10 questions on grammar

rjsterry

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Greg66 Tri v2.0 wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

He wrote a piece for the Mail on Sunday claiming that study after study showed that Britain's teenagers were woefully ignorant of basic historical facts.

But is anyone claiming that Britain's teenagers have a good knowledge of basic historical facts? I'm inclined to doubt that they do...

Did they ever? I'd guess that it has always been a subject for which teenagers have struggled to see the relevance, but i'd also guess that they have a greater knowledge than people expect. I suspect what Gove and his acolytes like about their idea of what history 'is' is that it's nice and easy to devise a simple test, much like the idea that there is a single correct form of English grammar.

FWIW, I think the theme of that poetry blogger-chappie - that grammar is virtually unteachable because it is too amorphous and riddled with exceptions (not to say simply too difficult for children) - is utterly unpersuasive, and way off the other end of the spectrum.

I dunno about utterly unpersuasive: he's certainly at the opposite end of the spectrum from Gove (or rather the people Gove listens to), and a bit lefty even for me. I'm not convinced that children suddenly become able to grasp grammar on their 12th birthday. But I think I agree with the basic point - that testing children on one particular version of English grammar, though it will generate lots of exam results, does little to improve pupils' abilities to write.

EDIT: And yes, I obviously have a bee in my bonnet about Gove, but we all need someone to loathe.

sketchley

roger merriman wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

A lot of this is taught when learning foreign languages.

Grammar changes over time anyway. Not sure quite why it's the education holy grail.

Its the educational holy grail because there is a clear generation of people who, if they didn't go to the right school, weren't taught the correct usage of grammar.

In truth the only thing that ever held my career back was my inability to command or grasp grammar.

Thought you where Dyslexic? If so when you got Stamented surely you'd of got some sort of extra help?

I got Stamented early and had 1 to 1 tusion, various bits of kit. And generally had a lot of time and money spent on!

And what did I get? 1 and a half! In that I was fairly sure about the sibling question but couldn't for the life of me work out why.

I didn't get much help. Instead I got shouted at by several teachers at secondary school who didn't accept the existance of dyslexia and thought I was simply lazy. It was quite unpleasent. That being said I was only person in entire school with a diagnosis. This was 30 years ago mind.... By the time I retook my English language for the third time I was finally allowed to submit 3 out of 5 essays on a word processor (MS Word 2.0 anyone?)

That being said i do understand the rules of grammar and can spell, the problem I have* is that I read what I thought I wrote not what I actually wrote. I'm simply blind to the mistakes. Sometimes I go back to post serveral hours or days later that I read, reread and checked several times before posting and see the most obivously horrendous mistakes. It's most frustrating.....

*that and the fact the rules are not consistant, often seem made up, change over time, and are open to individual interpretation.....

Harry182

UndercoverElephant wrote:

7 out of 10. I had no idea about the names of the rules, nor the sex of the brother, but OK other than that.

Me too. But I reckon I should be bumped up a point or two on account of being Canadian, eh?


On the subject of toddler grammar, my boy's favourite pastime is arranging his many toy cars side by side. He calls this "parking lots". I'm not sure if he's confused or smarter than me.

mrfpb

Harry182 wrote:

On the subject of toddler grammar, my boy's favourite pastime is arranging his many toy cars side by side. He calls this "parking lots". I'm not sure if he's confused or smarter than me.

And another, my son age 3 at the time, began reciting in the car one day "007 is James Bond, 008 is daddys bond, 009 is mummys bond..."

And I amused my younger daughters a few weeks ago by telling them " last night I saw a badger driving home from grandma's"

Ben6899

I scored 10. It isn't really surprisng, when you consider this was a quiz about my Mother Tongue.

roger_merriman

Sketchley wrote:

roger merriman wrote:

DonDaddyD wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

A lot of this is taught when learning foreign languages.

Grammar changes over time anyway. Not sure quite why it's the education holy grail.

Its the educational holy grail because there is a clear generation of people who, if they didn't go to the right school, weren't taught the correct usage of grammar.

In truth the only thing that ever held my career back was my inability to command or grasp grammar.

Thought you where Dyslexic? If so when you got Stamented surely you'd of got some sort of extra help?

I got Stamented early and had 1 to 1 tusion, various bits of kit. And generally had a lot of time and money spent on!

And what did I get? 1 and a half! In that I was fairly sure about the sibling question but couldn't for the life of me work out why.

I didn't get much help. Instead I got shouted at by several teachers at secondary school who didn't accept the existance of dyslexia and thought I was simply lazy. It was quite unpleasent. That being said I was only person in entire school with a diagnosis. This was 30 years ago mind.... By the time I retook my English language for the third time I was finally allowed to submit 3 out of 5 essays on a word processor (MS Word 2.0 anyone?)

That being said i do understand the rules of grammar and can spell, the problem I have* is that I read what I thought I wrote not what I actually wrote. I'm simply blind to the mistakes. Sometimes I go back to post serveral hours or days later that I read, reread and checked several times before posting and see the most obivously horrendous mistakes. It's most frustrating.....

*that and the fact the rules are not consistant, often seem made up, change over time, and are open to individual interpretation.....

I think realistically I was at the right time and place, I was the only dyslexic in the school but i'd had two staments at that point, it would of been a brave/foolish teacher to have attempted to claim otherwise.

Edit - my wife got 9 as well again the sibling question that was somewhat dubious.

Paulie W

Ben6899 wrote:

I scored 10. It isn't really surprisng, when you consider this was a quiz about my Mother Tongue.

It wouldn't surprise me if people for whom English is not their mother tongue scored on average higher than those for whom it is.

veronese68

TGOTB wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Did they ever?

Think you have a point here. I certainly had no interest whatsoever in History at school, in fact I hated it with a passion. Not sure whether that was to do with the way it was taught, or just my teenage perspective, but I left school knowing very little history. 25 years later I consider myself far more knowledgeable, and find huge areas of history (including parts I hated at school) fascinating...

My kids probably know more about history than I ever did. They can name all of the kings and queens from 1066 to the present day. This is not due to an improvement in teaching, more thanks to Horrible Histories on CBBC.

graham.

Veronese68 wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Did they ever?

Think you have a point here. I certainly had no interest whatsoever in History at school, in fact I hated it with a passion. Not sure whether that was to do with the way it was taught, or just my teenage perspective, but I left school knowing very little history. 25 years later I consider myself far more knowledgeable, and find huge areas of history (including parts I hated at school) fascinating...

My kids probably know more about history than I ever did. They can name all of the kings and queens from 1066 to the present day. This is not due to an improvement in teaching, more thanks to Horrible Histories on CBBC.

That's pretty much the way I was taught history, and the reason I never took to it. It was the history of the monarchy and their predecessors, no mention of folks like me.

rjsterry

Paulie W wrote:

It wouldn't surprise me if people for whom English is not their mother tongue scored on average higher than those for whom it is.

There may well be something in that. Reading around the history of English grammar a bit, it turns out that many early publications on the subject were written in other European countries and aimed at merchants who would be trading with England. Looking at that from the other direction, if you are a native speaker of another language, then a rule-based approach to English would be easier to learn.

mrfpb

Veronese68 wrote:

My kids probably know more about history than I ever did. They can name all of the kings and queens from 1066 to the present day. This is not due to an improvement in teaching, more thanks to Horrible Histories on CBBC.

"William, William, Henry Stephen,
Henry, Richard, John, Hey!
Edward, Edward, Ed, Rich 2,
Then 3 more Henrys join our song...."

My six year old was a bit confused by Horrible Histories. She was watching a bit of Mrs T's funeral the other week and at one point asked her mum if Maggie was already dead. Mum said yes, as that was why she was having a funeral. A short conversation revealed that our daughter thought she was going to be watching Mrs T's execution!

Cleat Eastwood

TGOTB wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Did they ever?

Think you have a point here. I certainly had no interest whatsoever in History at school, in fact I hated it with a passion.

It'll harder to learn now, cos when you were younger there was less of it

sketchley

For my history GCSE (B Grade) I did "An economic and social history of Britain, 1700 - 1850" not much monarchy stuff in that. Instead had things like the industrial revolution, tolpuddle martyrs, speenhamland etc etc...

veronese68

mrfpb wrote:

Veronese68 wrote:

My kids probably know more about history than I ever did. They can name all of the kings and queens from 1066 to the present day. This is not due to an improvement in teaching, more thanks to Horrible Histories on CBBC.

"William, William, Henry Stephen,
Henry, Richard, John, Hey!
Edward, Edward, Ed, Rich 2,
Then 3 more Henrys join our song...."

My six year old was a bit confused by Horrible Histories. She was watching a bit of Mrs T's funeral the other week and at one point asked her mum if Maggie was already dead. Mum said yes, as that was why she was having a funeral. A short conversation revealed that our daughter thought she was going to be watching Mrs T's execution!

I know a few people that would have paid a lot of money to see that.

Wheelspinner

Sketchley wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

Sketchley wrote:

I don't care. I really don't. If they want to come up with some proper consistant rules without any exceptions then I might play. c#, vb.net, pascal, delphi, fortran, cobol and basic all make much more sense to me......

I assume you mean C#, VB.NET, Pascal, Delphi, Fortran, COBOL and BASIC?

No i don't care about that either......

You should... Correct capitalisation is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "i helped my uncle jack off a horse".

Wheelspinner

Veronese68 wrote:

I know a few people that would have paid a lot of money to see that.

Ooohhhh!!!!!

<sucks teeth>

I hope that was intentional!

tgotb

Wheelspinner wrote:

You should... Correct capitalisation is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "i helped my uncle jack off a horse.

A great illustration of the point, ruined by the fact I can't teach it to my kids.

Kieran_Burns

TGOTB wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

You should... Correct capitalisation is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "i helped my uncle jack off a horse.

A great illustration of the point, ruined by the fact I can't teach it to my kids.

You could bundle it up with the birds and the bees talk.

rjsterry

TGOTB wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

You should... Correct capitalisation is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "i helped my uncle jack off a horse.

A great illustration of the point, ruined by the fact I can't teach it to my kids.

How about "I helped my Uncle Jack up some stairs"?

Back to Sketchley's post, I'm intrigued that someone who has dyslexia ends up in a job that requires, if anything, greater levels of precision in spelling and 'word' order. Do you (Sketchley) find the same proof-reading issues when checking code, as you described with conventional written English?

sketchley

rjsterry wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

Wheelspinner wrote:

You should... Correct capitalisation is the difference between "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" and "i helped my uncle jack off a horse.

A great illustration of the point, ruined by the fact I can't teach it to my kids.

How about "I helped my Uncle Jack up some stairs"?

Back to Sketchley's post, I'm intrigued that someone who has dyslexia ends up in a job that requires, if anything, greater levels of precision in spelling and 'word' order. Do you (Sketchley) find the same proof-reading issues when checking code, as you described with conventional written English?

No, and the reason is because the design tools have fantastic intellesense and auto complete tools. Plus as these are structured langauges with defined rules, the design tools will highlights errors and inconsistancies. These appear different on screen to the text I wrote (or think I wrote) so I'm not "blind" to them. However, I do struggle when writting or debugging code written in text editor and no tools available. You also have a wealth of testing available to you with code. Afterall it's design to do a job, so the ultimate test is does it work. If it doesn't you can start looking into it. This doesn't happen with written text, there is no ultimate test to see if it is correct, if I knew there was an error I could find it, problem is I don't know there is an error and I can be quite blind to them when they are there.....

Additionally the skills and thought processes needed to code seem to come quite naturally to me and I think this is linked with the dsylexia, difficult to explain in a forum post though.

rjsterry

Thanks, that's interesting. I guess the as-you-type spelling and grammar checkers, and predictive text are trying to do the same thing as the coding tools, but with a much more flexible language. The green wiggly lines in MS Word are particularly irritating because they are so rigid, and will not accept any other form of phrasing than the one they have been programmed with.

sketchley

rjsterry wrote:

Thanks, that's interesting. I guess the as-you-type spelling and grammar checkers, and predictive text are trying to do the same thing as the coding tools, but with a much more flexible language. The green wiggly lines in MS Word are particularly irritating because they are so rigid, and will not accept any other form of phrasing than the one they have been programmed with.

Yes you are correc the tools in Ms Word etc red and green stuff certainly help, as does auto correct. In and if I can be bothered I will often take a forum post put it in word, uses these tools and put it back. Doesn't stop it 100%, and doesn't change the fact that I can read something I've just written 20 times and not spot and obvious error, but if I go do something else for an hour and come back it'll jump out of the page at me and be so obvious. After years at school being told this was just me being lazy or thick despite diagnosis of dyslexia at 11, I still find it hard not to feel down when spot such an obvious mistake. It's also why sometimes I'll bit and take real exception to a grammar pedant who probabally doesn't understand the problem..... My honest feeling on the subject is providing you are communicating successfully no one should give crap about spelling or grammar, of course the context of said communication is important, for example a legal contract needs to be correct and unambigous so proper grammar is important, less so on a bike forum....

de_sisti

Q7. I wasn't sure what a preposition was.
Q8. I had never heard of a modal or gerund.
Q10. I didn't understand the meaning of a misplaced modifier, or a dangling participle.
I don't know what a participle is.