Let pupils abandon spelling rules, says academic

@JTT,

Actually, Set is correct in this matter and you are not.

Have you ever tried to read OSD's posts out loud? depending on your dialect - they can be truly incomprehensible. They only work if you read them with a particular accent. Not everyone is an older white man living in NYC - and we shouldn't all try to sound and write like one.

THAT is nonsensical.

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@ehBeth,

Why would I read them out loud? Do you normally read out loud, ehBeth? And how would I know David's dialectal sounds. Never heard the guy.

If they are incomprehensible to you, then I suggest that the failing might be yours. I've never read any post of David's that was incomprehensible, not a one.

I've read many ESL/EFL students' writings that were filled with spelling mistakes. None of those mistakes made the writing incomprehensible. Strange word order and poorly chosen grammatical structure could make the writing difficult to understand.

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@ehBeth,

Quote:

Not everyone is an older white man living in NYC - and we shouldn't all try to sound and write like one.

THAT is nonsensical.

I agree that OSD is being silly, nonsensical even, thinking that by his efforts, the spelling system of English is going to be revamped. Actually, dollars to donuts, I don't think that there is another old white man living in NYC that engages in this same silly thing.

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@JTT,

Sorry, but they do not know the parts of speech. All the remedial text books for college students try to teach the parts of speech as well as two other things that are totally surprising.

The first is that the object of a preposition is never the subject of a sentence. When I first saw those lessons, I thought no one has trouble with that. I was very wrong. You have no idea what a struggle it is to teach prepositions to college-aged students who weren't taught them before.

The second is that most kids in the introductory developmental writing class can not identify the subject of a sentence at all. What is this sentence about, I ask. Most look at me blankly. They are also in remedial reading.

You demonstrate that you have no idea how to diagram a sentence or what diagramming means.

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@JTT,

Sorry, but Setanta knows what he is talking about.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Have you ever heard the dialect routine on all the different meanings, depending upon your accent, for the word we spell T-I-R-E?

It is a hoot. The one example I remember is that southerners might say that they went to Paris where they saw "the Eyeful tire."

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

Quote:

Sorry, but they do not know the parts of speech. All the remedial text books for college students try to teach the parts of speech as well as two other things that are totally surprising.

Speaking of how difficult it is to teach young folks, you keep repeating this nonsense even though I've explained it to you at least twice. You are trying to teach them about something that they already know. If they didn't know the parts of speech then they would NOT be able to speak in grammatical sentences.

They do!

You're confusing the naming of the parts of speech with knowing the parts of speech. Now, if you mean to suggest that you are teaching students about language, that's one thing.

If we changed the names of all the parts of speech tomorrow, you wouldn't know them either. Would that mean that your speech would immediately become a jumble of disjointed words, that you wouldn't know what parts of speech to choose when you spoke, that you wouldn't be able to follow the rules of English grammar?

Quote:

The first is that the object of a preposition is never the subject of a sentence.

Why do you suppose a teacher of the English language is so guarded in her discussions of language? Describe exactly what you're getting at and provide examples?

Quote:

When I first saw those lessons, I thought no one has trouble with that. I was very wrong. You have no idea what a struggle it is to teach prepositions to college-aged students who weren't taught them before.

You think that these kids reach the age of 18 or so without full knowledge of prepositions. What a ludicrous notion! Do you think in their speech of the previous 15 or so years that there has just been a void when a preposition was required?

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

No, Setanta is full of **** on this one, so I guess that puts you in the same boat, POM.

If OSD's posts were incomprehensible, neither you or Setanta would have been able to reply to him. Both of you have, more than once.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

The Wabbit tells an hilarious story of when she and her friend were in North America for the first time, and were in a park in New York. They saw a squirrel, an animal which does not exist in the antipodes. So the Wabbit asks a New York cop what it is--and receives what is to her a completely incomprehensible reply. She finally had to ask him to spell it for her.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Herein lies the problem, Setanta. You base too many of your silly notions on anecdotes and old wives tales.

Tell us just how you were able to reply to OSD's posts without any problem.

You really don't like it when facts get in the way of one of your little theories, do you?

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

Quote:

Have you ever heard the dialect routine on all the different meanings, depending upon your accent, for the word we spell T-I-R-E?

My Texan cousin was telling me about her experience asking for an iron in England and she said, 'When we were in a hotel there we asked several times for an 'arn' and they didn't seem to know what we meant.
They finally got it when we motioned 'pressing' our clothes (they say press for iron - so does my mother) and said, 'You know - an ARN and an ARNING BOARD!!

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

Quote:

The second is that most kids in the introductory developmental writing class can not identify the subject of a sentence at all. What is this sentence about, I ask. Most look at me blankly. They are also in remedial reading.

"What is this sentence about?" does not ask anyone to identify the subject of a sentence. I can tell from your posts on language that you are probably winging it for at least some part of your classes.

That's certainly fine for new teachers but I'm pretty sure that what is needed is remedial grammar/how language works classes for most primary/secondary school teachers in the US education system and a large number of those in the post-secondary system.

As an example, I point you to a college website, link below, that is rife with errors.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/

There were notified of one of those errors over seven years ago, before Professor Darling passed on. They acknowledged that it was an error but no one, in this whole department, charged with educating kids about the grammar and the workings of the English language can come up with a remedy.

1 Reply

@JTT,

Rife? Redolent, full maybe.

1 Reply

@McTag,

Quote:

Rife? Redolent, full maybe.

Which one of the following wouldn't cover it, McTag? 'redolent' is too kind. The website to which I refer stinks.

Quote:

M-W

Definition of RIFE

1
: prevalent especially to an increasing degree <suspicion and cruelty were rife — W. E. B. DuBois>
2
: abundant, common
3
: copiously supplied : abounding —usually used with with <rife with rumors>

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rife

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@JTT,

How about if I photocopy their papers and snail mail them to you? If they speak correctly, they should write correctly?

A person who can not figure out the subject of the sentence is, at best, marginally literate.

So, where did you get your master's degree in English and how long have you been teaching?

1 Reply

@JTT,

Setanta and I share a common interest and I understand exactly what he knows about said interest.

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@JTT,

Do you know that "history" is derived from the Greek words for "I witness?" A witness tells what they see.

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@aidan,

When I was 17, I worked in the shoe department of a K-Mart and people with thick Southern accents would come in and ask for what I heard as "half shoes." I had no idea what that meant, so I asked the person to show me that kind of shoe. It was house-shoes, or, slippers.

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Were my ex-husband reading this thread, he would say JTT "has a hair across his ass."

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

Quote:

How about if I photocopy their papers and snail mail them to you? If they speak correctly, they should write correctly?[

What would lead you, a teacher, so I'm told, to believe something so silly, POM?

Quote:

A person who can not figure out the subject of the sentence is, at best, marginally literate.

What would that make a teacher who can't address the very issues from the subject they teach? You haven't addressed the fact that you asked your students the wrong question. As I mentioned, asking what a sentence is about isn't the same as asking what the subject of the sentence is?

Quote:

So, where did you get your master's degree in English and how long have you been teaching?

It's pretty apparent that a master's degree in English, even a doctorate, does not qualify anyone to teach the English language. Strunk, White, Garner, Lederer, Wallace, Darling, Brians, ... . The list of grammatical incompetents teaching English at colleges and universities across North America is long indeed.

1 Reply

Let pupils abandon spelling rules, says academic

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