was responsible for a lot of children falling well behind, I think.

I've just been researching it. I read a comment from one person who said that they had moved from one part of the country to another, which meant moving from a school that didn't use the ITA system to one that did - and he was forbidden to use orthodox spelling which of course confused him.

I suppose it will depend very much on the individual nature of the child but, in principle, I don't think it was a good idea - from what I have read so far it certainly seems that some children struggled when they had to transition to orthodox way of spelling.

This was interesting, "The Literacy Blog" - for teachers, parents, etc.

theliteracyblog.com/2015/05/14/i-t-a-a-great-idea-but-a-dismal-failure/

One question that occurred to me - was this taught in private / independent schools, or just state schools at the time?

Doodledog

eddiecat78

I'm 66 and was never taught English grammar at school. In fact my grandchildren are taught it more than I was. For me, it made learning another language more difficult because I didn't understand what different tenses were etc.
Most of my understanding of how to "speak correctly" was picked up automatically because I read prolifically and was surrounded by people who spoke well (including those on the TV at that time)

There is a quotation that I can't find as I don't know who said it and can't get enough of it right to look it up, but the gist is that when someone pronounces something unusual incorrectly it means that they have only seen it written down, which shows more intellectual curiosity than having learnt it from someone else.

I think there is a lot of wisdom in that, although believing it requires a humility that many just don't possess.

I read, a long time ago, an article written by a girl who was a Reader at one of the Cambridge colleges.
Due to the lack of opportunities at her secondary school, where there was a narrow curriculum and an even narrower view from the teaching staff about applying to University, she had taught herself German in her desire to study it further.

She was called for interview where the conversation turned to German literature. She couldn't understand the furrowed brows of the panel when Goethe was brought up.
Being totally self taught, she had always thought he was pronounced Go-eeth . Once they established the reasoning behind this, she was offered a place, thanks to her grit, determination and genuine love of the language.

This is a funny thread. I have just read it all and it made me laugh. Incidentally, I done a degree when I was 70. Your never to old too lern!

Blondiescot

25Avalon

Callistemon21

Blondiescot

Let's hope it wasn't an English degree...

He should of got a first.

You mean should have.

The grammar police on here will take you to task😂😂

Oh dear...that joke was clearly well and truly lost on you.

😁

Yes, Callistemon, as I said, a whole generation missed out on what was before and since a standard education in English, and the knock-on effects lasted even longer. It's just not fair to ridicule people for not knowing things that they weren't taught. People who left school at 14 in the days when grammar was part of the curriculum will have been taught it, so are not a sensible comparison.

Grammar was back in vogue by the time my children (born in the 90s) were at school, but not all their teachers were good at it - I've seen some corkers on reports and so on. Not their fault either - if their degree was, say, Maths, they wouldn't have been tested on it.

nanna8

Not English lit, just English. Many a student does brilliantly at maths etc but fails English. It limits their uni choices. Just as that horrible Latin requirement cut down our choices, back in the day.

I’d forgotten the Latin requirement! Gave it up in year 3 for German, but was informed in the lower 6th that I’d need O level Latin for the uni course I was proposing to apply for - which was Russian! Er, not exactly Latin-based…
Luckily the requirement was dropped just in time, for that language at least.

I did actually quite like Latin and did an OU course 20 odd years ago.

GSM I’ve sent you a pm.

child's !!!

Dickens

Doodledog

That may well be true; but that doesn't mean that no journalism graduates can string a sentence together (unlikely) or that graduates in STEM subjects are all wordsmiths, as seems to be being suggested in some posts on this thread. There was a long period during which grammar just wasn't taught, and a whole generation of teachers never learnt it either, so couldn't pass it on.

Poking fun at people for not having been taught something is the sort of thing that teachers should be discouraging IMO, and is highly unpleasant coming from anyone else, too.

There was a long period during which grammar just wasn't taught, and a whole generation of teachers never learnt it either, so couldn't pass it on.

That's interesting. Why was it considered so unimportant?

I'm not very proficient in the one (and only) foreign language I speak - but if I hadn't had a grounding in English grammar, I think I would've struggled a lot more than I did (I'm not a 'natural' linguist).

There was a long period during which grammar just wasn't taught, and a whole generation of teachers never learnt it either, so couldn't pass it on

Nor were incorrect spellings corrected as it might have stifled the childs creativity.

I agree Juliet. My parents too. We seem to have gone backwards, accepting words such as ‘done’ instead of ‘did’ and ‘were’ instead of ‘was’, both I would say regional tendencies, rather than correct English. My paternal grandfather came from rural Yorkshire and my maternal grandparents were born in a poor area of London. Nobody would have guessed that from the way they wrote and spoke - and they left school at 14.

Germanshepherdsmum

I don’t understand how someone can go through school and graduate from university yet still think ‘I done my degree’ is correct. Did they never read? Did they never hear anyone speaking correctly? Do we have to be taught everything, even how to speak correctly in our native language?

Both my parents’ spelling and grammar were perfect and yet they both left school at 14 to start work. The three R’s were obviously taught well in the 1920s. I wish they were still here as there’s so much I wish I’d discussed with them. 😢

Germanshepherdsmum

I don’t understand how someone can go through school and graduate from university yet still think ‘I done my degree’ is correct. Did they never read? Did they never hear anyone speaking correctly? Do we have to be taught everything, even how to speak correctly in our native language?

Of course we have to be taught our own language - otherwise there wouldn't be different ones across the world.

On the whole, people learn from their parents, and speech patterns are laid down quite early, which is why young children pick up language easily. Of course we can 'unlearn' one way of speaking and learn another, and many people do just that when they move to a less regionally-based environment. Nevertheless, it is very easy for people to return to their old accent/dialect when they are around others speaking similarly, or when they've had a few drinks, or just when they feel (obviously mistakenly in the case of many of the examples on this thread) comfortable in the company they're in.

I can think of no good reason why we should all speak the same, although it is important that there is a shared understanding when it comes to official documents and so on. There does have to be a standard as a yardstick, but that is far more important in written English than spoken.

That's interesting. Why was it considered so unimportant?

I'm not sure, but I think it was to encourage children to be creative rather than concentrating on parsing sentences and so on. I was taught grammar, and I'm 64, so it was after my school days, assuming it was rolled out across the country all at once.

I think it was fairly soon after 'my time', and they brought in a different way of teaching reading and writing at the same time, called ITA, which was loosely based on Pitman shorthand. It was responsible for a lot of children falling well behind, I think.

I have certainly taught very able students who didn't know what a subjunctive or even an adverb was, because nobody had told them, their parents or their teachers - it's not the sort of thing you learn instinctively, is it?

Regional differences are not necessarily 'wrong' either - just non-standard. Many regional speech patterns are closer to Middle (and even Old) English than the standard patterns used today. The fact that one type of speech pattern became 'Standard English' is entirely based on social, rather than linguistic criteria - the regional ones are every bit as good at conveying meaning.

I don’t understand how someone can go through school and graduate from university yet still think ‘I done my degree’ is correct. Did they never read? Did they never hear anyone speaking correctly? Do we have to be taught everything, even how to speak correctly in our native language?